Zillow website traffic has been booming during the pandemic
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The Covid-19 pandemic has many people surfing Zillow (Z). Some are looking for larger homes. Others, for a house in a better climate. And then there are those who don't even know why they are endlessly looking at listings on the real estate site. Whatever the reason, the result is clear: Zillow's website traffic numbers are surging.
“Zillow had 9.6 billion page visits to its website and to its app in 2020," Zillow's Home Trends Expert Amanda Pendleton told Yahoo Finance Live. "That was up 1.5 billion from 2019. So, a ton of interest in Zillow surfing right now.”
While many economic trends have been uneven geographically during the pandemic, Zillow's traffic numbers are up across the board.
"Of the 100 largest metros in the country, every single one of them saw an increase in traffic," Pendleton added. "Now, of those 100 largest metros, the top three that we saw were Las Vegas, Stamford, Connecticut, and Austin, Texas."
With its nice weather and low taxes, it's no surprise to see Miami and Fort Myers, Florida in the top ten in terms of traffic. But larger demographic and structural shifts also lifted Pennsylvania cities like Scranton and Allentown.
"There are demographic and pandemic-led factors that are driving people to both surf Zillow, but also to move and to buy homes," according to Pendleton. "You have millennials, which is the largest generational group in the country and they're aging into their home buying years. They're hitting their mid-30s. They want to settle down. They want to buy a home and then the pandemic-led factors."
It's a trend Zillow calls "the great reshuffling," and it's leading to a lot more than just a spike in Zillow traffic.
“Homes have been flying off the market," Pendleton said. "And that's all over the country. The median time that a home goes on the market and then goes to pending is 17 days as of December. That's 25 days faster than a year ago."
Jen Rogers is an anchor for Yahoo Finance Live. Follow her on Twitter @JenSaidIt.
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