Guess who wants to move to Sacramento? This map shows where housing refugees are searching
Who dreams of living in Sacramento? These days, it is often Bay Area residents looking to flee sky-high housing prices, according to an analysis of user searches on real estate site Zillow.com.
About 17.3 percent of recent Zillow searches for Sacramento metro homes originated from the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metro area. San Jose, Santa Rosa, Napa and Vallejo metro residents accounted for another 7 percent of searches for Sacramento homes, meaning that almost one of four Zillow searches for Sacramento homes originated in the Bay Area.
Bay Area transplants have historically pushed Sacramento metro home prices higher. Bay Area households tend to make more than Sacramento households. They can also potentially sell their small homes for a steep price — and buy a larger home in Sacramento.
A significant number of searches for Sacramento-area homes came from outside California. Residents of Seattle, Phoenix, Reno, New York City, Chicago, Portland and Washington, D.C. accounted for the highest proportion of out-of-state searches into Sacramento.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, some Sacramento residents want to leave and recently searched for homes outside the area.
Their search patterns were not as concentrated in one area; residents thinking of leaving were going to a multitude of different places, though areas nearby tended to most popular.
Sacramento residents thinking of moving outside the area were most likely to look in Fresno. Other relatively popular destinations were Reno, Stockton, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Bakersfield.
Phillip Reese is a data specialist at The Bee and teaches at Sacramento State: 916-321-1137.