As soon as Once more, Information Exhibits Pandemic Exodus Has Swung the Different Means and Everybody’s Transferring Again to SF
Postal services data shows migration to and from the city has returned to pre-pandemic levels, but many people are still moving around, with more moves overall than in 2019.
Back in January we saw pieces like one in the New York Times that hit the headline, “You can’t get out of the Bay Area fast enough,” but by May it became clear that the trend was returning as more and more technicians and others got you Fed up of nomadic life and wishing they could be back in Dolores Park / shop in the Ferry Building / shiver on Ocean Beach. We know this primarily from data from the United States Postal Service (USPS) showing people’s address change requests. For some reason, there is always net churn due to the limitations of this data, but as the Chronicle reports today, that net number is back roughly where it was before the coronavirus turned our lives upside down.
The highest monthly net loss of people came in August 2020, according to the USPS, when there were 7,000 more address changes for people leaving SF than people moving in. The net outflow in June 2021 was 1,600, just above the 1,400 in May, which roughly corresponds to the 1,500 net outflows in March 2020. And this flow of traffic back into the city is reflected in the apartment rents, which rose by a further 4% in the last month, but still around 20% below the previous month pandemic levels, per socket site. (ApartmentList says rents are currently 14% below March 2020 levels.)
New college graduate Anusha Datar, who just moved here from Boston, tells the Chronicle that “the competition is definitely back” when it comes to finding a home, and has already visited 15 locations in her chosen neighborhoods, to get a lease.
BART is still running on a fraction of its pre-pandemic passenger numbers, but that could change when they finally return to a more normal timetable and train frequency in August.
The Chronicle has been calling the Exodus tale bullshit for months and is using USPS data to debunk the popular narrative. Between March and November last year, they found that a small percentage of households in five Bay Area counties, 3.7%, were applying for a change of address. And the vast majority of them, 72%, moved within the Bay Area so they didn’t get very far.
Still, there are a lot of people on the way. The postal service determines that the “churn rate” or the total number of people entering and leaving San Francisco equals. Almost 20,000 households moved into or out of the city in June, compared with around 17,500 in June 2019. In April of this year there were 18,500, around 4,000 more than in the same month of 2019.
Related: New York Times Editors Delight Against Bay Area Exodus Headline
Photo: Ameer Basheer
