Affordability concerns influenced a consumer's decision to search for a home in a different city, a Redfin study found.
During the second quarter, 21% of Redfin.com users searched for a home outside of the market where they live, up from
The second-quarter search data revealed an emerging migration pattern as home seekers shifted their search to lower-cost, second-tier markets and away from expensive coastal cities.
"Buyers who can't afford a home in their current city are exploring what is available elsewhere," said Taylor Marr, a data scientist for Redfin. "We are already seeing strong buyer demand and competition in midtier 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."
Redfin looked at activity in 75 metro areas between April and June, using the searcher's IP address to identify their location.
The San Francisco metro area had the largest difference in net outflow, which means the number of people in the location looking for a home in another city was greater than those from elsewhere looking at that locale.
There were 16,913 more San Francisco residents that looked at listings in another city than those than considered moving to the Bay Area.
Sacramento was the favorite search point for Bay Area residents and the California capital had the second largest net inflow (the opposite of net outflow) overall.
Sacramento's median sale price was $376,000 in June, according to Redfin. For comparison, the median sale price in San Francisco was $1.25 million.
The next largest net outflow was from New York, at 15,790, followed by Los Angeles at 13,177.
San Diego had the largest net inflow with 5,233 more out of towners looking to move there than people considering leaving. Sacramento's net inflow was 4,831, followed by Phoenix, with 3,975.
Los Angeles was the top out-of-town origin point for people looking at homes in San Diego, Phoenix, Los Vegas and Dallas.
The city with the largest percentage of residents searching for a home to buy that already lived there was Chicago, at 92.1%. Boston was next at 91.7%, with Seattle third at 90%.
