Pandemic Sparks a Rebound in Residential Migration, Survey Finds

The pandemic has resulted in an interesting shift for people in the workforce who are lucky enough to work remotely.

Beyond the Zoom calls and the kitchen-table workstations and the reprieve from commuting, work-from-homers have discovered opportunity in this new dynamic.

It has encouraged more of them to move.

High-earners led a unique spike in mobility this past year, driven by those with remote-friendly jobs, according to an ApartmentList.com study.

“We find that COVID and the expansion of remote work have encouraged 16 percent of American workers to move during the past 12 months, the first time that mover rate has increased in over a decade,” said Igor Popov, ApartmentList.com chief economist.

“Perhaps unsurprisingly, wealthy remote workers saw the biggest jump in mobility this year, as they took advantage of remote work to scan the country for their ideal living arrangement.”

Those ideal arrangements included more physical space and a lower cost of living.

In 2019, the residential mover rate — the share of Americans who move each year — was 14 percent and had been declining for decades. In 2020, the rate jumped to above 16 percent thanks in large part to higher-income, remote workers suddenly looking for a new place to live. The increase took place among high-income households earning over $150,000, who for the last decade have actually been the least likely to move.

Historically, high-earners are the least likely to move. But this year, they were part of a 39 percent increase in residential migration. At the high end of the income spectrum, remote workers were more than twice as likely to move as those who had to work at a physical job site.

In the job market, remote work will be a point of negotiation going forward. An Owl Labs survey found that 23 percent of respondents would take a 10 percent pay cut to work from home. In 2019, 15 percent said they would take a pay cut. Click to access the Owl Labs’ comprehensive State of Remote Work/Pandemic Edition report.

Remote work was gaining popularity before COVID-19 but the pandemic accelerated the trend, according to the report.

“Our latest research shows that even after the pandemic subsides, the economy will contain significantly more remote jobs than ever before,” said Rob Warnock, ApartmentList.com senior research associate. “And this newfound flexibility is getting people moving again.”

In the report’s conclusion, the shift is likely to stick for a while.

“This year’s burst of moving activity has already created wild swings in the cost of housing across the country. Additional moves have the potential to further redistribute wealth if high-paying jobs are no longer concentrated in the nation’s largest, most expensive cities,” according to the report.