Homebuyers are Leaving the Bay Area at Half the Pandemic-Era Rate

Far fewer homebuyers are leaving the Bay Area as life returns to pre-pandemic norms, with many tech companies requiring in-person work and the novelty of less expensive inland areas fading

Seattle, WA – January 30, 2024 (BUSINESS WIRE) (NASDAQ: RDFN) The Bay Area had a net outflow of 26,000 homebuyers in the fourth quarter, down 13% year over year, according to a new report from Redfin (redfin.com), the technology-powered real estate brokerage. The analysis of home search activity on Redfin.com found the flow of homebuyers looking to move away from the Bay Area was down nearly 50% from its September 2021 peak during the pandemic-driven remote work boom.

“If San Francisco could talk, it would quote Mark Twain: ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,’” said Ali Mafi, a San Francisco Redfin Premier agent. “The news says it’s a ghost town, but restaurant reservations at foodie hotspots are impossible to get, and Dolores Park is packed on the weekend with residents and tourists. With the big boom in AI and many tech companies requiring in-person work, San Francisco is as alive as ever. Homes are getting multiple offers, and I see the market getting more competitive as the year goes on.”

Bay Area drops to second on list of places homebuyers are leaving

The Bay Area ranked second to Los Angeles on the list of metros homebuyers looked to leave in the fourth quarter. That marks the first quarter in over two years the Bay Area has dropped out of the number-one spot. This is determined by net outflow, a measure of how many more homebuyers are looking to leave a metro than move in.

The Bay Area’s slowing net outflow is due partly to local residents staying put. At the height of the pandemic, many homebuyers–especially remote tech workers–moved away in favor of more affordable inland areas like Sacramento and Austin, TX where they could get more bang for their buck. That’s not happening as much anymore, largely because major tech companies like Apple, Google and Meta are requiring workers to be in the office. The flow of homebuyers moving from the Bay Area to both Sacramento and Austin fell about 25% year over year in the fourth quarter.

Additionally, home prices have come down slightly, perhaps helping some people afford to buy in the area: The median sale price in San Francisco is still nearly $1.3 million, but that’s near its lowest level since early 2019.

To view the full report and methodology, visit: https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-san-francisco-migration-Q4-2023.

About Redfin

Redfin (www.redfin.com) is a technology-powered real estate company. We help people find a place to live with brokerage, rentals, lending, title insurance, and renovations services. We also run the country’s #1 real estate brokerage site. Our home-buying customers see homes first with same day tours, and our lending and title services help them close quickly. Customers selling a home in certain markets can have our renovations crew fix up their home to sell for top dollar. Our rentals business empowers millions nationwide to find apartments and houses for rent. Customers who buy and sell with Redfin pay a 1% listing fee, subject to minimums, less than half of what brokerages commonly charge. Since launching in 2006, we’ve saved customers more than $1.5 billion in commissions. We serve more than 100 markets across the U.S. and Canada and employ over 4,000 people.

For more information or to contact a local Redfin real estate agent, visit www.redfin.com. To learn about housing market trends and download data, visit the Redfin Data Center. To be added to Redfin’s press release distribution list, email press@redfin.com. To view Redfin’s press center, click here.

Contacts

Redfin Journalist Services:
Alina Ptaszynski
206-588-6863
press@redfin.com

Redfin Migration Report: Affordable Inland Metros Drew People from San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles

Sacramento, Phoenix and Las Vegas Were the Most Popular Migration Destinations at Year End

SEATTLE, Feb. 7, 2018 (PRNewswire) (NASDAQ: RDFN) In the fourth quarter of 2017, people in expensive, high-tax coastal markets like San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles, searched for homes in more affordable metros with lower taxes like Sacramento, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Nashville, according to the latest Migration Report from Redfin (www.redfin.com), the next-generation real estate brokerage.

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Of the 22 percent of Redfin.com home searchers who looked to move to another metro area, the following key trends emerged:

  • San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C. and Chicago posted the highest net outflows.
  • Fast-growing, mid-tier metros in the Sunbelt, including Phoenix and Las Vegas, and the South, including Atlanta and Nashville, had the highest net inflows.
  • Seattle saw more users looking to leave than to move to the area for the first time since we began tracking this data at the beginning of 2017.

The analysis is based on a sample of more than 1 million Redfin.com users searching for homes across 75 metro areas from October through December. Redfin began systematically tracking homebuyer migration at the beginning of 2017 and these fourth-quarter trends follow the migration patterns observed throughout last year.

Redfin expects that in 2018, this migration pattern will intensify as tax reform becomes a reality and more people choose to relocate in search of a lower cost of living.

“People leaving coastal hubs in search of affordability has been a consistent trend for the last five years,” said Redfin chief economist Nela Richardson. “Late last year there was a twist. Many of the popular migration paths that we saw Redfin.com users exploring yielded tax benefits along with increased affordability.”

By comparing annual property, state and local tax burdens from the 2016 Tax Rates and Tax Burdens in the District of Columbia: A Nationwide Comparison report, we’re able to estimate what a move from one metro to another might entail from a tax perspective. For example, 18.2 percent of all Redfin.com searches for homes in Las Vegas in the fourth quarter came from Los Angeles; a family earning $150,000 who made this move could save $7,785 in taxes and would likely pay less for a similar home, given that the typical home in Las Vegas costs about $333,000 less than in Los Angeles. Similarly, the 9 percent of New Yorkers looking to leave who considered Atlanta might save $5,809 in taxes and benefit from a $161,000 lower median home sale price.

“Lower taxes and more affordable housing have historically drawn Californians away from the coast to places like Nevada and Arizona,” said Heidi Ludwig, a Redfin Agent in Hermosa Beach. “The recent changes in tax law have been coming up in my conversations with prospective home sellers. Last year, several of my home-selling clients followed their employer, Toyota, to its new facility in Plano, Texas. I expect to see more people move in the same direction this year, but for different reasons including taxes and overall affordability.”

Seattle showed a negative net outflow in the fourth quarter, a first since we began tracking migration patterns at the beginning of 2017. Among local users who were looking to leave, 10.6 percent were eyeing Los Angeles, followed by Bellingham, Wash., Portland and Phoenix, each of which captured at least 8 percent of Seattleites looking to leave.

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To read the full report, complete with an interactive data map of metro-to-metro migration trends and full methodology, please visit: https://www.redfin.com/blog/2018/02/q4-migration-report.html.

About Redfin
Redfin (www.redfin.com) is the next-generation real estate brokerage, combining its own full-service agents with modern technology to redefine real estate in the consumer’s favor. Founded by software engineers, Redfin has the country’s #1 brokerage website and offers a host of online tools to consumers, including the Redfin Estimate, the automated home-value estimate with the industry’s lowest published error rate for listed homes. Homebuyers and sellers enjoy a full-service, technology-powered experience from Redfin real estate agents, while saving thousands in commissions. Redfin serves more than 80 major metro areas across the U.S. The company has closed more than $50 billion in home sales.