Glenn Kelman, Redfin CEO, discusses the state of the residential home market and where he sees it headed as the coronavirus pandemic continues.

“Nobody was selling in March or April unless they absolutely had to. There was a sign of distress or panic in the market so sellers just withdrew. There weren’t many foreclosures because we’ve got so much forbearance in the lending markets, and that just means there was very little inventory in April”

Glen, where do you see markets that are going to be in trouble and distress potentially, and where do you see the opportunity.

“Yeah, well I’m worried about the big cities.

There will be something close to an exodus from these really large cities where housing is so expensive, to places like Charleston, Madison Wisconsin or Boise Idaho, places where it’s just more affordable and you can still walk around town a little bit. That’s where the search traffic has already shifted on our website. If you look where people are searching on Redfin, it is overwhelmingly people living in big cities, looking into small towns”