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Originally Posted by arkitect13
Just making sure, houses are selling for below market prices correct? If so could that technically allow a larger jump in the cities population ( if people were to jump on the cheaper prices currently) maybe even a population boom?
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The latest population boom was probably pushed by Philadelphia's mix of housing stock. Everything from cheap apartments to pricy new construction was attracting new residents without pricing too many existing ones out.
But even without a pandemic, population growth would eventually begin to plateau as new development and higher prices push their way into once-cheap neighborhoods, and those residents can no longer afford anything within the city limits.
Still, Philadelphia has a very large geographic footprint and sits on a lot of abandonment, so that could take awhile so long as people are willing to spend $350K+ on new construction in neighborhoods that haven't yet been redeveloped.
Considering the cost of construction in Philadelphia, future growth would depend on new residents' willingness to spend quite a bit on new homes.
That would require local job growth and an increased willingness to allow telecommuting in more competitive job markets.
In the latter's case, I know a handful of people who've left the city altogether for rural regions where real estate is bind-blowingly cheap. Aside from the truly wealthy, remote workers might find a higher quality of life in smaller cities upstate.
One friend just bought a huge house in Scranton for less than $100K and he can easily get to Philadelphia once or twice a week for in-person meetings. Another is doing the same from a small farm in the Poconos to New York.
Some might just not like that, but I'm willing to guess there are a sizable number who who will reconsider the dream of city living if it means owning in Southwest or far North Philly. It's certainly crossed my mind. In fact, now that I'm past the threshold of ever owning the kind of property I would have wanted in Philadelphia, leaving is less a question of if than when.
But for the time being, retail and service employees can still afford to rent in Center City, and I'm sure there's a stockpile of buyers ready to jump on any below-market homes. So we'll probably see steady bumps in the population for a while.