One of the first narratives around housing and the pandemic was that people—especially on the coasts, or in densely populated urban areas—were moving more often and further than ever before, fleeing the dangers of Covid and pursuing the benefits of remote work. That has largely been confirmed over the last couple years, with data showing increases in both the numbers of movers, and the average distance they traveled.
But in 2023, the more pertinent question is: was this a passing trend, or should we expect more similar migration patterns to continue indefinitely?
Riordan Frost, writing in a new paper for the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, says that so far, the answer appears to be no.
“More people did move during the pandemic—at least, parts of the pandemic,” Frost said. “The available data indicate that there was a spike in moves both at the onset of the pandemic and in early 2021. By the end of 2021 and throughout 2022, however, mobility rates resumed their long-term decline and fell for almost everyone, with a few exceptions.”
Drawing on census data, Frost found a few surprising data points, but largely confirmed what most people in real estate already knew about the pandemic—that a huge number of people fled cities and coastal states, ending up mostly in quieter areas.
In fact, 85% of the largest U.S. metros lost population through domestic migration in 2021, up from 76% in 2019. Almost two-thirds (63%) of counties outside of metro areas had net gains of domestic migration, up from 38% the year before the pandemic.
Regionally, however, there were a few surprises. New England—not the first place that comes to mind as a destination for so-called “Covid refugees—” saw significant inflows, at least in rural areas, with Maine and New Hampshire benefitting the most. A handful of Midwest states also drew movers during the last couple years, with Missouri and Indiana boasting the highest net gains of around 10,000 in 2021.
Another surprising statistic: overall mobility rates actually continued their long-term decline between 2019 and 2021, as an increase in interstate moves and moves by high earners and homeowners was offset by a decrease in intrastate moves, and moves by renters.
But unsurprisingly, Florida and Arizona saw some of the biggest net gains—a staggering 221,000 for Florida in a single year. Mountain West states—anecdotally major destinations for Silicon Valley tech workers—also saw big influxes of people, between 25,000 and 50,000 for Utah, Idaho and Nevada.
Back to the old normal
Frost’s analysis of more recent data, however, provides more of a forward-looking picture of moving (and housing) trends. Specifically looking at change-of-address requests made through the United States Postal Service, Frost found that permanent moves fell below pre-pandemic levels at the end of 2021, and continued throughout 2022.
“In total, there were 31.7 million permanent change-of-address requests in 2019, which rose by less than 1% to 32.0 million in 2020, fell by 4% to 30.7 million in 2021 and fell by 10% more to 27.8 million in 2022,” Frost writes.
Temporary change-of-address requests spiked much harder at the beginning of the pandemic—up 188% in March 2020, compared to March 2019. That fell off even more quickly, falling to pre-pandemic rates before the end of the year, according to Frost.
Frost also notes that the mobility rates among demographics that are widely seen as the most likely or able to move—homeowners, high earners and young people—increased only fractionally during the pandemic.
Drawing on two different census estimates, Frost found that the highest quartile earners saw their mobility rate grow from 10.3% to 10.5% in 2022. People aged 18-24 actually dropped a full percentage point, from 24.1% to 23.1%. And homeowners moved from 4.9% mobility to 5.1% during that time period.
Moves between states only rose by a fraction—2.1% to 2.2%, with the vast majority of moves still happening with the same state—even though those moves fell overall, from 10.2% to 9.3%. Oddly, older folks—people 55-64—saw a slight increase in mobility between 2019 and 2021, according to one census survey, rising from 4.5% to 4.8%, defying the narrative that seniors stayed put during the pandemic.
A lot of these trends, including the move away from cities and an overall decrease in mobility rates among young people and renteres, were already ongoing before the pandemic. With only relatively modest changes for the groups who were most affected by the seismic shifts of the pandemic, Frost writes there is no strong evidence to indicate a permanent change in how people move, and where they want to live.
“The paradigm-shifting nature of the pandemic makes it hard to assess whether and how mobility patterns will change in coming years,” he said. “There are many factors that imply a continued decline in mobility rates overall, but the effects of new work and home arrangements on residential mobility may also take years to fully materialize.”
