A data analysis recently released by Redfin indicates that people are seeking to leave Denver at one of the highest rates in the nation.

Redfin considered ‘net outflow’ to make their determination, which considered the number of Redfin.com users looking to leave a metro area minus the number of searchers looking to move in. The ‘net outflow’ of Denver in Q4 of 2022 was 2,700 residents, with 31 percent of local Redfin users looking for homes in other parts of the country.

Compared to other major cities, Denver had the 7th-highest net outflow number, with Chicago being the top destination for Denverites seeking to leave.

The high number of potential outflow residents was also reflected at the national level, with a record high of 24.6 percent of Redfin.com users looking to relocate to another metro area. This compared to about 22 percent a year prior and around 15 percent in 2017. Redfin pinned high mortgage rates, high home prices, and economic uncertainty as key reasons behind the shift, as well as remote work.

The city with the highest net outflow in Q4 of 2022 was San Francisco at 26,900 residents. While that’s much higher than Denver, it’s worth noting that only 24 percent of Redfin users in this area were looking to leave compared to Denver’s 31 percent – one of the highest among the cities with the top 10 outflows.

It’s worth noting that Denver’s net outflow of Q4 2022 was slightly lower than Denver’s net outflow of Q4 2021 – 2,700 compared to 3,100.

Regardless, this is a major contrast from population shift during the start of the pandemic, with Denver gaining 1.34 residents per ever resident that moved out between April 2020 and October 2020, according to a report broken by Bloomberg. This was the 8th-highest inflow among major metro areas during this time.

Do you think Denver has lost its pandemic-era appeal? Let us know in the comments.

See the full Redfin analysis here.

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