Stop us if you've heard this before: People are increasingly choosing affordable living in the suburbs over big-city living and amenities.
A surge in pandemic-driven remote work is mostly behind the shift in the last half decade, but rapidly rising average home ownership costs are equally to blame in recent years.
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Stagnant interest rates, tariff uncertainty and growing housing inventory across the U.S. continue to paint a hazy picture of what's next for the residential real estate market.
Still, who among us hasn't channeled our inner Wilson from “Home Improvement” and peeked over the proverbial Zillow, Redfin, or Realtor.com fence on occasion?
Prospective homebuyers still think the grass looks greener outside of big city limits
Realtor's recently released Q2 2025 cross-market demand report shows shoppers are browsing outside of their current market nearly 60% of the time.
That metric has grown from 48.1% of all listing views in Q2 2019 to 58.9% last quarter. That was down just a tick from 59.8% in Q1, though.
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Among the four major U.S. regions, residents in Western states are most guilty of peeking across city limits — 65% of the time — as has been the case for the trailing six years.
However, the Northeast isn't too far behind, as affordability in densely populated spots like Boston, Providence, and New York remain unsustainable for many.
Still, a major California city held claim to the highest percentage of residents ogling listings outside of where they currently call home.
Image source: Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/USA TODAY via Imagn Images
More than 9 in 10 San Jose, California, residents are looking for homes elsewhere
Digging into the data, Realtor.com's Q2 report pinpointed San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, California, as the No. 1 metro losing popularity among local residents.
A whopping 93.7% of home shoppers in the area are looking for their next residence outside of the metro.
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“Specifically, around 60% of views were to other parts of California, while nearly 35% targeted properties in other states,” Realtor's Jiayi Xu wrote. “The most popular in-state destination was San Francisco, while Reno, NV, led among out-of-state views.”
Located 50 miles southeast of San Francisco, San Jose's population sat just north of one million people in the most recent 2020 U.S. census, making it the 10th largest city in the U.S.
While this trend is eye-popping, this isn't exactly anything new, considering San Jose held down the top spot in the country in Q2 last year as well. The same holds true for the No. 2-ranked (with 86.4%) locale, Washington, D.C.
Rounding out the rest of the top 10 metros losing homebuyers' interest last quarter were Seattle (80.5%), Salt Lake City (77%), Stockton (72.9%), Durham/Chapel Hill (72.6%), Chicago (72.6%), Denver (72.1%), Boston (72%), and New York/Newark (71.7%).
Boston was the fast riser year-over-year, jumping from No. 26 to No. 9, all while Massachusetts' capital city also ranks No. 4 overall when zooming out over the past six years.
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