- A record one-quarter of Redfin.com house hunters are looking to relocate to a different part of the country as high mortgage rates make affordable areas more attractive.
- But even though homebuyers moving to a new metro make up a bigger piece of the homebuying pie than ever before, the number of relocators has dropped as the overall housing market cools.
- Phoenix, Las Vegas and parts of Florida are the most popular destinations for relocators, even as the risks from natural disasters intensify; the state of Arizona recently limited homebuilding in the Phoenix area due to a lack of water.
- Relatively small East Coast beach towns are the number-one destinations for homebuyers leaving Washington, D.C. and Boston.
A record one-quarter (25.4%) of homebuyers nationwide are looking to move to a different metro area, up from 23% a year ago and less than 20% before the pandemic.
A record share of homebuyers are relocating because high mortgage rates have made housing more expensive than ever, making relatively affordable areas more attractive. Phoenix, Las Vegas and Miami–where the typical home is much less expensive than coastal cities like San Francisco and New York–are the most popular metros for homebuyers moving to a different part of the country. That’s in spite of those places facing ever-worsening climate risks like heat, drought and flooding.
But that doesn’t mean more homebuyers are looking to relocate. In fact, the number of homebuyers looking to relocate to a new metro is down 7% from a year ago, the biggest decline on record, as elevated mortgage rates push many Americans out of the homebuying game altogether. Still, out-of-town moves are holding up better than in-town moves: The number of homebuyers looking to move within their current hometown is down a record 18%.
In other words, the overall homebuying pie has shrunk, but buyers moving to a new metro make up the biggest piece of that pie on record.
The data in this report is based on the searches of about two million Redfin.com users who viewed for-sale homes online across more than 100 metro areas from March 2023 to May 2023. Scroll down for full methodology.
Remote work is responsible for the uptick in the share of homebuyers moving to a new metro area since the start of the pandemic. The share has been trending upward since 2020, when remote work became commonplace and gave many Americans the freedom to move to a different–often more affordable–part of the country.
As elevated mortgage rates have cooled the housing market over the last year, people who are purchasing houses outside of their current hometown have taken up a growing share of the homebuying pie for a few reasons. Near-7% mortgage rates and still-high home prices make cheaper areas more attractive. Additionally, people moving to an entirely new area may be less likely to put off homebuying plans than people looking in their hometown; maybe they’re relocating for a major life change like a new job or to take care of a family member.
Out-of-town homebuyers move to Phoenix, Florida despite high risk of drought and flooding
Phoenix is the most popular destination for homebuyers looking to move to a different part of the country, followed by Las Vegas and several Florida metros. Popularity is determined by net inflow, a measure of how many more Redfin.com users looked to move into an area than leave.
Sun Belt metros are popular among relocating homebuyers because many of them are affordable compared to other parts of the U.S. The typical home in Phoenix, for instance, sells for $450,000. That’s up significantly from before the pandemic because remote work made the area explode in popularity, but is about half the $800,000 cost of the typical home in Seattle, the most common origin of people moving to Phoenix.
Even though the flow of homebuyers moving into Phoenix has slowed as high mortgage rates have cooled the housing market, it’s still attracting more out-of-towners than anywhere else in the U.S. That’s in spite of Phoenix facing worsening drought and heat risk. Arizona recently said it will stop issuing homebuilding permits in some parts of the Phoenix desert, partly because migration to the area and extensive development is straining water resources. That will cap the number of new communities in the Phoenix area and could eventually increase the cost of housing.
Most of the other popular destinations for homebuyers also face extreme climate risks; for instance, parts of the Sacramento area face high wildfire danger and many Florida metros are very susceptible to flooding. Some insurance companies have even stopped providing coverage to homeowners in California and Florida due to high risk of damage by natural disasters.
“Climate risks haven’t yet stopped many homebuyers from moving into areas that don’t have enough water, like Phoenix, and places that could eventually be underwater, like coastal Florida,” said Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “That’s because even though Sun Belt home prices soared during the pandemic, those metros remain a bargain for people relocating from expensive coastal cities. Arizona’s recent limit on new construction isn’t likely to deplete inventory enough–or push prices up enough–to change that calculus much in the short term.”
| Top 10 Metros Homebuyers Are Moving Into, by Net Inflow
Net inflow = Number of Redfin.com home searchers looking to move into a metro area, minus the number of searchers looking to leave |
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| Rank | Metro* | Net Inflow, May 2023 | Net Inflow, May 2022 | Top Origin | Top Out-of-State Origin
|
| 1 | Phoenix, AZ | 6,600 | 8,100 | Seattle, WA | Seattle, WA |
| 2 | Las Vegas, NV | 6,100 | 6,900 | Los Angeles, CA | Los Angeles, CA |
| 3 | Miami, FL | 5,800 | 12,000 | New York, NY | New York, NY |
| 4 | Tampa, FL | 5,400 | 9,000 | New York, NY | New York, NY |
| 5 | Orlando, FL | 5,200 | 1,400 | New York, NY | New York, NY |
| 6 | North Port-Sarasota, FL | 4,900 | 6,300 | Chicago, IL | Chicago, IL |
| 7 | Cape Coral, FL | 4,600 | 6,600 | Chicago, IL | Chicago, IL |
| 8 | Dallas, TX | 4,500 | 6,600 | Los Angeles, CA | Los Angeles, CA |
| 9 | Sacramento, CA | 4,300 | 9,100 | San Francisco, CA | Chicago, IL |
| 10 | Houston, TX | 3,700 | 5,300 | New York, NY | New York, NY |
| *Combined statistical areas with at least 500 users searching to and from the region in March 2023-May 2023 | |||||
Buyers are leaving Washington, D.C. and Boston for small beach towns
More homebuyers are looking to move away from San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles than any other metro in the country. That’s based on net outflow, a measure of how many more Redfin.com users are looking to leave a metro than move in.
Even before the remote-work boom that allowed scores of people to move away from expensive coastal job hubs, a lot of homebuyers left these areas in favor of more affordable housing markets. The most popular destinations are less expensive, sunny parts of the country such as Las Vegas and Miami.
But notably, smaller vacation hotspots now top the list of most popular destinations for people leaving two pricey coastal hubs: Washington, D.C. and Boston. Homebuyers leaving Boston are most commonly going to Portland, ME, a popular summer tourist spot. And buyers moving away from the nation’s capital are most commonly moving to the Salisbury, MD metro area, home to popular beach towns like Bethany Beach, DE and Ocean City, MD. The New York Times recently reported that quaint, scenic vacation towns–including Salisbury and Cape Coral, FL–are attracting a bigger chunk of remote workers than would be expected given the small size of the local economies.
Those places are popular with homebuyers–especially remote workers–not just because of their vacation vibes, but because of their relative affordability. The typical Salisbury home, for instance, sells for $245,000, compared with $560,000 in Washington, D.C.
| Top 10 Metros Homebuyers Are Leaving, by Net Outflow
Net outflow = Number of Redfin.com home searchers looking to leave a metro area, minus the number of searchers looking to move in |
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| Rank | Metro* | Net Outflow, May 2023 | Net Outflow, May 2022 | Portion of Local Users Searching Elsewhere | Top Destination | Top Out-of-State Destination
|
| 1 | San Francisco, CA | 29,300 | 40,200 | 24% | Sacramento, CA | Seattle, WA |
| 2 | New York, NY | 24,500 | 26,600 | 29% | Miami, FL | Miami, FL |
| 3 | Los Angeles, CA | 21,100 | 31,000 | 18% | Las Vegas, NV | Las Vegas, NV |
| 4 | Washington, D.C. | 17,000 | 19,100 | 19% | Salisbury, MD | Salisbury, MD |
| 5 | Boston, MA | 4,700 | 9,800 | 20% | Portland, ME | Portland, ME |
| 6 | Seattle, WA | 3,800 | 19,000 | 20% | Phoenix, AZ | Phoenix, AZ |
| 7 | Hartford, CT | 3,500 | 800 | 77% | Boston, MA | Boston, MA |
| 8 | Chicago, IL | 3,300 | 4,200 | 17% | Cape Coral, FL | Cape Coral, FL |
| 9 | Denver, CO | 3,200 | 5,300 | 35% | Chicago, IL | Chicago, IL |
| 10 | Minneapolis, MN | 2,900 | 1,900 | 33% | Chicago, IL | Chicago, IL |
| *Combined statistical areas with at least 500 users searching to and from the region in March 2023-May 2023 | ||||||
Below is a map of the most common origins of Redfin.com users who are moving to the Miami metro. To view similar maps for the metros in this report and other metros, please visit the area’s Redfin housing market page and scroll down to the “migration” section.
Methodology
Our migration analysis is based on about two million Redfin.com users who viewed for-sale homes online across more than 100 metro areas from March 2023 to May 2023. To measure the share of homebuyers looking to relocate from one metro to another, we calculate the portion of overall home searchers that are migrants.
A Redfin.com user counts as a migrant if they viewed at least 10 for-sale homes in the relevant three-month period and at least one of those homes was outside their home metro area. For instance, if a Redfin.com user based in Seattle views 10 homes in a three-month period and all of them are in Phoenix, that user counts as a full migrant to Phoenix. If a user based in Seattle views 10 homes in a three-month period and five are in Phoenix but five are in San Diego, that user counts as half of a migrant to Phoenix and half of a migrant to San Diego. If a user based in Seattle views 10 homes in a three-month period, nine in Seattle and one in Phoenix, that user counts as one-tenth of a migrant to Phoenix.
The analysis includes combined statistical areas with at least 500 Redfin.com users based in that region and at least 500 users searching for homes in that region. For instance, a user based in Seattle searching for a home in Phoenix counts toward the first condition, a user based in Phoenix searching for a home in Seattle counts toward the second condition, and a user based in Seattle searching for a home in Seattle counts toward both. Redfin’s migration data goes back to 2017.
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