One in Five Buyers Is Shopping Out of Town. That Changes How You Sell.

Nearly one in five U.S. house hunters searched for a home outside their own metro area in the first quarter of 2026—the highest share since Redfin began tracking the data in 2021. The figure, 19.1 percent of Redfin users, is up from 18.9 percent a year earlier and reflects a buyer pool that is increasingly willing to cross state lines to find something affordable. For sellers, that shift is not a footnote. It is a fundamental change in who your most likely buyer actually is.

Affordability Is Moving People, Not Just Markets

Redfin's analysis points squarely at cost as the engine of this migration. Housing prices remain near record highs nationally, and inflation has pushed up everyday expenses enough that buyers in expensive metros are no longer anchoring their search to familiar geography. They are optimizing for what they can afford, and they are willing to move to get it.

Florida dominated the destination list in Q1, claiming four of the top six metros by net inflow. Orlando ranked first, followed by North Port, Miami, and Cape Coral. Las Vegas came in fifth and Tampa sixth. But even these magnets are showing strain. Miami's net inflow fell from more than 28,000 in 2022 to around 6,500 in Q1 of this year. North Port dropped from roughly 10,000 to about 7,000 over the same period. The Wall Street Journal has separately reported that affordability pressures—soaring insurance rates, home prices, and above-average inflation—are now pushing working-age Floridians out of the state even as the inbound flow shrinks.

Meanwhile, the pandemic boomtowns are unwinding. Austin has flipped from a net inflow of roughly 14,000 five years ago to a net outflow of about 300 in Q1. Charlotte, North Carolina, moved from a net inflow of approximately 3,200 to a net outflow of about 1,700 over the same period. Redfin calls this boomerang migration—not people returning to their origins, but boomtowns losing the population gains they made between 2020 and 2022. New York, Seattle, and Los Angeles continued to lead metros by net outflow.

What This Buyer Pool Looks Like—and Why It Matters to Sellers

An out-of-town buyer shops differently than a local one. They are more likely to make decisions based on online listings before ever setting foot in your city. They are less familiar with neighborhood nuances, school district boundaries, and commute times. They are often comparing your market to three or four others simultaneously. And crucially, they are frequently motivated by a hard financial ceiling—affordability is the reason they are relocating at all, so price discipline and value clarity matter more to them than to a local buyer who already knows what the market commands.

Remote work is still enabling a meaningful share of this movement, though Redfin notes that return-to-office mandates have put some limits on long-distance relocations from high-cost cities. That means the out-of-town buyer shopping your market is increasingly likely to either have a fully remote role or be making a deliberate career trade-off—which makes them serious and committed, not casual browsers.

How Sellers in Both Inflow and Outflow Markets Should Adjust

If you are selling in a market that draws relocating buyers—Orlando, Las Vegas, or similar destinations—your listing needs to work hard for someone who may never drive by before making an offer. That means professional photography is not optional. Floor plans matter. Video walkthroughs matter. And your listing description needs to do geographic orientation work that a local buyer already has in their head. Distance to major employers, airport access, and cost-of-living comparisons relative to high-outflow states like California and New York are legitimately useful selling points, not marketing fluff.

If you are selling in a market that is losing residents—Austin, Charlotte, or a cooling Florida metro—the calculus shifts. Your competition is no longer just the house down the street. It is every listing in every market that out-of-town buyers are cross-shopping. Overpricing is riskier than ever because a buyer who came to your city specifically for affordability will simply redirect their search if your number does not pencil out. Sellers in these markets need honest, current pricing guidance and should be skeptical of comps from 2022 and 2023 when inflow was at its peak.

Across both types of markets, the practical implication is the same: your buyer may already be living somewhere else, researching online, and making a shortlist before your listing has been live for 48 hours. The sellers who capture that buyer are the ones whose listings communicate value clearly, fast, and without requiring a local frame of reference.

If you want to understand what out-of-town buyers are actually paying for homes like yours right now, Local Home Buyers USA's instant-offer tool can give you a baseline in your current market—no listing required.