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Journal
COVID-19
DRIVING
SUBURBAN
MIGRATION
According to a recent Redfin report, July
found a surge of homebuyers looking to leave
expensive cities for more rural, inland locales.
e current COVID-19 pandemic has taken
its toll in many ways, among which includes
how it has affected the housing migration.
A growing trend finds home buyers fleeing
the expensive coastal cities like San Francisco
and New York in search of more affordable
areas. According to Redfin, over one quarter
(27.8%) of Redfin.com users reported wanting
to relocate to another metro area during the
month of July.
Experts are pointing directly to the
increased number of people now working
remotely (most from their own homes) as
being a huge catalyst for this desire to move
away from cities with sky-high costs of
living and cramped density, thus downsizing
their expenses and (hopefully) increasing
their space and house size due to greater
affordability in greener pastures.
Veronica Clyatt, a Redfin agent in
Pleasanton, California, which is not far from
one of the main cities responsible for this
mass exodus (San Francisco), commented on
this current (and growing) trend: "People who
can work remotely are reexamining where
they want to live, and for most of them that
means they're looking at places that are less
expensive. I've had buyers drop out of their
search in the Bay Area because they're moving
to Sacramento or Texas, and I've had people
moving over to Pleasanton because it's less
expensive than San Francisco. Everyone wants
a bigger house and a bigger yard, and they
want to pay less. A lot of people moving away
from the Bay Area have had it in the pipeline
for a while, and remote work is accelerating
the process."
As to where people are looking to move,
among the most popular picks, according to
Redfin data, include Sacramento, Phoenix,
and Las Vegas, respectively. Within each of
these three desired locales, an average home
can still be nabbed for less than half a million
($475,000).
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