Far fewer homebuyers are leaving the Bay Area as life returns to pre-pandemic norms, with many tech companies requiring in-person work and the novelty of less expensive inland areas fading.
The Bay Area had a net outflow of 26,000 homebuyers in the fourth quarter, down 13% year over year and down by a factor of two from September 2021, when moves away from the Bay Area peaked amid the pandemic-driven remote work boom. The rate of buyers leaving the Bay Area has slowed over the last two years as tech employees return to the office and San Francisco comes back to life.
This data is based on the searches of about 2 million Redfin.com users who viewed for-sale homes online across more than 100 metro areas from October 2023 to December 2023. Redfin’s records go back through 2017; this data is subject to revision. Scroll down for the full methodology. This report focuses solely on the Bay Area, which we define as the San Jose-San Francisco-Oakland combined statistical area.
“If San Francisco could talk, it would quote Mark Twain: ‘The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,’” said Ali Mafi, a San Francisco Redfin Premier agent. “The news says it’s a ghost town, but restaurant reservations at foodie hotspots are impossible to get, and Dolores Park is packed on the weekend with residents and tourists. With the big boom in AI and many tech companies requiring in-person work, San Francisco is as alive as ever. Homes are getting multiple offers, and I see the market getting more competitive as the year goes on.”
Bay Area drops to second on list of places homebuyers are leaving
The Bay Area came in second to Los Angeles on the list of metros homebuyers looked to leave in the fourth quarter. That marks the first quarter in over two years the Bay Area has dropped out of the number-one spot. This is determined by net outflow, a measure of how many more homebuyers are looking to leave a metro than move in.
The Bay Area’s slowing net outflow is due partly to local residents staying put. At the height of the pandemic, many homebuyers–especially remote tech workers–moved away in favor of more affordable inland areas like Sacramento and Austin, TX where they could get more bang for their buck. That’s not happening as much anymore, largely because major tech companies like Apple, Google and Meta are requiring workers to be in the office. The flow of homebuyers moving from the Bay Area to both Sacramento and Austin fell about 25% year over year in the fourth quarter.
Additionally, home prices have come down slightly, perhaps helping some people afford to buy in the area: The median sale price in San Francisco is still nearly $1.3 million, but that’s near its lowest level since early 2019.
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 October 2023 to December 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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