People are fleeing California. Here's where they're plotting to move to.
- California had a net outflow of nearly 350,000 residents between 2021 and 2022, the census found.
- San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego residents are looking to move to Las Vegas and Seattle, Redfin found.
The Golden State may be losing some of its shimmer.
Some parts of California are losing residents due to the high cost of living, politics, and crime.
More than 800,000 people moved out of California between 2021 and 2022, according to the US Census Bureau. After subtracting the number of people who moved in, California lost almost 350,000 residents.
Bob Giramma, a 63-year-old business owner, moved away from San Diego and landed in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, a town 30 miles southeast of Nashville. Giramma was looking for a quieter and cheaper lifestyle outside of California.
"We weren't tied to any community, so we looked for a place that was more aligned with the forward path for us," Giramma told Business Insider. "California was not aligned with that. Tennessee is."
Popular moving destinations for Californians include Texas, Arizona, and Florida. Other favored states for ex-Californians are Oregon and Colorado.
Now residents of some of the most populous cities in California — Los Angeles, San Diego, and San Francisco — are eyeing other cities, according to home-listings site Redfin, which tracks where its users are house-hunting. Redfin analyzed the number of Redfin.com users who viewed for-sale homes from August 2023 to October 2023 to "measure the share of homebuyers looking to relocate from one metro to another."
San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego all appeared on Redfin's latest list of the top 10 metropolitan areas homebuyers are looking to leave — and California was the only state with multiple cities on the list.
People looking to move out of San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, Redfin additionally found, are most often searching for homes in Las Vegas and Seattle.
Seattle was the most popular out-of-state destination for San Franciscans, most likely due to its also-vibrant tech scene, while Las Vegas was attractive for both Los Angeles and San Diego movers.
According to the Census Bureau, Washington state and Nevada attracted 49,968 and 48,836 Californians, respectively, between 2021 and 2022. Millennials, especially, are choosing Seattle. Census data shows that 93,302 millennials moved to Seattle in 2022.
Las Vegas appeals to relocators, at least in part, because of its lower home prices and Nevada's lack of income tax, according to local real-estate agent Andrew Arevalo, who also told Business Insider he's seen many Californians choose Las Vegas.
"I feel like Vegas is the new Colorado," Arevalo told Business Insider. "It has shifted from Denver getting a lot of people from out of town to Vegas. It has now officially taken over."