San Francisco Is Making a Comeback as Fewer Residence Consumers Are Leaving for Different Metros

Far fewer home buyers are leaving the San Francisco Bay Area than they were during the height of the pandemic, a report from Redfin showed on Tuesday.

When Covid hit the U.S. and office workers were forced to work remotely, people left San Francisco in droves, flocking to metro areas with lower costs of living. But now, as many Bay Area tech companies return to in-office work, home buyers are leaving the area at a slower rate.

In the fourth quarter of 2023, the net outflow of home buyers was down 13% annually, according to Redfin. Additionally, the number of buyers looking to leave the Bay Area was down almost 50% from the September 2021 peak of the pandemic-driven moving boom. 

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“The news says it’s a ghost town, but restaurant reservations at foodie hot spots are impossible to get, and Dolores Park is packed on the weekend with residents and tourists,” Ali Mafi, a San Francisco Redfin Premier agent, said. “With the big boom in AI and many tech companies requiring in-person work, San Francisco is as alive as ever. Homes are getting multiple offers, and I see the market getting more competitive as the year goes on.”

The Bay Area fell below Los Angeles to No. 2 on the list of metros home buyers nationwide are looking to leave during the fourth quarter, marking the first quarter in more than two years that it wasn’t in the No. 1 spot. This list is determined by new outflow, which Redfin defines as the measure of how many more home buyers are looking to leave a metro area than move to it.

The slowing net outflow of home buyers in the San Francisco area is partially due to a number of residents choosing to stay put, especially as major tech companies, like Apple, Google and Meta, are requiring their workers to return to office, according to the report. 

At the height of pandemic remote work, many Bay Area home buyers left for the more affordable areas of Sacramento and Austin, Texas—last quarter, the flow of buyers moving from San Francisco to those two metros dropped about 25% year over year. 

In addition, San Francisco home prices have dropped ever so slightly—the median sale price is still about $1.3 million, near its lowest level since early 2019.