Detroit area sparks interest from LA, Chicago home buyers

The thought of buying a (comparatively) cheap house in Detroit is still intriguing to many. A new report shows us that many home seekers are looking outside of their metro areas and many Californians are looking at the Detroit area.

A migration report from Redfin tracks where its users have been looking for homes, and from where. It looked at nearly one million users searching in 75 metro areas over the first quarter of 2017.

So which out-of-state users are looking at homes in Detroit? According to their research, users in Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco top the list.

Or perhaps they’re just curious about the comparatively lower housing prices here.

Nationally, many home buyers were looking at places with both warm weather and lower housing prices. Some of the top destinations searched by out-of-towners include Sacramento (mainly through SF residents), Phoenix, Vegas, and Dallas.

So where are Detroiters searching for homes? 79.1% were looking to buy within the metro Detroit market, while 20.9% were looking to buy elsewhere (which is pretty average nationwide). Of those Detroiters searching elsewhere, Chicago topped the list of metro areas, followed by LA, Seattle, and many places with much, much better weather.

Courtesy of Redfin

The report lets you choose the point of origin or the destination and see where people are looking. The Bay Area leads searches outside of its own area, which makes sense, seeing that housing prices there are out of control. Remember Detroit’s open thread about leaving? Curbed SF did a similar thread, and they’re out of there.

Hey, we have plenty of room!