The San Francisco exodus is over

Brian Castro had to leave San Francisco.

Last year, when the pandemic raged, he fled Outer Sunset to a cabin on the scenic Olympic Peninsula near Seattle. “I was trapped in my apartment and, like many people, went crazy,” he said.

But with lockdown restrictions lifted, events returning, and friends ready to hang out again, Castro packed his car and drove back to the Bay Area this week.

“Now that things are opening up again, I’m really excited to be back in town and seeing all of my friends,” he said.

He is not alone.

Net migration of people leaving San Francisco has fallen to pre-pandemic levels, according to United States Postal Service address data analyzed by The Chronicle.

After a monthly peak loss of almost 7,000 households was achieved last August – calculated from the number of withdrawing households minus immigration – net emigration fell to just over 1,400 households in May and around 1,600 in June, the lowest losses since March 2019 May also marked the first time the number fell below 2,000 in 15 months.

The data includes permanent moves only, and USPS excludes monthly moves from one zip code to another when the total moves are 10 or less. The net migration statistics for large cities are generally negative because the USPS has restrictions on the way USPS reports changes to address information.

Castro had considered staying in Washington, but missed the city’s energy.

He lost his tech job a month after the pandemic when his former company laid off a third of its employees. He is now working part-time for a startup but is looking for a new job in San Francisco.

San Francisco’s population contracted 1.4% between July 1, 2019 and July 1, 2020, the second largest decline in the country according to census data. However, according to an analysis by UC Berkeley that concluded there was no exodus from California, about two-thirds of residents who left the country stayed in the Bay Area.

The city is attracting more new residents as the economy recovers. The San Francisco and San Mateo counties created 17,200 jobs in June, the highest level in a year, although the region is still 100,000 below its February 2020 level.

While the city is seeing fewer net moves overall than during the pandemic and even in 2019, its monthly “churn rate” – the total number of people moving in or out of the city – has largely increased this year. For example, in April of this year, around 18,500 households applied for a change of address to or from the city, compared to just 13,300 in April 2020 and 14,500 in April 2019.

Anusha Datar recently moved to San Francisco after graduating from college in Massachusetts.

Datar works at Meter, an internet hardware startup, and enjoys working in the office.

San Francisco “made sense to me as an engineer. The energy here, the people to meet and the people to work with, that’s pretty great, ”she said. “It was exciting and energetic.”

The downside of a livelier city is a more expensive market for renters. San Francisco rents have increased 17% since January, but remain 14% lower than in March 2020, according to Apartment List.

Datar looked at 15+ apartments while trying to get a lease around the Mission, Potrero Hill or the Hayes Valley.

“The competition is definitely back,” she said.

Roland Li and Susie Neilson are contributors to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: roland.li@sfchronicle.com, susan.neilson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rolandlisf, @susieneilson