【World Property Journal】U.S. Homebuyers Migrating Away from Large Coastal Cities in 2021

According to new CoreLogic data, U.S. homebuyers relocating to another metro were often choosing metros that are either adjacent to their current location, had a lower cost of living, or both.

Homebuyers continued to seek affordable metros adjacent to their current place of residence. This is a trend that was observed in prior years and has persisted during the pandemic.

CoreLogic reports large coastal metros had higher outbound homebuying activity. New York experienced the highest net out-migration of homebuyers among all the metros over the last year, followed by Los Angeles, San Francisco and San Jose. The net out vs. in ratio was higher in all the top ten metros compared to the same period in 2019.

For each incoming home-purchase application to New York, there were almost six potential homebuyers moving out of New York in 2020 (ratio of 5.7 in 2020 compared to 4.2 in 2019). New York lost a good share of its potential homebuyers to affordable neighboring metros, such as Philadelphia, Bridgeport, Poughkeepsie and Allentown, and warmer metros, such as Miami, Atlanta, Tampa and Charlotte. It is important to note, 81% of New York based potential homebuyers stayed in New York.

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