Pandemic migration: Many moving from the largest cities and seeking homes in Sacramento

After being sent home en masse amid the coronavirus pandemic, many homeowners are considering uprooting and settling down someplace new.

And thousands of them are considering a move to Sacramento, according to data published by brokerage firm Redfin in July. Sacramento is the No. 2 destination in the country for home searchers considering relocating to a new city, following Phoenix, the report said.

Redfin’s analysis was based on a sample of more than 1 million site users searching for homes across 80 metro areas in April in May, excluding searches that were unlikely to precede an actual purchase. The net inflow of people looking to move into the Sacramento area was nearly 9,000 Redfin.com users; 46 percent of the total searches for homes in Sacramento were from outside of the area.

The top origin of these searches was the San Francisco metro area. And local Redfin agent Kellee Davis, who moved to Sacramento from the Bay Area seven ago, said these searches are translating into buyers willing to take the plunge.

“Most of the homebuyers I meet are moving into town from other places because Sacramento gives them the best bang for their buck,” said Davis. “In the Bay Area, the size, quality and land that comes with properties don’t come close to what they can get for moving just an hour and a half away.

“While I haven’t noticed an uptick in telecommuters from the Bay Area looking to move in, I have seen a lot of folks moving in because of job opportunities in Sacramento and nearby Davis, particularly in healthcare at Kaiser and UC Davis,” she added. “Though some of my clients are concerned about the uncertainty of the market in the near future, they’re still willing to take the risk because they realize low mortgage rates make this a great time to buy rather than rent.”

This comes as a record 27 percent of home searchers looked to move to another metro area in April and May 2020, up from 25.2 percent in the second quarter of 2019 and 26 percent in this year’s first quarter, Redfin said.

Analysts said this may be due to the coronavirus pandemic, as many workers consider moving to smaller cities and suburbs with more room to work from home and less crowding than large urban areas.

The places searchers are looking to leave generally stayed the same as before the pandemic hit the United States; New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles had the biggest outflow of Redfin.com users in April in May.

Some Bay Area-based tech companies have announced that some employees will be able to work from home indefinitely, including Facebook, Twitter and Slack. Google announced employees would have the option to work from home until at least summer 2021.

“As more companies follow in the footsteps of Facebook, Twitter and Slack in announcing permanent remote work policies, some tech workers are moving to different parts of the country — but most of them have other reasons to stay put, like friends, family and culture,” said Redfin economist Taylor Marr.

Prior to the pandemic, census data showed that 36,000 residents of greater Sacramento physically commute to the Bay Area for work. But now, local business recruiters are encouraging Bay Area tech workers to move here and work from home.

This story was originally published August 7, 2020 at 2:56 PM.