New York, D.C. top the list of places Philly renters are looking to move to, report finds

New York, Washington, and Cincinnati top the list of places Philadelphia renters looking to leave the city are eyeing, according to a new housing tracker report.

The nationwide study from Apartment List, which analyzed search queries, also found that more than 30% of users searching from Philadelphia were looking to leave the city. The study looked at searches from more than a million users registered on Apartment List, but did not say how many of them were based in Philadelphia.

At the same time, the report found that Apartment List users who lived in D.C. and New York were considering moving to Philadelphia at respective rates of around 31% and 13%.

Those wanting to move to Philadelphia, which the report says is one of the most affordable cities in the Northeast, were largely searching from D.C., New York, and Cleveland.

“It would be my sense that people coming from D.C. and New York, I expect, are the ones who are higher-paid workers — I imagine a mid- to high-income bracket — where they’re doing well but not enough to be comfortable with housing prices where they are," said Christopher Salviati, a housing economist for San Francisco-based Apartment List.

Of the 25 biggest cities across the country, the most people are looking to relocate to tech job-heavy Denver at 48%, according to the report, followed by Baltimore — touting a competitive job market with relatively less expensive housing compared with nearby D.C. and Northern Virginia — at 47%. San Diego and Tampa each clocked in at 44%, and San Francisco at 42%.

Philadelphia, with a population of about 1.5 million, ranked in 16th place in relocation choices. Though the bulk of prospective residents searched from nearby metropolitan areas, according to the report, 1.2% searched from Miami, 1% from Los Angeles, 0.7% from Atlanta, 0.6% from Portland, and 0.5% from San Francisco.

Apartment List had conducted research showing that a larger number of employers in D.C. and New York were allowing employees to work remotely to spare them long commutes, Salviati said, giving some workers the opportunity to move to less costly cities while keeping their jobs.

“Both cities have strong job opportunities, and employers are becoming more flexible,” he said.

With newcomers to Philadelphia — some of whom are able to afford pricier housing in the city’s rapidly evolving neighborhoods — analysts found existing residents were moving elsewhere in Pennsylvania, such as Allentown, Scranton, and Reading.

Various industry reports have pointed out that some of the strongest sectors driving the job market in and around Philadelphia are in energy, information-technology, life sciences, manufacturing, and financial services.

The five cities that round out the report’s desired cities list are New York at 24%, Minneapolis at 23%, Miami and Chicago each at 20%, and Detroit at 18%.

Salviati noted that the results do not indicate that users will actually move. Some people may browse only out of curiosity.

But “folks that are on our platform searching for places to live — it’s a relatively high-intent action to take," he said. “We’ve got a large enough sample where we are capturing a pretty good numbers of users who are actually going to make this move."