At least three people in Jose Medina’s Sacramento neighborhood have moved there from the Bay Area in recent years. And those are just the ones he knows of. Medina, too, is a transplant — and since relocating from Oakland in 2021, he said he’s had an additional seven friends move to the city or its surrounding areas.
The Bay Area exodus may be mostly a myth, but the trend of people moving inland, leaving coastal metros in search of more space at better prices, is growing. There are more people moving to Sacramento from the Bay Area than anywhere else in the country, according to Redfin data. People moving from the Bay Area to Sacramento isn’t a new phenomenon, but COVID-19 sped up a process that experts say was inevitable, and it could have long-lasting effects on the state.
In 2020 alone, migration between San Francisco County and Sacramento County grew 70% from the previous year, a CBRE report concluded. The Sacramento region is projected to grow another 4% in the next 5 years, largely buoyed by this continued migration.
A home in the ‘city of trees’
Medina and his girlfriend were living in a one-bedroom condo in Oakland when the city shut down, forcing them to start working from home. They quickly realized they needed a larger home if they would be working remotely for the foreseeable future. “We started looking in the East Bay for spots and were met with everybody trying to do the same thing we were doing,” he said. “It was a very competitive market and everything was going well over asking — sometimes 50% over.”
A friend who had just moved to Sacramento invited them to visit and take a break from the hunt. “We quickly fell in love with Sacramento,” he said. “The culture, the city of trees, it is exactly what it is. It’s a town, but a city at the same time.”