Kaushik "KJ" Joshi, a sales executive at a Silicon Valley tech firm, scrolled through online property listings in Lake Tahoe for months.
The dream-surfing — a life on the water, hiking in the mountains — began well before the coronavirus pandemic upended work and family life. But after a few months of remote work at home in Fremont, he was convinced he could do his job from almost anywhere.
Joshi, 48, bought a spacious model home this summer in a gated Nevada community just 20 minutes from Lake Tahoe. He ticked off the list of reasons for moving: cost of living, lower taxes, ample green space. "Come February, I feel like the whole world changed on us," he said. "Covid accelerated the decision."
Joshi might be an early trendsetter — or simply a rare case.
Five months of remote work, bedroom-to-desk commutes and child-populated home offices have failed to ignite a great Bay Area exodus, according to property data and interviews with industry economists and agents. Even green lights to work from home until next year from Silicon Valley's biggest employers haven't triggered a widespread migration.
But the wanderlust for open space, new vistas and extra bedrooms is real and measurable in the playlands of Bay Area professionals — Lake Tahoe and other waterfront and rural communities once outside a reasonable daily commute.
Before the pandemic, "Tahoe was 'a want, a dream,'" said Breck Overall, agent with Sotheby's International in Truckee. "For a lot of people, all of the sudden, it's a need."
In July, home sales in Lake Tahoe more than doubled over last year, with properties changing hands at near-record levels, according to Tahoe Sierra Board of Realtors data. At the same time, Bay Area home sales grew 15%.
Between pandemic-stricken March through June, sales of Tahoe mountain homes, condos and properties rose 6% over the previous year, despite heavy restrictions on real estate tours. Bay Area home sales slipped nearly 10% during the same period.
Even though the frenzy in small, resort communities is intense, it's a sliver of the buying and selling within the Bay Area. About 5,500 single-family homes in the nine-county region sold in June, according to DQNews data. Santa Clara, Alameda and Contra Costa counties each had at least six times more home sales than the resort region, which saw 182 deals for single-family homes, the best performance in recent memory, according to Tahoe agents.
But the flight of homeowners trading their primary roof in the Bay Area for a lakeside estate is relatively rare, so far.
Elliot Eisenberg, consulting economist for MLSListings, said early data from real estate sales during the pandemic have not shown a hasty, mass migration from job centers to remote locations. Employees still get value from being near their offices, he said, and rural communities in California are more prone to extreme weather and fires.
Still, Tahoe resort agents are riding the wave of short supply and pent-up demand to manage bidding wars, cash offers and quick deals. In short, Tahoe property hunts are starting to look a lot like the Bay Area — at a lower price.
This time last year, a typical single-family home in Truckee took 100 days to sell, according to local sales data. In June, Truckee homes spent about 50 days on the market.
"COVID is terrible for a lot of the state," said Truckee agent Sam Drury, "but not for Tahoe real estate."
He's never seen the market as heated during his 25 years as an agent. More than half of sales are all-cash offers, and the amount of homes for sale is scraping record lows, he said. Most purchases are still second homes, he said, with owners expecting to spend more time in the resort community.
Safety plays a large role. The rate of COVID cases is more than 10 percent lower in rural Placer and El Dorado counties than most of the Bay Area. Local schools are already reporting jumps in fall enrollments. "We've seen bubbles," Drury said, "but we've never seen this kind of behavior full time."
Many Bay Area residents are welcoming the conversion of their vacation home into a primary place for work and play.
Andrew Dillin, a UC Berkeley molecular biologist, and his wife, a scientist in the pharmaceutical industry, bought a second home in 2017 in the resort community of Nakoma in Plumas County. "Being in the Bay Area full time just grinds down on you," Dillin said.
At the beginning of the pandemic, the couple left their Oakland home for the mountains. They've adjusted their work schedules for more biking, hiking, back-country skiing and golfing during the crisis.
With Berkeley conducting online classes in the fall, they are considering more lifestyle changes. They might sell their Oakland home, rent a smaller place in the Bay Area and spend more time at Nakoma. Dillin, 49, is researching flying lessons — a chance to buzz over the Bay Area-to-Tahoe traffic snarls for a two-hour airborne commute.
The post-COVID future remains uncertain. "We're actually having those discussions right now," he said. "I wonder if we're ever going to go back to normal."
The pandemic stirred a life re-evaluation for Katherine and Garret Law. The semi-retired couple own a condo in San Francisco steps from Oracle Park with views of the Bay Bridge.
Early in the crisis, they decamped to another remote family property in Lake County. "These things kind of jar you," said Law, 70. "You start thinking about what you want to do."
The couple drove past Delta Coves on Bethel Island in Contra Costa County several times, and decided to tour it in early May, just weeks after restrictions on real estate showings were lifted. Law owns a few boats, including a 47-foot sailboat kept in the south of France where they live during the summer.
Within two weeks, the Laws bought a waterfront property. They put their city condo up for sale and are waiting for construction of their new, four-bedroom, 2,200-square-foot home. They wanted more space for their children and grandchildren, and a slip for a powerboat.
They discussed the move with family, but few others. "Peer review has been on the thin side," joked Law, a former tech hardware executive. The crisis has brought a new mindset, he said. "You kind of think about it. Am I doing what I want to be doing?"
And the lengthening crisis could draw away others fed up with Bay Area ills, irritants and stresses.
Joshi, who works at Equinix, moved to the Bay Area in 2005. The family built a dream house, but after 15 years he has grown weary of the daily commutes and growing social problems.
Fremont, with strong schools and a vibrant Indian community, has become a cocoon within the Silicon Valley cocoon, he said. Joshi wants his two children to have a more diverse academic and cultural experience than the East Bay offers, he said.
During the pandemic, he discovered he could manage his global team efficiently through regular Zoom calls. The family looked at homes and bought in Clear Creek in early July. He expects his daughter, a senior at Mission San Jose High School, to finish her schooling online. He and his wife, Rajni, have found a private school in Nevada for their younger son.
"Frankly, COVID showed me I can do my work from anywhere in the world," Joshi said. "We all realize what the Valley had to offer ... (but) it came at a pretty big price."
