Another alarming real estate trend is occurring, and San Diego, because of its housing affordability crisis, may have a hand in it.
People are moving out of pricey coastal cities because they can’t afford to live in them, and this is driving up home prices elsewhere.
So-called “high-cost housing refugees” are making a number of middle-America markets less affordable than they once were, according to ATTOM Data Solutions, a real estate data provider.
In a recent study of third-quarter housing affordability, the Irvine-based company found that home prices were less affordable than their historical averages in 45 percent of the 406 U.S. counties examined.
While that number improved slightly from the previous quarter, when 49 percent of the counties studied held that distinction, the number was only 21 percent a year ago.
Counties with the lowest affordability indexes – those where home prices were least affordable relative to historical averages – were Lackawanna County (Scranton), Pa.; Genesee County (Flint), Mich.; and Comal County (San Antonio), Texas. These are regions that had been attracting homebuyers because of their affordability.
Among counties with at least half a million residents that are seeing the same fate is Davidson County, Tenn., home of Nashville, where home prices have jumped 8 percent in the past year.
These markets are being affected because people are fleeing coastal cities and investors are looking to snare deals, the report said. The areas are also attracting employers because housing there traditionally has been affordable. That, in turn, has helped entice workers to move there.
The MarketWatch website referenced the ATTOM report, noting that high-cost housing refugees are being priced out of areas such as Houston, Los Angeles, San Diego and Brooklyn.
However, refugees from cities such as San Francisco are likely having a greater impact, said Daren Blomquist, senior vice president at ATTOM.
“We definitely see evidence of this trend in many high-cost coastal California markets, more so in the Bay Area than in Southern California, at least yet,” he said.
People leaving San Diego was a trend identified a few years ago by Kelly Cunningham, an economist with the National University System Institute for Policy Research.
He cited U.S. Census data that showed the number of people in San Diego between the ages of 35 to 49 fell by 4.9 percent from 2008 to 2013.
One of the reasons: housing costs.
That was four years ago, and things have not gotten any better.
