California Population Migration Trends

Selected Angles on California Population Migration

Per a recent California Association of Realtors member survey, the percentage of sellers moving out of state has been increasing (first chart below), and the number of sellers purchasing new homes in the same county has been dropping (second chart).

The most recent census numbers on state-to-state migration - which are for 2019 - just came out in November 2020. 2020 migration numbers relating to the pandemic will not be available until late 2021. But where people came from and left for in 2020 was probably quite similar to the locations in 2019, for many of the same reasons - as discussed further in this report.

Moving truck statistics (like web-search statistics) don't really qualify as hard, specific data, but these indicators correlate well with the hard data available, such as that from the U.S. census.

Even when domestic state-to-state out-migration from California figures continued to climb, large numbers of foreign arrivals into the state kept the net CA migration numbers positive - i.e. more people were arriving than leaving. But in recent years, with domestic policies, the pandemic, and other issues, foreign migration and home-buying has been rapidly declining. Whether net migration - domestic and foreign - have now turned negative in 2020 is still unknown, as such census figures are not yet available.