They Left the Bay Area Before the AI Boom—Homeownership Jumped 33%

San Francisco Bay Area residents spent years leaving one of the country’s most expensive housing markets, and now, new research shows the move paid off.Among those who left California altogether, homeownership rose 33% within five years, according to a new report from the California Policy Lab at the University of California, Berkeley (CPL). The increase is all the more striking because Bay Area movers were about one-third less likely to own a home than the neighbors they left behind.Based on anonymized credit bureau data tracking Bay Area households before and after relocating, these findings come amid a remarkable regionwide reversal.After losing tens of thousands of residents and billions of dollars in household income in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic, San Francisco is experiencing a comeback in earnest.New jobs and extraordinary amounts of tech wealth have helped reinvigorate the City by the Bay—but they have also flooded an already expensive housing market with buyers capable of bringing enormous sums of cash to the closing table.For those who left before the new frenzy took hold, the timing is striking: Their odds of owning improved after they entered cheaper housing mar...