Stories of San Francisco residents fleeing the Bay Area for Austin, Phoenix and Portland may garner a lot of attention, but the reality is that most city residents only move as far as the next county over, according to cell phone data from Placer.ai.
Between July 2019 and July 2022, when the pandemic caused a 3 percent decrease in the city’s total population, 11 percent of departing San Francisco residents moved only as far as San Mateo County, while another 10 percent went to Alameda County, according to Placer.ai. Those counties were the two biggest recipients of SFers in the country and were also the most likely places for residents to come from when they moved to the city.
“There are many elements driving migration away from major cities, but in many cases, the movement is only a degree of separation away,” said Placer.ai’s Ethan Chernofsky via email. “Much is being driven by the desire for more space, and better quality of life, all while maintaining the city as a center of orbit. As we continue to move into a new normal the continued centrality of the city has sustained even if there are less people calling it home in the short term.”
Looking Elsewhere
That said, the Bay Area still has the highest number of house hunters looking to leave the metro area, according to Redfin, with a net outflow of about 40,000 users in July and August this year. That figure is down significantly from when outflow searches peaked at more than 61,000 in the third quarter of 2021, however.
The Bay Area is also the only spot in the top five outflow locales to see a reversing trend, according to Redfin, perhaps because it is one of the few places in the nation where prices have come down year-over-year. The other top-outflow cities — Los Angeles; New York; Washington, D.C.; and Boston — all had a net increase in outflow searches this summer, Redfin data shows. Nationwide, about one-third of home buyers were looking for homes outside their metro, compared with 26 percent before the pandemic.
Redfin data also shows that just over three-quarters of all Bay Area home searchers are looking to stay within the region. Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Redfeather said in San Francisco, as in most metros, people don’t want to leave their families and social networks behind.
“People have roots wherever they are,” she said.
When San Franciscans leave the Bay, Redfin and Placer.ai have different lists of places they are most likely to go, which could be an indication that looking at buying a home in a new market isn’t the same as actually moving there. The differences could also mark a divide between the locales favored by younger, more transient renters, who make up much of the city, and older, more affluent house hunters looking to start or expand their families.
Sunny Southern California held a lot of appeal for those fleeing the fog in San Francisco, and vice versa, according to Placer.ai data. Los Angeles held the number three spot in both move-outs and move-ins, with about 8 percent of departing S.F. residents heading south and slightly more coming to the city from L.A. San Diego and Orange County were also among the top 10 locations for those who left the area in the last three years, and for those arriving. For San Franciscans who left the state altogether, New York City was the top destination, with 1.7 percent of departees, while 1.4 percent went to Seattle.
Austin, Portland, Phoenix and Las Vegas, all supposed hot spots for Bay Area transplants, each received less than 1 percent of those leaving S.F., according to cell phone data, although those cities held more appeal to Southern Californians. Just over 3 percent of departing L.A. residents moved to Las Vegas in the last three years, and slightly less went to Phoenix. They also made up about 3 percent of all incoming residents to Portland and just under 2 percent of those who came to Austin in the last three years.
Sacramento solution
Sacramento falls below L.A., San Diego and Orange County on the Placer.ai list, but according to Redfin, the capital city is the clear winner in Bay Area out-of-metro home buyer searches. It has held strong at about 20 percent of all such searches every quarter for the last five years in part because it is a more affordable location to buy a home while maintaining driving distance to friends and family in the Bay Area, according to Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather.
“A lot of people look at how much it costs to buy a condo in San Francisco and think, ‘I could buy a five-bedroom home in Sacramento,’” she said, adding that remote work has made the idea of driving the 90 miles into an S.F. office every so often more feasible.
She also predicted that even if young people continue to come to San Francisco and Silicon Valley as renters to start their careers, they may pin their house hunting goals elsewhere when they reach a higher level.
“They may not stick around in the Bay Area once they have enough experience to go remote,” she said.
Read more
