MORE SAN DIEGANS LOOKING ONLINE FOR PLACES TO MOVE
Data show searches for places like Phoenix, Seattle, Las Vegas
You can’t beat San Diego’s weather, but you sure can beat its home prices.
San Diegans have been increasingly searching for places to move, said data from Redf in.com, and for the most par t are seeking out l ower-cost areas like Phoenix and L as Vegas, or less expensive sites in the state like Riverside County.
The Seattle-based homebuying website found 24.3 percent of users in the San Diego metropolitan area in the third quar ter were searching outside the area, compared to 18.8 percent at the same time last year.
Redf in lead economist Taylor Marr said a lot of the movement, according to San Diego
Redf in agents it sur veyed, has to do with local workers who can now do their jobs remotely and are in search of more affordable options.
“There are sig nif icantly more affordable homes they can f ind if they move far ther
away, or into Arizona,” he said.
The top out-of-state metro areas where San Diego searchers were looking were Phoenix (5.3 percent), Seattle (3.5 percent) and L as Vegas (3.2 percent).
It isn’t an exact science, in that these are only people searching for homes in other areas — not moving for cer tain. Two main reasons for daydreaming could be San Diego County’s rapidly climbing home prices — up 12 percent in a year — or something related to a job, such as being allowed to work from home or having lost a job because of COVID-related reasons.
Redf in put San Diego metro’s median sale price at $662,000 near the end of October. That compares to $337,000 in Phoenix, $634,000 i n Seattle and $319,000 in L as Vegas.
Redf in’s analysis of data factors out people who are not heavy searchers or who might be curious and just be searching for a celebrity ’s home. To be included in the dataset, a user of the website must have viewed at least 10 homes in a metro area and that area had to make up at least 80 percent of the user ’s searches.
San Diego isn’t alone in people looking to possibly move. Redf in found its website users across the United States — about 29.2 percent in the third quarter compared to 26.4 percent at the same time last year — were increasingly searching other places.
The places where people are the most content, according to Redf in data, were Chicago, Boston and Atlanta. All three were tied with around 12 percent of people looking to leave.
Of the biggest metros, people were most looking to leave New York City at 35.8 percent. It was f ollowed by Denver, which had 26.9 percent of searches outside the metro, and San Francisco at 25 percent.
Looking at Redf in data without j ust considering where people would like to move out of state can get a bit complicated. This often shows a lot of in-state movement from one county to another across many metros in the United States. For instance, San Diego’s top destination is Los Angeles, and Los Angeles’ top destination is San Diego.
Redf in used the rather large Los Angeles metropolitan area in its repor t, which i ncluded par ts of Riverside County. This could point to San Diegans moving east to lower-cost areas more so than shopping for homes in Beverly Hills.
This is similar to a 2018 analysis of Internal Revenue Ser vice data by The San Diego Union-Tribune that found the top destination for county residents was Riverside County.
Redf in showed the top destination for San Diego searchers — not isolated by only out-of-state searches — was Los Angeles metro at 38.9 percent. It was followed by Phoenix at 5.3 percent; San Francisco Bay Area at 4.3 percent; Seattle at 3.5 percent and L as Vegas at 3.2 percent.
Taylor said San Diego data show, f or the most par t, if people are looking to move it will most likely be relatively close.
People are researching moving to San Diego, just not as many as plan to leave. The biggest destination of incomers is Los Angeles metro at 47.5 percent. It is followed by the San Francisco Bay Area at 15.3 percent; Seattle at 4.9 percent; and Washing ton, D.C., at 3.6 percent.