Will the Rise of Remote Work Trigger a Post-Pandemic Migration?

States may be reopening, but one-in-four newly remote workers expect to continue to work from home, according to a Redfin survey. If more workers do go full-time remote, over half of the respondents say they would move. Redfin says that this may trigger an exodus away from expensive coastal cities as workers are free to move without losing their job. And even if workers only go part-time remote, the real estate company expects that workers will move to more affordable housing further away from urban centers even if it means a longer commute time--after all, they'd only be doing it a few times a week, keeping commute times steady. 

The sudden shift to remote work, brought on by the coronavirus shutdowns will accelerate a major migration away from expensive coastal cities. According to a new survey of homebuyers and sellers from Redfin, 1 in 4 newly-remote workers expect to continue to work remotely once shutdowns end, and over half of respondents would move if they never had to go into an office.

“Redfin is preparing for a seismic demographic shift toward smaller cities,” said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. “Prior to this pandemic, the housing affordability crisis was already driving people from large cities to small. Now, more permissive policies around remote work, and a rising wariness about close quarters, will likely accelerate that trend. We expect to see more people commuting once a week from Sacramento to San Francisco, from Tacoma to Seattle, from New Hampshire to Boston. Some won’t commute at all, choosing instead to work completely virtually from a small town, perhaps where their parents still live. The whole narrative of the past 200 years, of the young person moving to the big city, may turn a little upside down in the years ahead.”

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