The Bay Area had the largest net outflow of any large metro area over the last three months, Redfin says, and that appears to be driven by the region's high housing costs and the ability people have to work remotely.
Almost 50,000 more people moved out of the Bay Area than moved in.
"If people are going to buy a home in this economy, they're thinking twice about doing it in the Bay Area because of how expensive it is and the fact that they can take their remote jobs somewhere else," Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather said.
Redfin said Sacramento, Los Angeles and San Diego were among the top destinations for people leaving the Bay Area.
Get Southern California news, weather forecasts and entertainment stories to your inbox. Sign up for NBC LA newsletters.
Tech worker Adam Singer ditched San Francisco for Austin, Texas, due to the costs.
"I have a normal home that any first-time homebuyer would expect and that was for about one-fourth the price of the Bay Area," he said.
NBC Bay Area visited a U-Haul lot in San Jose and found most trucks were going to be heading out of the Bay Area.
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
"The exodus story is a natural story when you aren't building housing," San Jose State University Professor Robert Chapman Wood said.
But experts say even the latest mass move isn't going to bring down prices or traffic in the Bay Area.
"The numbers of people moving out are by no means sufficient to relieve the problem," Wood said.
