Among Bay Area denizens who have moved out of their communities in recent years, Sonoma County residents were 25% more likely to leave the state, according to ongoing research from the University of California that examines the effects of the region’s high cost of living.

The California Policy Lab, a UC research institute, found that Santa Rosa ranked 7th among the Bay Area’s most populous cities in its net loss of low-income residents between 2014 and 2025. Santa Rosa’s net migration of “low-income” residents during that period was -2.2% as a share of the city’s population, meaning thousands more of those residents moved away than moved in.

Only Hayward, Richmond, Livermore, San Jose, Redwood City and Milpitas had larger net losses of low-income residents across the nine-county region.

“The broader pattern we’re seeing is the biggest group of folks who are leaving the Bay and leaving the state too, are buying homes within a few years,” Evan White, co-author of the new report, “Priced Out of the Bay,” released July 30.

“It’s not that they’re low income, in fact some of them are middle or more affluent, but that they want to be able to find a home,” White said. “They can’t do that in the Bay Area and they’re seeking to do that elsewhere.”

The institute found the Bay Area’s living and housing costs, the highest in the country, are the “central thread” in local residents’ relocation patterns. Residents who leave, whether they’re moving to another state or elsewhere in California, are opting for cheaper neighborhoods where they are more likely to become homeowners.

Those moves often come with tradeoffs, the study found, as those who relocated may live in places with lower incomes, lower-quality schools or greater exposure to climate risk. The institute’s report draws on the same longitudinal, anonymized household data used in its recent statewide analysis of the impacts of California’s affordability crisis.

The lab in April found that California’s growing unaffordability continues to push local residents to states where they can more easily find housing. Residents of Sonoma and Napa counties continue to move away at rates that are hampering the region’s population rebound, part of a statewide exodus that has slowed since the end of the pandemic but remains driven by California’s high cost of living, according to the report.

Between 2016 and 2025, Sonoma County saw a 12,100-person loss in net migration. Napa County saw a net migration loss of 6,900 residents, according to data from the April report. 

Still, the new report found the composition of the region’s population is growing more racially diverse as pandemic-era out-migration is reversing.

The researchers also found that the growing unaffordability is acute in the Bay Area, where rents are twice as high as the national average. Prospective homeowners in early 2026 saw the median home in the Bay Area reach $1.4 million, compared to the $915,000 median home price in California, which is already more than twice the $425,000 national average.

For those who moved to lower-cost areas of the state, home values were on average 40% lower in their new neighborhoods, with rents 27% lower. Those who moved within the region faced similar housing costs in their new neighborhoods.

Many Bay Area movers appear to be relocating in order to purchase homes. Within one year of leaving for another state, people were 15% more likely to be homeowners and about 33% more likely after five years. Even those who move within the Bay Area are about 15% more likely to own their own homes just one year after moving, according to the researchers.

However, those who left the area faced multiple tradeoffs, such as lower pay. Former Bay Area residents who leave the state often have neighbors whose annual incomes are 23% — $17,300 — lower compared to their Bay Area neighbors.

Defining low-income

The co-authors defined low-income as meeting at least two of three criteria: highly unlikely to be a homeowner based credit data; has a credit score under 620; and has a credit limit of less than $5,000 and uses more than 50% of that credit.

 

The researchers found that people who leave the Bay Area tend to have credit scores that were on average 23 points lower than their neighbors and carried more than twice as much student debt at the time they left ($10,827 vs $4,618). They were also one-third less likely to own their own homes.

Most of the Bay Area’s largest cities have recorded a net loss in low-income residents over the past dozen years, meaning more left than arrived.

In general, low-income residents left waterfront East Bay cities at greater rates over the past decade than they did from inland East Bay cities, the Peninsula or the North Bay. Many of those cities also saw net out-migration of higher-income populations.

The report did not specify rates for cities’ migration patterns for other income level populations.

 

In Sonoma County, the census tracts with the highest annual rate of loss in low-income residents from 2014 to 2025 included coastal, rural and urban communities:

The tract 1543.05, that includes Occidental,  saw an annual decline of 650 residents per 10,000 population. That’s about a net annual loss of 114 people.
Tract 1507.02, just south of Petaluma, had a net annual loss of 614 per 10,000 residents, or about 300 people annually.
The 1520 tract that encompasses most of downtown Santa Rosa had a net annual loss of 496 per 10,000 residents, which translates into an annual loss of about 121 people.

The Sonoma County census tracts with the largest overall population losses between 2014 and 2025 included:

1522.03, a tract that includes the southern portion of the Santa Rosa Junior neighborhood and the McDonald Historic District, saw an annual net decline of 229 per 10,000 residents during this period, about 72 people lost each year.
1506.10, a tract on Petaluma’s northern city limits, bounded by Corona Road, Sonoma Mountain Parkway and Lynch Creek, had a net annual decline of 227 residents per 10,000, or about 82 people annually.
1521, a tract that includes Santa Rosa Junior College and homes west of Mendocino Avenue, from College Avenue to Fountaingrove Parkway, had a net annual decline of 226 per 10,000 residents. That’s an annual loss of about 66 residents between 2014 and 2025.

Some of the tracts with the biggest annual net loss of residents included areas impacted by wildfires of the past decade, including a large segment of the Mayacamas Mountains area east of Cloverdale, Geyserville and Healdsburg. Another includes an area between Larkfield-Wikiup neighborhood and Mark West Springs.

Interestingly, the tract that includes Coffey Park, 1528.01, had a very low net annual loss of residents, only 8 per 10,000 — about four people a year — possibly a reflection of how successfully the rebuild effort was carried out there after the 2017 Tubbs Fire, which destroyed more than 1,400 homes in the northwest Santa Rosa neighborhood.

The Coffey Park tract had a net annual loss of 60 low-income residents per per 10,000 during that time — a loss of about 27 residents each year.

Notably, more than half, or 54%, of Bay Area movers moved within their county, while 19% moved to another Bay Area county and 15% left the state over the study period. Only 3% moved to another part of the state.

Compared high-income movers, low-income movers who leave the Bay Area are more likely to move to the Central Valley (8% vs 5%) and less likely to move out of state (12% vs 15%).

As a group, compared with with other Bay Area counties, Sonoma County residents were 25% more likely to leave the state when they moved.

Evans, the co-author of the Bay Area study, said it’s not clear why a larger share of Sonoma County residents who relocated did so outside of California.

He said more rural counties, including Marin and Sonoma in the North Bay, “tend to have a larger share of residents moving out of the state.” People moving from affluent neighborhoods, he said, also have greater resources for moving longer distances.

The findings correlate with what a range of Sonoma County residents have recently told The Press Democrat about housing and affordability.

Renters and homeowners from across the region have shared their uncertainties about being able to stay — as they watch the Bay Area job market fluctuate while housing prices remain out of reach, or see their retirement options diminishing. While some have already moved on to new cities or states, others are determined to remain, or even returned after periods away working elsewhere.

White said the new report doesn’t capture other reasons for population fluctuation, primarily the rate of births and deaths and immigration — which has slowed following the pandemic and the Trump administration’s enforcement crackdown. But he thinks the data gives a clearer picture of where low-income residents move to, versus what those with higher incomes may choose to do out of a desire for homeownership or new opportunities.

He noted that when people choose to move, that relieves some pressure over time combined with new housing development. As “People vote with their feet,” he said, housing availability across the region shifts.

“That actually relieves some of the demand pressure in our state,” White said. “If prices get too high, people say forget about it. And that actually helps out the high-price situation.”

Natalie Hanson can be reached at natalie.hanson@pressdemocrat.com. Martin Espinoza can be reached at martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com.