Relatively affordable housing markets in the Sun Belt and cities with major job growth are attracting many outbound coastal Californians seeking relief from ballooning housing costs.
Looking at San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles, and San Diego, Trulia used data from the first half of 2016 to evaluate where these Californians were looking to buy, and where they ended up moving. Phoenix, New York, and Las Vegas had the highest shares of coastal California migrants, from seven to 8.1 percent, respectively, and were the top three most-searched out-of-state metros by coastal Californians. The study showed no signs of a "mass exodus" of coastal Californians, as the inbound and outbound ratios were mostly in balance.
If people were anticipating leaving in droves, we would expect to see a decreasing inbound to outbound ratio. This appears to be the case in San Diego going back to early 2017. However, with San Francisco, San Jose, and Los Angeles we simply do not see that sort of drop in searches. A steady number of people are still looking in and keeping that ratio fairly constant. With the net number of inbound to outbound searches remaining relatively steady, high cost living in California is likely not going anywhere soon.
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