Nearly a third of Redfin.com users (32.3 percent) looked to move to a different metro area in the first quarter, an all-time high. That’s up from 31.5 percent a year ago and from 26 percent in 2019.
Skyrocketing home prices and rising mortgage rates have made relocating to a more affordable area the only viable option for some prospective homebuyers. More homebuyers are moving away from pricey coastal areas like San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle and Boston.
The number of homebuyers leaving the Seattle area has picked up significantly over the last two years. The typical home in Seattle sold for $750,000 in February (up 15 percent year-over-year), making it the eighth-most expensive major metro in the country, behind only coastal California.
Seattle had a net outflow of nearly 24,000 residents in the first quarter, up from about 10,000 a year earlier and about 4,000 two years earlier, before the pandemic began. Phoenix is the No. 1 destination for Redfin.com users leaving Seattle. While Phoenix home prices are up significantly from a year ago, the $456,000 median is still far lower than Seattle’s.
“I’ve worked with many homesellers recently who are moving to a completely new area,” Seattle Redfin agent Nicole McCormick said in a release. “A lot of them are remote workers, or people who feel confident they’ll be able to get a new job, leaving for sunnier places where they can get more home for their money, like Phoenix or Sacramento. There’s also a pattern of selling and moving to the San Juan Islands, located a few hours away from Seattle. Those people are trading the city for a more rural, outdoorsy lifestyle, but homes are just as expensive.”
Seattle had the fifth-biggest outflow of any major metro in the first quarter, behind San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C.
Miami was the most popular migration destination in the first quarter, unchanged from the second half of 2021. Phoenix, Tampa, Fla., Sacramento, Calif., and Las Vegas round out the top five most popular migration destinations.