The Impacts of COVID-19 on Real Estate Market Dynamics: A Systematic Literature Review of Emerging Trends

Abstract

The real estate market constitutes one of the major sectors that was influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is therefore useful to understand the ways in which COVID-19 has changed the dynamics of the real estate market, establishing new trends in different market segments. The health crisis has upset the consolidated “human normality” by spreading new behaviors and involving almost all sectors. Among economic fields, the identification of temporary and permanent impacts on the real estate market is fundamental to assess the consequences worldwide and to evaluate countries’ resilience ability. The aim of the research is to provide a systematic literature review on the existent academic insights in order to identify the aspects that have been mainly addressed regarding the real estate market’s impacts from COVID-19 and to grasp how the real estate market dynamics have changed. Thus, through five structured steps—from the formulation of research questions formulation to an analysis and discussion of the selected papers for drafting overall conclusions—102 research papers published in the period between the second half of 2020 and the first half of 2023 collected from Scopus and Google Scholar were reviewed and examined. The findings reveal that (i) the housing market has been the most analyzed, (ii) the period between 2021 and 2022 has been the most scientifically prolific, (iii) the US real estate market has been the most studied, (iv) American authors have been the most active on the subject, (v) and the “article” type of research paper has been the most published. These results provide the basis for future research developments on COVID-19 and real estate market dynamics, supporting the implementation of recovery plan strategies and decision-making processes of the market operators for improving the sector.