Are People Fleeing Denver?

The DBJ had a big story last week titled, “Denver housing prices ‘becoming unaffordable,’ people looking to move out.” The headline made it sound like that people are leaving Denver in droves. So, I had to read the actual report for the facts.

Redfin released their “Migration Report” last week with data from the first quarter. “In the first 3 months of 2018, Denver posted a “net outflow” of Redfin users for the first time.” This means more people were looking to move away from Denver than looking to move to Denver on Redfin.com.

So, how big is this “net outflow”? 309 people is all. In other words, 309 more people were looking to leave Denver than move to Denver. Whereas, San Francisco had a “net outflow” of 15,137 people in the first quarter. NYC was also over 10,000 people. So, our 309 net people looking to leave is really small. Plus, it’s a small change from a year when our “net inflow” was a whopping 115 people.

The top city where Denverites are looking to move to is…Colorado Springs and if leaving the state the top destination is Phoenix.

Next, the U.S. Census Bureau said that since 2010 the city of Denver has grown by 16.8%, the third fastest rate in the country for big cities. Denver has grown by 101,403 people so far this decade.