Home sales spike in city-adjacent counties while NYC's take a nosedive

With the pandemic largely shifting buyer focus away from densely populated metropolises, neighboring housing markets with more space and better affordability saw surges in home sales.

Given a reduced emphasis on commuting to urban centers, the big-city-adjacent counties saw annual growth increases of up to 60% in July,according to Redfin.

El Dorado County in California's Bay Area spiked 57.3% while the median sales price there climbed 10% and shares of homes sold above listing price jumped 32.2% year-over-year.

Annual sales rose 44.4% in Comal County, Texas, just outside of San Antonio, with increases of 9.8% in price and 18.2% sold above listing. Fairfield County, Conn., bordering New York in the southwestern part of the state, saw a 34% increase in purchases from July 2019 with a 16.7% spike in median price and 24.7% share sold above asking.

Meanwhile, four of the five boroughs of New York City took the biggest hits in the country.

Kings County (Brooklyn) topped the declines with a 50.7% drop in homes sold. Bronx County followed with a 43.3% fall, then came decreases of 38.8% in Richmond County (Staten Island) and 38.6% in Queens County.

With more would-be homebuyers entering the fray to take advantage of all-time low mortgage rates, existing-home sales increased at the fastest pace since 2006 in August, according to the National Association of Realtors. The report also found that August prices increased 11.4% year-over-year on an unadjusted basis.