The remote work subcity drove last year’s whopping $2 trillion-plus gain in housing market value, Redfin finds

“In percentage terms, the total value of U.S. homes increased 5.3% from a year earlier in December, the biggest increase in 11 months, and was up 13.3% ($5.6 trillion) from two years earlier,” the authors of the report, data journalist Lily Katz and head of the economics team Chen Zhao, wrote. 

The largest increase came in the middle: More affordable metropolitan areas saw the largest jumps, while “pricey metros and pandemic boomtowns” either saw declines or little gains. For instance, the total value of homes in Newark, New Jersey, a gritty city just a stone’s throw from Manhattan, skyrocketed 12.8% over the last year to $359.6 billion, as of December; and in New Haven, Connecticut, a similarly gritty urban environment that is home to Yale University, the total value of homes jumped 11.9%. Camden, New Jersey; Charleston, South Carolina; and Elgin, Illinois, all saw their total value of homes rise more than 10%.

“Places like Newark and Camden are likely seeing home values jump in part because they’re attracting demand from people who are priced out of New York and can now work remotely,” the authors wrote, later adding that similar metropolitan areas are experiencing gains because “they’re affordable, and when mortgage rates and home prices are elevated, demand for affordable homes goes up.”

These bear a strong resemblance to what the World Bank and other experts call the “secondary city,” with populations ranging from 150,000 and up and serving as “secondary hubs” for larger metropolitan areas. Given that 2023 was the year when the remote…