Who surfs Portland real estate
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
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.