Relocations from San Francisco to Texas, Florida jumped between 32% and 46% in 2020
Moves from San Francisco to Texas and Florida increased 32% and 46%, respectively, new research shows.
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated migration in the US in 2020 compared to 2019, but especially from large urban areas like San Francisco and New York to Sunbelt Metro cities like Austin, Dallas and Charlotte. This is according to a study published March 31 by the CBRE real estate group, citing data from the US Postal Service.
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“Affordability is a major driver of movement between the expensive coastal markets and the cities of the sunbelt,” said Eric Willett, CBRE research director and author of this research report, to Fox Business. “Cities like Charlotte, Dallas, and Austin have long been the recipients of significant immigration from major metropolitan areas, but the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated that flow of people in 2020.”
A summary of the study notes that anecdotal evidence suggests that many of those “who left these cities could return once the pandemic is over”.
An interactive map shows moves from the San Francisco Statistical Subway Area (MSA) to Texas increased 32.1% from 6,445 address changes in 2019 to 8,114 in 2020. The MSA in Dallas-Fort Worth saw transplants from San Francisco increase 34.5% MSA from 1,966 moves in 2019 to 2,644 in 2020. The MSA in Austin saw a 31.9% increase from 2,448 moves from San Francisco in 2019 to 3,230 in 2020.
San Francisco MSA to Florida moves also increased 46.2% from 2,823 moves in 2019 to 4,126 moves in 2020. MSA in Miami saw MSA transplants in San Francisco increase 49.4% from 1,190 moves in 2019 to 1,778 removals in 2020.
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In Sacramento County, the number of residents moving from San Francisco County increased 70% in 2020, according to the summary.
“Among the 30 largest US metros, Sacramento saw the largest year-over-year improvements in net collections, much of it from nearby San Francisco,” the researchers wrote. “In 2020, Sacramento grew 0.3 per 1,000 people, a significant improvement from the 3.2 loss in 2019.”
However, the researchers find that moving out of San Francisco only affected 1% of the subway area’s population, and most moves were from large urban areas to other nearby areas.
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“Young, affluent, and well-educated people” led most moves from urban areas, partly due to the fact that most jobs can be done remotely, CBRE noted, citing changes in postcode compared to demographics ESRI LifeMode groups.
A person wearing a protective mask walks in front of the skyline on Bernal Heights Hill amid the coronavirus pandemic in San Francisco on Monday, December 7, 2020. (AP Photo / Jeff Chiu)
“Most LifeMode groups saw minor changes in movement over the past year. However, the demographic cohort known as ‘Uptown Indiviauls’ (young, well-educated city dwellers) was a significant outlier,” the researchers found. “The propensity of this cohort to move increased by almost 10 percentage points in 2020, with four out of ten households changing their address, in 2019 around three out of ten.”
According to the state’s Treasury Department, released in December, around 135,600 people left California when they moved in in 2020. This is the third largest migration loss in the state’s history. Only 21,200 people moved to the state between July 2019 and July 2020.
The growth rate for 2020 was 0.05% after 0.23% in the previous year, making it the slowest growth rate in its history.
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The average home price in California hit $ 700,000 for the first time in August 2020 – a 14.5% increase from August 2019 when the average home price was $ 617,410, according to the California Association of Realtors.
The average home price in Texas rose 12.6% year over year to $ 277,900 in January, researchers at Texas A & M’s Real Estate Research Center found. Median single-family home prices in Florida rose 16% from 2019 to $ 314,900 in 2020, according to the Florida Realtors Research Department.
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Several large California companies, including Oracle and Hewlett Packard Enterprise, moved their headquarters to Texas in 2020, and Tesla’s Elon Musk moved to Houston in December. Some have referred to the pattern as a “tech exodus” because technology companies allowed employees to work remotely.
Tech executives including Palantir chairman Peter Thiel and former PayPal executive Keith Rabois recently moved to Miami when the city’s mayor Francis Suarez tried to lure big tech gamers to South Florida. Suarez called Miami “the capital of crypto” and “the capital of capital” in two separate Tuesday tweets.
