For years now, many people have assumed that demand for houses, accompanied by prices, skyrocketed during the pandemic. The theory was that people seeking more space for working from home and remote schooling got out of smaller places, often apartments, and into single-family houses.

In other words, the pandemic made them do it.

Research by Fannie Mae released in January 2023 suggested something different, that what drove the move was money. Federal pandemic aid and big injections of liquidity by the Fed, particularly in the form of a zero-interest rate policy, fueled the moves by both first-time and upgrade buyers. Toward the end of 2021, 30-year fixed rate mortgages averaged around 3% and personal savings were heavily bolstered while credit card debt came down, which would have improved credit ratings. Median days on the market dropped from 74 in 2017 to 46 in 2021.