Remote workers are moving to outdoor vacation destinations [View all]
Calif. — For years, Ben Jarso couldn’t mix work and play. He worked at Facebook in Silicon Valley and on weekends drove almost four hours to Lake Tahoe to hit the ski slopes. When pandemic-related restrictions freed him to work remotely, he decided to merge his passions.
Truckee, a town on the lake’s north shore, was a perfect choice with Wi-Fi-ready houses and easy access to his favorite ski resort. He started making offers on properties. Again and again he lost out. Turns out too many other people had the same idea.
He finally got a house, but it took quick action. He contacted the seller as soon as the four-bedroom home popped up on his real estate app, made the first offer and agreed to no inspection requirements. His new $900,000 home has a large pine deck and two fireplaces and boasts views of Donner Lake.
“I think it was a steal,” said Jarso, a 31-year-old product manager.
Ben Jarso moved north from the Bay Area to Truckee, since virtual working is common at Facebook, his employer.
Housing markets are hot nationwide, but few areas have seen the surge in home prices and residents as outdoor vacation destinations.
“You can live your life on vacation,” said Rich La Rue, a real estate broker in the Palm Springs area. “All the things that you love to do: hiking, biking, whatever it is. A property comes on the market here and it’s a feeding frenzy.”
Case in point: the average asking price of a home in the desert city is now $1 million, a 30% one-year increase.
https://www.latimes.com/homeless-housing/story/2021-04-30/covid-wfh-boosts-palm-springs-lake-tahoe-housing-markets
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