Nationwide, 30.2 percent of Redfin.com users looked to move to a different metro area in the third quarter, according to a recent Redfin report. That’s down from 31.1 percent in the second quarter, marking the second-straight quarter of declines.
Even so, interest in relocation during the third quarter remained higher than it was a year earlier (29.2 percent) and before the pandemic (around 26 percent).
While the migration rate has slipped, it’s unlikely to fall back to pre-pandemic levels in the near future, according to Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr.
“We expect Americans to continue relocating at a higher rate than they did before the coronavirus pandemic,” Marr said in a release. “As employers fight to retain talent during the ongoing labor shortage, they’ll face mounting pressure to introduce permanent flexible-work policies that will give more workers the option to move where they want. We’re also starting to see a resurgence in demand for vacation homes, which could help sustain the relatively high rate of house hunters searching outside their home metro.”
The most popular migration destinations of any major metro in the third quarter were Miami, with 32.3 percent of searches coming from outside the metro, up from 25.9 percent in third quarter 2020; Phoenix, (35.1 percent, up from 34.2 percent year-over-year); Sacramento, Calif., (41.7 percent, down from 50 percent year-over-year); Las Vegas (41.3 percent, down from 49 percent year-over-year); and Tampa, Fla., (46.1 percent, down from 55.1 percent year-over-year.)
“We’re not seeing as many buyers in Sacramento as we were at the height of the pandemic, but most of the buyers I do work with are still coming from the Bay Area,” Sacramento Redfin real estate agent Dawn Marie Brown said. “Remote work has become the norm for a lot of people — especially Silicon Valley tech workers — so they’re moving here to take advantage of the scenic countryside and high-quality schools.”
The metros that saw more Redfin.com users looking to leave than other major metro areas in the third quarter were San Francisco (25.2 percent of local users searched elsewhere in the third quarter, up from 24.8 percent in the third quarter 2020), Los Angeles (18.3 percent, up from 17.3 percent year-over-year) New York, (27.1 percent, down from 35.8 percent year-over-year), Washington, D.C., (14.9 percent, up from 13.6 percent year-over-year, and Boston (16.3 percent, up from 12.2 percent year-over-year.)