City living provides easy access to restaurants, museums, and theater, but with many of those perks now locked tight behind closed doors, benefits for city living are dwindling. Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller told CNBC that urban home prices could decline, and suburban housing could be a better investment for urban residents. Though Shiller acknowledges it may be too soon to determine if cities will see a mass migration, as history shows cities have survived numerous societal and technological transformations.
The coronavirus pandemic could cause a decline in urban housing prices if employees continue to work from home and forgo city life, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller.
“I think there’s a risk that home prices in urban areas may decline,” Shiller said in a CNBC interview.
So far, urban areas have proven to be resilient to price declines during the pandemic. Prices for existing homes across 19 big cities in the U.S. rose 4% in April from a year earlier, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller National Home Price Index.
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