The pandemic has significantly, and perhaps permanently, shifted home preferences — not only in terms of what buyers want in a home, but also in how they shop for that home in the first place. 

Home features that are here to stay… and a few that buyers have already ditched

In early 2020, rustic chic was all the rage. Modern farmhouse features such as subway tile and exposed brick helped homes sell faster and for more money. When locked down at home, we were forced to look around and ask ourselves if our homes were really meeting our needs in this new normal. Suddenly, function outweighed style, and buyers were prioritizing backyards over barn doors. Five years later, outdoor features remain high on buyers’ wishlists and, to this day, they’re willing to pay at least 2% more for homes with outdoor kitchens, pizza ovens and bluestone patios. Even in the concrete jungle of New York City, searches for rentals with outdoor space jumped 128% last year, according to data from StreetEasy, Zillow’s brand for New York City. 

But the feature buyers most can’t live without  — even more important than finding a home within their budget — is air conditioning. When Zillow asked buyers which characteristics were very or extremely important in a home, 83% said air conditioning was, more than any other characteristic. That’s even more than said it was important the home was within their initial budgets (79%). Air conditioning came in just behind in-budget homes in 2020, and 2024 is the first year it pulled ahead. 

Not all pandemic-era fads have had the staying power of outdoor features or air conditioning. Remember the “cloffice”? By the end of 2023, these micro-home offices carved out of closets were showing up in less than half as many for-sale listings on Zillow. Home buyers are also no longer clamoring for Zoom rooms, office sheds and a place for their Peloton. The share of for-sale listings highlighting these features is considerably lower today than during the height of the pandemic.

Home shopping now means more online touring, fewer in-person visits

The pandemic supercharged online home shopping and home touring. Compared to the start of the pandemic, buyers are spending less time touring homes in person via private showings and open houses, in part because they are better able to understand the floor plan with improved digital tools. 

Although only about a quarter of buyers prefer 3D tours over in-person viewings (27%), the demand for these types of online tools is growing. Seven out of 10 buyers say 3D tours help them get a better feel for the space than static photos (up from 52% in 2019), and 62% say they wish more listings had 3D tours (up from 46% in 2019). 

A smaller share of buyers now (50%) say they wasted time during their home search viewing properties they would have skipped if they better understood the floor plan ahead of time than did in 2020 (54%). Fewer buyers also say they attended five or more open houses (17% in 2020 vs. 7% in 2024) or private home tours (31% in 2020 vs. 15% in 2024). While that’s likely due in part to increasing prevalence of online 3D home tours, buyer competition easing also contributes to buyers being able to take a breather and be a bit more choosy with the homes they tour.