Slightly more residents of the local area appear to desire to get out of the D.C. region than there are those who want to get in, according to new data.
Third-quarter figures from Apartment List, which tracks online searches for apartments nationally, found for the third quarter of 2021 that 42.1 percent of those making a search from the Washington area were trying to find apartments elsewhere, while 38.6 percent of those who were looking for apartments in the Washington region were from elsewhere.
Across the nation, looking at the most populous 50 metro areas of the country, the region with the highest percentage of those trying to move in was San Jose, followed closely behind by Raleigh and New Orleans. Rounding out the top 10 were Richmond, Nashville, Louisville, Austin, Providence, San Antonio and San Diego.
On the other side of the coin, metro areas where the most people appeared to be trying to escape were Orlando, San Francisco and Charlotte. Rounding out the top 10 were Raleigh, San Jose, Austin, Boston, Hartford, Denver and Baltimore.
(The D.C. region and Baltimore seem to have a symbiotic relationship – of D.C. residents who want to leave, Baltimore is the most often searched location; of those trying to move into D.C., more come from Baltimore than any other metro area.)
San Jose, Raleigh and Austin made the top 10 in both lists, which makes them, in Apartment List’s terminology, “revolving-door communities.” In the case of San Jose, for instance, some are attracted to its work-from-home stance and want to move there, while others are put off by California’s taxes and cost of living and want to get out.
When it comes to California, it remains a “major exporter” of humanity, having lost 182,000 residents in 2020 based on demographic estimates.
The Apartment List study “indicates that this trend may be continuing,” said Rob Warnock, a senior research associate at the organization.
Where are Californians headed to? No surprise perhaps, it is relatively close to home – Nevada, Arizona, Oregon, Washington. Also on that list are Colorado, Texas and Hawaii.
In the New York metro area, which also is seeing some outflow, the top destination is perhaps no surprise either: Florida in general and the Miami area in particular.
• • •
For full data, see the Website at www.apartmentlist.com/research/2021-q3-renter-migration-report.