I don't think this is directly related to covid, but a powerful knock-on effect. The IT market in many centers outside of the typically high-demand areas is abs

I don't think this is directly related to covid, but a powerful knock-on effect. The IT market in many centers outside of the typically high-demand areas is absolutely booming right now. I'm not convinced covid taught us anything definitive about remote work, but the involuntary loss of central control at many companies showed that satellite or hub organizations will be very doable, and sometimes come with huge cost savings. I know of several Seattle companies setting up entire dev teams (30+) in Canadian cities where they are paying 30-45% premiums and still recognizing similar cost savings. Amazon et al have done this at scale for a while (Seattle -> Vancouver) but it's now viewed as viable for those 300+ person companies that are growing fast, and it's meant demand for tech workers is as hot as the housing markets.