Who surfs Portland real estate

Seattle and California residents seem especially interested in moving to Portland.

Driving the news: Californians make up the largest share of people searching for Portland real estate from outside the metro area, according to Zillow data from the first three months of this year.

• Seattle accounts for the largest share of people searching from a single metro area outside Portland.

Why it matters: Most pre-pandemic moves were motivated by job changes; now, housing affordability is driving cross-state relocations, experts say.

Of note: Two-thirds of people looking at Portland real estate on Zillow are already in Portland, according to the page view data.

Zoom in: Excluding Portlanders, views of Portland listings from California's four biggest cities — Los Angeles, San Diego, San Jose and San Francisco — add up to almost 43% of the total.

Context: Looking is different than moving, though. "We're seeing a big pullback in migration right now," Redfin deputy chief economist Taylor Marr tells Axios.

• It's simply too expensive for most people to buy at the moment. Across the U.S., the number of Redfin users searching for homes within their metro is down 18% from a year ago, per a June report.
• Meanwhile, the number of users surfing listings in a new area dropped 7%.

The intrigue: The high cost of housing in Portland is also driving people away.

• A recent survey of 5,000 Portlanders found 37% of people who left the city in the last five years moved to find a more affordable home.