About 30.2% of homebuyers across the country were looking to move to a different metro area, according to Redfin data from the third quarter of 2021.
The analysis, based on the search pattern of 3.3 million Redfin.com users across the country, showed homebuyers are looking to relocate outside their home area has gradually dipped from a peak of 31.5% in the first quarter of 2021 — although still significantly higher than the 25.6% that looked to relocate in the third quarter of 2019. Redfin zeroed in on homebuyers most likely to relocate, with users only classified as seriously looking to relocate if they have viewed at least 10 homes in a particular metro area outside of their own and those searches comprised at least 80% of their searches. “We expect Americans to continue relocating at a higher rate than they did before the coronavirus pandemic,” said Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr in the report. “As employers fight to retain talent during the ongoing labor shortage, they’ll face mounting pressure to introduce permanent flexible-work policies that will give more workers the option to move where they want. We’re also starting to see a resurgence in demand for vacation homes, which could help sustain the relatively high rate of house hunters searching outside their home metro.”
The biggest destinations for homebuyers looking to move include Miami, Phoenix, Sacramento, Las Vegas and Tampa.
In Sacramento, 41.7% of Redfin.com user searches came from outside the metro area in the third quarter, although that was down from 50% a year earlier. The top location people interested in Sacramento were searching from was San Francisco, as workers seek to capitalize on more affordable areas and remote work. “We’re not seeing as many buyers in Sacramento as we were at the height of the pandemic, but most of the buyers I do work with are still coming from the Bay Area,” said Sacramento Redfin real estate agent Dawn Marie Brown. “Remote work has become the norm for a lot of people —especially Silicon Valley tech workers — so they’re moving here to take advantage of the scenic countryside and high-quality schools.” In Miami, about 32.3% of the searches came from users outside the metro area, and the top location of them came from New York City. In Phoenix, about 35.1% of the searches came from users outside the metro area, with the top location being Los Angeles, according to Redfin. The cities with the net most Redfin.com users looking to leave — after subtracting those looking to relocate to those cities — include San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Washington D.C. The top destination for those looking to leave D.C. is Salisbury, Maryland, according to Redfin.
But the current hot housing market might be driven less by the pandemic than by long-term demographic trends, at least according to a recent study. Despite millennials being the biggest single generation in the housing market, buyers are increasingly older, which pits older Americans with access to equity and higher salaries near the end of their careers with millennials interested in purchasing their own homes.
Single-family homes are also less affordable across the country than at any point in the last 13 years. About 75% of counties across the country are less affordable than the historical average during the third quarter of 2021, according to data from national property database Attom Data Solutions LLC. That’s up from 56% of counties in the third quarter of 2020 and marks the worst rate since 2008.
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