In Truckee, Calif., a mountain resort town northwest of Lake Tahoe, home prices have risen by over 23% since last year as Bay Area residents have moved away from the city center in the hopes of finding more home space at a lower price.
The Hamptons, Cape Cod, and Aspen, Colo., have also seen the same rise in home prices, according to NPR’s Greg Rosalsky. Realtors and journalists are calling these newly hot housing markets “Zoom towns,” where residents can work remotely in a desirable setting without the need to live close to an office. However, as Rosalsky notes, this housing boom for wealthier Americans reflects only the top of a “K-shaped recovery.”
The rising, top-right part of the K is the America that is buying new homes or that already owns one and is seeing its value increasing. Those Americans have stock portfolios and retirement accounts that have been doing shockingly well. And they have good jobs that they can remote into with safety and flexibility. The descending, bottom-right part of the K is the America that is showing up in record-high unemployment numbers and mounting bankruptcy statistics. It’s the America that rents, has huge student loans, doesn’t have retirement savings and is now dependent on the government or family for an affordable place to live.
