I Leave NY

According to new demographic migration data, about 20 percent of New Yorkers are looking outside of their metro to purchase a home in warmer Southern metros in Arizona, Florida, and Southern California.

Miami, Phoenix, and San Diego are prime targets for these outgoing snowbirds, garnering between 1 and 6 percent of their Redfin home searches. But it's not all about warmer climes: “A lot of retirees leave New York because the cost of living is so much lower in other places,” said New York Redfin listing agent Martin Freiman.

New Yorkers’ top destination? Boston. Just under 15 percent of those looking to leave New York were searching in the Boston area. Rounding out the top five were Atlanta (10 percent), Philadelphia (9 percent), Washington, DC (7 percent) and Los Angeles (6 percent).

The West Coast barely registers in the minds of New Yorkers, with destinations in California, Oregon and Washington adding up to less than the share of New Yorkers looking in Boston alone. The major tech centers of the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle only attracted 3 percent and 2 percent of New Yorkers looking to leave.

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