According to a new analysis from Redfin, 26% of the nation’s homebuyers are looking to move to a different part of the country, up slightly from 24% a year ago, and roughly 19% before the pandemic began.

Elevated mortgage rates still in excess of 7% have cooled the overall U.S. housing market, with fewer homes for sale and fewer buyers in the market. But a high portion of the homebuyers who are moving are relocating to different metro areas.

Redfin reports that there are 7% fewer users of its site looking to move away from their home metro than a year ago, compared to a 16.5% decline for those searching within their home metro.

Relocations are holding up better than in-metro moves, largely because homebuyers are searching for affordability, and remote work gives many Americans the freedom to move. Nine of the 10 most popular migration destinations have a lower median home-sale price than the most common origin of homebuyers moving in.

The most popular destination for relocating homebuyers recorded by Redfin was Sacramento, California, where the typical home sold for $575,000, nearly $1 million less than the typical home sold in San Francisco ($1,480,000), the most popular origin of buyers moving in. With a 7% mortgage rate–roughly the average for August–the monthly payment for the median-priced Sacramento home is $3,889, compared to $10,010 for the median-priced San Francisco home.

“Half of the buyers I’m working with are moving in from out of town, all but one from the Bay Area,” said Alison Williams, a Redfin Premier Agent in Sacramento. “Most of them are moving not necessarily because they cannot afford the Bay Area, but because they want a bigger home and better quality of life. They are searching for high-end homes with spacious yards where they can raise a family. I am also working with a few investors who are looking to buy a home here and rent it out for a few years before moving in themselves.”

After Sacramento, Las Vegas and three Florida metros–Orlando, North Port-Sarasota, and Tampa–are the most popular destinations for homebuyers looking to relocate.

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina climbed to number six after debuting on Redfin’s list of most popular destinations in July at ninth. Another Florida metro, Cape Coral, is also in the top 10.

Those metros listed above have a few things in common: They are more affordable than the most common origin of homebuyers moving in, and they face increasing climate risks. Sacramento and Las Vegas face severe heat risk, Orlando, North Port-Sarasota, Myrtle Beach, and Cape Coral face extreme wind/hurricane risk, while Tampa and Cape Coral are at extreme risk of flooding.

While research has shown that homebuyers consider climate risk when deciding where to live, affordability is often a more significant factor. A recent Redfin survey found that roughly 8% of U.S. residents likely to move within the next year are doing so because they are concerned about the impact of climate change on their previous area, compared with 22% moving for a lower cost of living.

Homebuyers are leaving San Francisco, New York, and Los Angeles more than any other metro in the country, based on net outflow, a measure of how many more Redfin.com users are looking to exit a metro than move in.

It is typical for expensive job centers to top the list of places homebuyers are moving away from, as those people seek more affordable housing. Homebuyers leaving Los Angeles, for instance, are most commonly moving to Las Vegas, where homes are half the price.

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Climate change does not appear to be affecting homebuyers’ decisions about where to buy homes Redfinas almost 400,000 more people moved to the most flood-prone counties than out of them in 2021 and 2022 – a 103% increase compared to 189,000 people moved to those areas in the previous two years.

The trend to move to disaster-prone areas has produced similar results in areas known to be prone to wildfires and extreme heat.

So why do people choose to move to these places? According to Redfin, the crisis in housing affordability, exacerbated by the pandemic-era home buying boom, led Americans to these disaster-prone areas.

According to a Redfin analysis of domestic migration data used US Census Bureau Data and climate risk values ​​from the First Street Foundation found that in counties with the highest risk of wildfires, 446,000 more people moved in than moved out in the last two years, a 51% increase from 2019 and 2020. And in counties with the highest risk of wildfire, 629,000 more people moved in than out, a 17% increase.

Redfin continued, saying remote working and record-low mortgage rates during the pandemic have prompted scores of Americans to leave expensive coastal cities like San Francisco and New York for the Sun Belt in search of cheaper housing, warm weather and/or lower taxes. States like Florida, Texas and Arizona have exploded in popularity despite rising risks from climate change from storms, droughts, wildfires and extreme heat.

“It’s human nature to focus on current benefits, such as water views or a low cost of living, rather than costs that could increase over the long term, such as property damage or a decline in property values,” said Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather. “It is also human nature to ignore risks that are difficult to measure, such as climate change.”

Disaster-prone areas are relatively affordable because homebuyers and renters have more choices of homes; Property developers and private individuals are increasingly building apartments in these areas due to the cheaper plots; According to a separate Redfin analysis, more than half (55%) of homes built so far this decade are at risk of fire, while 45% are at risk of drought. In comparison, only 14% of homes built between 1900 and 1959 are at risk of fire and 37% are at risk of drought. New homes are also at greater risk than older homes of being exposed to heat and flood risks.

“Many Americans are not yet fully aware of the consequences of climate change because homeowners and renters often don’t foot the entire bill when a disaster occurs,” Fairweather said. “Insurers and government programs often subsidize the costs of reconstruction after storms, and mortgages mean that homeowners assign a certain risk to the lenders – especially if their house is forced to compensate for a storm.” But since natural disasters intensify and insurers from disaster -endowed areas such as Florida and California may feel a greater feeling to alleviate the climate drives – especially if the value of your house threatens to decrease. ”

In addition, according to a recent Redfin survey, Redfin believes that nearly half (48.7%) of people who have moved in the last year believe that the increasing frequency or intensity of natural disasters, extreme temperatures and/or sea level rise are likely to impact home values ​​in their area over the next decade. Still, only about 5% of people who moved in the last year or plan to move in the next year cited climate change as the reason for their move.

Looking at one flood- and storm-prone state in particular — Florida — nearly 60,000 more people have moved to Lee County, Florida than have moved away in the last two years, after the country was devastated by Hurricane Ian last September. That’s the largest net inflow of the 306 high-flood-risk counties analyzed by Redfin, and represents an increase of about 65% from the previous two years.

Despite extensive data being available to the public, home builders continue to build and home buyers continue to buy. Greater Cape Coral has more than offset the storm-induced slump in new listings, and home sales have also picked up, according to a separate analysis by Redfin.

“The builders in Cape Coral haven’t stopped — they’re just building like nothing happened,” said local real estate agent Redfin Premier Isabel Arias-Squires. “This is mainly because the demand for new houses is high. Many people who moved to Florida from the Northeast or West during the pandemic are leaving, but are being quickly replaced by new people from other states. Some people definitely just want to be on the water and/or move here for family, weather or political reasons. The Cape is not slowing down.”

However, recent news could halt some of that growth as a number of home and mortgage insurers pull out of areas deemed unprofitable due to climate change. People are still moving to Florida, but they are leaving Louisiana, which has the highest concentration of high-risk homes.

Almost every home in Orleans Parish and Jefferson Parish — the areas including and surrounding New Orleans — is at high risk of flooding. In both countries, about 15,000 more people emigrated than in the last two years, adding to the emigrations of the previous two years.

“The rise in home insurance rates across Louisiana means people have less money to spend to buy a home, reducing their spending power,” local real estate agent Redfin Premier said jes menes. “Increased insurance costs are also prompting some landlords to raise rents, making housing more expensive for renters.”

The same trends can be seen in fire-prone areas in California, Utah, and Arizona; Nearly 40,000 more people have moved to Riverside County, California than have left in the past two years.

Fairweather has its own history of climate migration. She left Seattle in 2020 to escape smoke from the wildfires and moved to Wisconsin. It was smoke-free for the first few years she was there, but this June it was hit with four days of noxious smoke from wildfires in Canada.

“There’s no place to hide,” Fairweather said. “Every place on planet Earth will have to deal with the effects of climate change. While the Midwest is spared from sea level rise, it still faces the threat of storms, heat waves and drought.”

Click here to view the entire report.

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