Redfin always delivers on the data front, and this latest report is a doozy. Some 32.3 percent of Redfin.com users looked to move away from their hometown in the first quarter, hitting an all-time high.
That’s up from 31.5 percent a year earlier and up significantly from 26 percent in 2019, before the pandemic.
High costs of living in major metro areas seems to be the biggest motivator, especially given the top outflow cities.
According to Redfin, San Francisco, L.A., New York, D.C. and Seattle had the largest outflow in Q1 on 2022. San Francisco lost some 52,964 residents last quarter, compared to 40,736 in Q1 of 2021.
Los Angeles followed behind with an outflow rate of 37,148 (up from 28,208). The report notes, however, that both San Francisco and L.A. outgoing residents at least preferred to stay in state, with Sacramento and San Diego coming in as the top destinations of which to relocate.
Elsewhere, New York posted an outflow rate of 32,834 (down from 48,588 mid pandemic), followed by D.C. at 25,409 and Seattle at 23,867.
The number of homebuyers leaving the Seattle area—the eighth-most expensive major metro in the U.S.—has picked up significantly over the last two years. Seattle’s Q1 outflow was up from about 10,000 a year earlier and about 4,000 two years earlier, before the pandemic began.
Miami was the most popular migration destination in the first quarter, unchanged from the second half of 2021. Phoenix, Tampa, Sacramento and Las Vegas round out the top five most popular migration destinations.