Ever since the World Health Organization declared that COVID-19 was a pandemic on March 11, there's been a ton of speculation about the impact on real-estate markets.

Just this week in the Georgia Straight, Dalhousie University professor and food-distribution researcher Sylvain Charlebois suggested that the rise in telecommuting might persuade more people to leave cities and move to the suburbs.

Also this week, the Pew Research Center reported that 22 percent of U.S. adults either moved due to COVID-19 or knew someone who had moved.

Nearly one in 10 young adults said they moved permanently, with the highest percentages being those of Asian and Hispanic ancestry, followed by Black young people.

"Young adults are among the groups most affected by pandemic-related job losses and by the shutdown of college housing in early spring," Pew senior writer D'Vera Cohn wrote on the organization's website.

Below, you can see a CNBC news story on this topic. It went over some of the pros and cons of leaving dense urban environments, including having to commute back into the city on the transit system if that's where people work.

However, the June statistics from the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver don't seem to be indicating any major exodus out of the city.

Of the 1,105 apartments sold in the REBGV's territory, 37 percent were in Vancouver in June. The previous month, it was 39 percent.

Vancouver's population is around 40 percent of the REBGV's territory, which extends from South Delta to Whistler.

This area includes all of the Lower Mainland except for Surrey, Langley, North Delta, and White Rock.

In June, 21 percent of the detached homes in the REBGV were sold within Vancouver city limits.

The next highest number of detached-home sales in the REBGV in June was in Maple Ridge–Pitt Meadows, accounting for 13 percent.

Housing starts in Vancouver, however, were down 5.4 percent in June on a seasonally adjusted basis, compared to May, according to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

Across B.C., housing starts in comunities with a population of at least 10,000 fell 0.1 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in June, compared to May.

Richmond real-estate agent Owen Bigland acknowledged in a recent video that some people move out of cities after cataclysmic events, like they did from New York after 9/11.

But he also cautioned that recent media coverage doesn't reflect the reality.

"The calling of the demise of urban centres both in Canada and the United States is greatly over-embellished here," Bigland declared. "Living in urban centres still has a lot going for it. One of the biggest things is lifestyle."

He also suggested that once people move to the suburbs, they sometimes get fed up with spending hours each day in their cars commuting to work.

"If that’s you, do the smart thing," Bigland said. "Rent for a year before you commit to it.”