Outbound Home Buyer Migration Reaches Record High in U.S.

According to Redfin, twenty-six percent of U.S. home searchers looked to move to another metro area in the third quarter of 2019, up from 25 percent the year before. This is a new all-time high for the national share of home-searchers looking to relocate, likely driven by those leaving expensive metros in search of more affordable homes. The latest migration analysis is based on a sample of more than 1 million Redfin.com users who searched for homes across 87 metro areas from July through September. After two quarters at the top of our list of metro areas with the highest net inflow of Redfin users, Phoenix fell to number three in the rankings in the third quarter, passed by Boston at number one and Sacramento at number two. A net inflow means more people are looking to move in than leave, while a net outflow means there are more people looking to leave than people looking to move in.