Continuing the migration trend of the past year, more and more homebuyers were leaving expensive coastal markets like San Francisco and New York City for more affordable inland metros like Nashville, Sacramento, and Phoenix.
New research from Redfin evaluating home searchers using their service found that 22 percent were looking to move out of their current metro. Areas with the highest net outflows were Los Angeles (27.4 percent), Seattle (13.3 percent), Chicago (8.4 percent), and the Bay Area (7.8 percent). However, Chicago and Seattle had some of the most loyal home searchers, with 91.1 and 89.6 percent, respectively, looking for homes in their local area.
We expect 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. Our migration 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 2017.
