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Redfin Migration Report: Home Affordability Continued to Shape Migration Currents as Homebuyers Looked to Leave Expensive Coastal Cities in the Second Quarter
[August 10, 2017]

Redfin Migration Report: Home Affordability Continued to Shape Migration Currents as Homebuyers Looked to Leave Expensive Coastal Cities in the Second Quarter


(NASDAQ: RDFN) - Twenty-one percent of Redfin.com users in the second quarter of 2017 searched mostly for homes outside the metro where they reside, slightly up from 20 percent in the first quarter, according to the latest migration report from Redfin (www.redfin.com), the next-generation real estate brokerage.

The Redfin Migration Report analyzed a sample of more than one million Redfin.com users searching for homes across 75 metro areas during the peak of the homebuying season from April through June. Redfin used IP addresses to identify the metros where home searchers likely reside and compared that to where users were searching for homes.

While 79 percent of Redfin.com home searchers looked to stay in their current metro, several key trends emerged among those looking to move to another metro:

  1. There continued to be significant migration within the state of California, with the most common search patterns being buyers looked to leave the Bay Area and Los Angeles, heading to Sacramento and San Diego.
  2. Several Rust Belt metros saw more than a quarter of local homebuyers looking at homes outside their metro with Chicago being the top destination.
  3. Metros in the South and the Sunbelt remained popular destinations for migrants from expensive coastal cities.
  4. Chicago, Boston and Seattle again had the highest share of residents looking to stay in their current metros.

"Home searches are early indicators of home sales. The migration patterns in our report closely correlate to actual purchases made by Redfin home-buying customers within and across metros," said Taylor Marr, a Redfin data scientist who conducted the underlying research.

"Buyers who can't afford a home in their current city are exploring what is available elsewhere," said Marr. "We are already seeing strong buyer demand and competition in mid-tier cities like Sacramento, Phoenix and Atlanta. As home searches evolve into purchase offers and home sales, we anticipate prices and competition will continue to grow in those markets."





 
Top 10 Metros by Net Outflow of Users and Their Top Destinations
Rank     Metro*     Net Outflow†    

Portion of Local
Users Searching
Elsewhere

    Top Destination    

Top Out-of-State
Destination

1     San Francisco, CA (News - Alert)     -16,913     18.80%     Sacramento, CA     Seattle, WA
2     New York, NY     -15,790     34.60%     Boston, MA     Boston, MA
3     Los Angeles, CA     -13,177     14.70%     San Diego, CA     Las Vegas, NV
4     Washington, DC     -5,571     10.50%     Philadelphia, PA     Philadelphia, PA
5     Chicago, IL     -2,631     7.90%     Los Angeles, CA     Los Angeles, CA
6     Denver, CO     -368     17.90%     Chicago, IL     Chicago, IL
7     Houston, TX     -354     24.20%     Austin, TX     Los Angeles, CA
8     Detroit, MI     -338     25.30%     Chicago, IL     Chicago, IL
9     Milwaukee, WI     -246     36.80%     Chicago, IL     Chicago, IL
10     Dayton, OH     -34     37.30%     Cincinnati, OH     Chicago, IL
*Combined statistical areas with at least 500 users in Q2 2017
†Among the one million users sampled for this analysis only
                   
                               
Top 10 Metros by Net Inflow of Users and Their Top Origins
Rank     Metro*     Net Inflow†    

Portion of
Searches from
Users Outside
the Metro

    Top Origin    

Top Out-of-State
Origin

1     San Diego, CA     5,233     29.40%     Los Angeles, CA     Seattle, WA
2     Sacramento, CA     4,831     35.30%     San Francisco, CA     Seattle, WA
3     Phoenix, AZ     3,975     31.40%     Los Angeles, CA     Los Angeles, CA
4     Las Vegas, NV     3,660     42.00%     Los Angeles, CA     Los Angeles, CA
5     Atlanta, GA     2,914     24.30%     New York, NY     New York, NY
6     Dallas, TX     2,112     21.10%     Los Angeles, CA     Los Angeles, CA
7     Tampa, FL     1,899     45.90%     Washington, DC     Washington, DC
8     Miami, FL     1,861     22.00%     New York, NY     New York, NY
9     Boston, MA     1,707     12.30%     New York, NY     New York, NY
10     Austin, TX     1,601     23.20%     San Francisco, CA     San Francisco, CA
*Combined statistical areas with at least 500 users in Q2 2017
†Among the one million users sampled for this analysis only
 

To read the full report, complete with an interactive data map of metro-to-metro migration trends and full methodology, please visit: https://www.redfin.com/blog/2017/08/migration-report-q2-2017.html.

About Redfin

Redfin (www.redfin.com) is the next-generation real estate brokerage, combining its own full-service agents with modern technology to redefine real estate in the consumer's favor. Founded by software engineers, Redfin has the country's #1 brokerage website and offers a host of online tools to consumers, including the Redfin Estimate, the automated home-value estimate with the industry's lowest published error rate for listed homes. Homebuyers and sellers enjoy a full-service, technology-powered experience from Redfin real estate agents, while saving thousands in commissions. Redfin serves more than 80 major metro areas across the U.S. The company has closed more than $50 billion in home sales.

For more information or to contact a local Redfin real estate agent, visit www.redfin.com. To learn about housing market trends and download data, visit the Redfin Data Center. To be added to Redfin's press release distribution list, subscribe here. To view Redfin's press center, click here.


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