How did pandemic increase housing demand?

[Chris M.]

I’m trying to figure out why housing prices took off over the past 2 years, all sources point to the pandemic, but I can’t find an exact answer as to how the global transmission of a virus increased demand or reduced suppLy.  One theory I saw was “people are spending more time at home, therefore they want to buy a new house”. They would obviously then put their house on the market, therefore the rationetwern supply and demand would not change, and therefore no change in value.  Of peole wanted to move “away from the city to take advantage of remote working” you’d see home prices rising in areas out of the cities and suburbs and dropping to an equal extent in and near cities, which is not the case (putting aside normal and insignificant differences in markets / areas).   If it were the low rates, then we’d obviously be atop a bubble that is about to burst which all sources say is not the case.