“Zillow surfing has become a primary form of escapism for those who want to flee not just their homes but the reality of 2020.”

Marker Editors
Marker
Published in
1 min readNov 26, 2020

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A diorama of a neighborhood with model homes
Photo credit: jhorrocks / Getty Images

With mortgage rates at historic lows and hordes of mostly urban, stir-crazy Americans desperate for more space, The Great Housing Boom of 2020 has been one of the hottest pandemic-fueled market trends of the year — and that’s good news for Zillow. In fact, an entire digital community of aspirational home buyers, or Zillow surfers, are flocking to popular home buying sites as a form of escapism, reports Taylor Lorenz of the New York Times. “People bond over listings on Discord servers, group chats, and ‘Zillow Twitter,’” she writes, “and their obsession has made many strange and obscure listings go viral.” It sure beats doom scrolling.

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