With people all over the country working from home, some are packing up and leaving urban life in search of their forever vacation home.
Despite the pandemic, the housing market has been red hot, bringing buyers from all over the state and beyond to the Central Coast.
Chris Richardson, President of Richardson Properties in San Luis Obispo, says having the ability to work remote is providing housing options for people.
"I think that is freeing people up to leave some of the metro areas like the San Francisco, Bay Area and Southern California and reside here while they are maintaining their jobs," he said.
Arroyo Grande residents Maz and Kelly Ghani recently moved here form Massachusetts where they lived for over a decade.
Maz says after 17 years he was ready to transition into remote work after the pandemic hit.
As a radiologist, he is able to work from his home office. After visiting SLO county years ago, the Ghani's felt it was the right time to make the move.
"We love to travel and we saw the central coast, we saw the beaches, the vineyards, everything and it just spoke to us," Kelly Ghani said.
And they are not the only ones, according to data from TrendGraphix, despite the pandemic, the average median home price has jumped from $613 thousand to $703 thousand in San Luis Obispo County.
This follows a nationwide trend from Redfin that home prices were up 14.2% year over year in October.
“The quality of life that is offered here is becoming more and more important to people on top of the flexibility of being able to work from here," Richardson said.
According to a list put out by Forbes, areas like Kingston, New York; Butte, Montana; and Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts are also considered zoom towns.
