Whatcom residents still seek to move, even during coronavirus pandemic
People continue to change where they live, and Whatcom County residents are moving long distances amid the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic, a new renter report shows.
ApartmentList, which aggregates online listings and publishes renter-related statistics, said in its quarterly “Renter Migration Report” published Wednesday, April 28, that 30.6% of apartment hunters who live in Bellingham are looking to move out of the area.
And 38.6% of those looking for a place to live in Bellingham are searching from outside Whatcom County.
Data was compiled from Jan. 1 to April 15, according to the report.
To help with local or long-distance moves, truck-rental companies such as U-Haul continue to operate nationwide as essential services even during orders that have closed many businesses across the country.
U-Haul said at its website that its employees are cleaning and disinfecting trucks for rent and taking other measures to keep customers from getting infected with the virus.
Among renters who want to leave Whatcom County, most are headed to Seattle (48.1%), followed by Portland, Ore., (7.5%) and Phoenix, Ariz.m (3.8%), according to an analysis of online searches.
For renters outside Whatcom County who are searching for apartments locally, 52.1% are in Seattle, 13.2% are in Portland, Ore., and 6.3% are in Oak Harbor.
“We look at which parts of the country are retaining their renter populations, which parts renters are ready to move on from, and which metros are attracting renters from other parts of the country,” the Migration Report said.
“Although we expect that COVID-19 could have significant long-term implications for where Americans choose to live, those changes are not yet playing out in our data,” the report said. “In fact, given the scale of disruption to all facets of daily life, our renter migration data looks remarkably similar to what we were seeing prior to the pandemic.”
Using Google Trends and other data, ApartmentList said that it saw a drop in the number of renters who were seeking to move to a different metropolitan region.
“Long-distance moves are usually motivated by employment opportunities, and this data suggested that amid significant economic instability, renters were feeling more hesitant about big moves,” the report said.
Even so, the report said that the share of renters with imminent move dates rose 10% year-over-year as shelter-in-place orders started to go into effect in the last half of March.
But the share of renters who said they were “just looking” without fixed move-in dates also rose rapidly in March.
And despite the depth of the pandemic crisis in New York City, the number of people who want to move there increased from 20.3% to 26.4%, the report said.
