After five years, the most peculiar aspect of the shift to remote work isn’t that it occurred. That’s why it stuck. On a Tuesday afternoon, the sidewalks of downtown Boise have the leisurely appearance of a place that has subtly welcomed thousands of new residents without ever fully acknowledging it. The coffee shops are packed. Parking lots aren’t. The geography of American money simply changed between 2020 and the present, with a few mid-size cities emerging victorious.
The obvious one is Boise. Since the pandemic, Californians have cashed out coastal equity and moved into homes with yards, driving up home prices. However, the cities that people overlook are the more intriguing examples. Fort Collins, Spokane. Knoxville. Asheville. Locations that were quite pleasant in 2019 are now, in some ways, out of reach for the residents who grew up there. Speaking with longtime residents gives the impression that the change came as a surprise.
| Topic Snapshot | Details |
|---|---|
| Subject | The lasting impact of remote work on housing markets in 15 mid-size U.S. cities |
| Time Period Studied | 2020 – early 2026 |
| Key Concept | The “Donut Effect” — economic activity dispersing from city centers to suburbs and smaller metros |
| Estimated Migrants | 14 to 23 million Americans relocated post-2020 |
| Remote Work Share (U.S.) | Roughly 30% of workdays in 2024, stabilized through 2026 |
| Most Affected Cities | Boise, Austin, Nashville, Raleigh, Tampa, Salt Lake City, Spokane, Fort Collins, Asheville, Sarasota, Knoxville, Bozeman, Charleston, Greenville, Burlington |
| Average Home Price Growth | 35% – 80% in studied cities since 2020 |
| Office Occupancy in Major Cities | Still 30–50% below pre-pandemic levels |
| Underlying Research | Stanford / NBER / Hoover Institution studies on WFH spatial effects |
| Outlook | Hybrid work expected to keep dispersion intact through the decade |
Bozeman is a case study unto itself. A town with fewer than 60,000 residents in 2019 that attracted tech workers from the Bay and Seattle. You can see the pattern when you drive through the new subdivisions east of town: unfinished houses, Audi wagons parked in the driveways, and an imported affluence that differs slightly from the city’s older areas. It’s difficult to ignore the tension.
What transpired has a name among economists. Nicholas Bloom and his colleagues at Stanford University documented the “Donut Effect,” which explains how economic activity moved outward, sometimes hundreds of miles away, and sometimes within the same metro. After leaving large cities, three-fifths of households relocated to the surrounding suburbs. The others dispersed. Sun Belt cities with airports and good broadband, like Tampa, Sarasota, Charleston, and Greenville, benefited particularly from that dispersion.
Interestingly, despite the accumulation of return-to-office mandates, the trend hasn’t changed. It turns out that hybrid work was the unsung hero. A worker is still somewhat tied to a region when they work two days a week, but not so much that they would gladly commute from forty minutes away rather than four blocks. Millions of households were affected by that one change, which had a greater impact on mid-size real estate markets than any policy could have.
Investors appear to think the change is irreversible. In 2021, the wealthy began purchasing single-family rentals in Nashville, Salt Lake City, and Raleigh, and they haven’t stopped since. Another question is whether prices in these locations can continue to rise. The data raises some concerns because local wages haven’t kept up, affordability is tight, and the same migration that boosted these markets is now driving out the workers who keep them afloat. It’s still unclear if that’s the new baseline or a correction that’s just waiting to happen.
The map appears to be settled for the time being. The large cities remain large. However, the places that no one was talking about in 2019 are the quiet winners of the remote-work era, and that says something in and of itself.
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