Nearly 3 in 5 buyers looking for homes outside their city 

While home sales have waned during this year's sluggish market, new data indicates the share of shoppers widening their home search as they consider relocating has increased.

The percentage of home shoppers searching online for homes in metro areas different from where they live in was 58.9% in the second quarter of 2025, according to Realtor.com's Cross-Market Demand Report, which assessed data from the 100 largest U.S. metros.

Though down slightly from a year ago, that share was up from 48.1% during the pre-pandemic days of 2019, a sign that affordability challenges are forcing more to cast a wider net as they search for a new home.

Time to leave the big city? Large cities topped the list of out-of-market searches, according to the report. San Jose, California, had the highest share, with a staggering 93.7% of shoppers looking for homes elsewhere — and over one-third of that activity focused outside California. The Washington, D.C., metro area had the second-highest share at 86.4%, followed by Seattle (80.5%) and Salt Lake City (77%).

In the case of San Jose, the average home value exceeds $1.4 million, according to Zillow data, suggesting homeowners facing affordability challenges who are looking to cash out have pushed these kinds of out-of-market searches.

"Affordability remains a primary driver of home searches, but evolving workplace policies, job opportunities and shifting local conditions also play a role," Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale said in a news release.

"Despite the year-over-year step back, Americans continue to take a broader view of where they can live, often looking beyond their current metro areas in hopes of stretching their dollar and improving their lifestyle," Hale added.

Boomtowns lose their luster: Several cities that saw higher demand during the pandemic are now seeing more people considering leaving in the wake of home price spikes and return-to-office mandates.

In McAllen, Texas, a city that attracted buyers with its low cost of living in 2019 but has since faced an uptick in unemployment, the out-of-market search share increased 30 percentage points in the past six years as home prices rose. That trend was also true in Phoenix, Chicago, and Spokane, Washington, as each metro's popularity among locals plummeted.

Some metros buck the trend: A few metros have seen declines in out-of-market searches over the past six years. Portland, Oregon, led the way with a 9.8 percentage point decline, followed by San Francisco (down by 5.9 percentage points) and Houston (down by 4 percentage points).

While unemployment did rise in those areas in the years since 2019, recent improvements in affordability and quality of life amenities "may be helping retain residents," the report suggested.