Blind Presents: The Tech Exodus

Creative clustering has been the Bay Area’s secret to success for innovation. What happens when technology workers go remote, permanently? Blind, the anonymous professional network partnered with ROOM8, a popular app optimizing co-living through roommate-matching and apartment-search services, to run a survey to gauging “Tech Exodus” in 6 major US cities. The Survey asked:

  1. Have you recently moved outside the metropolitan area you reside in? 
  2. What is your employer’s attitude toward permanent remote working? 
  3. If you have moved recently, are you planning to move back where you are closer to work? (If so, when)
  4. Are you looking for roommates or co-living solutions? 

The survey ran in the Bay Area, NYC, and Seattle, LA, Chicago, and Austin on 9/13-9/21. Here are some Key Learnings: 

  • 35% of LA survey respondents have recently moved outside the metropolitan area
      • 23% of NYC survey respondents have recently moved outside the metropolitan area
      • Only 18% of Bay Area survey respondents have recently moved outside the metropolitan area
  • 31% of Chicago survey respondents say their employer’s attitude toward permanent remote working “allows permanent” remote work
      • 19% of Bay Area survey respondents say their employer’s attitude toward permanent remote working “allows permanent” remote work
      • 15% of LA survey respondents say their employer’s attitude toward permanent remote working “allows permanent” remote work
  • 9% of Settle survey respondents say they are planning to move back within a year
      • 7% of Bay Area survey respondents say they are planning to move back within a year
      • 91% of  Bay Area survey respondents say they are not looking for roommates or co-living solutions.
      • 92% of  Austin survey respondents say they are not looking for roommates or co-living solutions.

You can see the report highlighting the overall responses here. 

A Blind user at Netflix writes, “Inventory has risen 96% YoY. Get ready bay area folks. Not long before all the foreign investors start selling to invest elsewhere. If you haven’t bought a home, you are damn lucky.” 

Another Blind user at Lockheed Martin writes, “The eviction moratorium and stimulus ended in July. There is an exodus from SF. Will we see mass evictions and house price drops in the bay area?” The post has a poll attached, where 23% of respondents think Bay Area prices will drop significantly.

This survey runs as a follow up to the original Blind relocation survey back in May. We asked our users, “If you had a choice to WFH as much as you would like, would you consider relocating?” The survey was opened to the San Francisco Bay Area, New York, and Seattle Area.  Through these results we learned that 66% of professionals on Blind would consider relocating according to the results.

4,400 users across these three major cities showed intentions of limiting their time physically going to the office. 15% anticipate never returning to the office. After Twitter’s permanent work from home announcement, 66% of Twitter employees in the Bay Area do not anticipate relocating.

Download full report here: The Permanent relocation.

A week later, after Facebook’s future remote work and pay cut announcement, Blind learned that 32% of working professionals would consider relocating with a pay cut. 

2,800 users across Silicon Valley, NYC, and Seattle show their willingness to reduce their salary.  Other Key Learnings include:

  • 38% of Facebook professionals would consider relocating with a pay cut. 
  • 20% of Bay Area professionals would you be willing to accept a 10-20% pay cut 
  • The Bay Area (35%), New York (30%), and Seattle (31%) showed similar proportions of intent to relocate with a pay cut.
  • New York (75%) has the highest proportion of those wanting to leave the Metropolitan Area.
  • Only (25%) of New Yorkers would not consider relocating out of the metropolitan area.

Download the full report Here.

That same week, Blind asked 2,800 users across Silicon Valley, NYC, and Seattle about their willingness to reduce their salary.  The Key Learnings included:

  • 38% of Facebook professionals would consider relocating with a pay cut. 
  • 20% of Bay Area professionals would you be willing to accept a 10-20% pay cut 
  • The Bay Area (35%), New York (30%), and Seattle (31%) showed similar proportions of intent to relocate with a pay cut.
  • New York (75%) has the highest proportion of those wanting to leave the Metropolitan Area.
  • Only (25%) of New Yorkers would not consider relocating out of the metropolitan area.

With talent bubbles getting a taste of brain drain, it’s finally a renter’s market.  According to the rental website Zumper, the average cost for a one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco has dropped 5.4% over the past month.

The notoriously expensive San Francisco residential rental market is showing signs of a cool down. More than 55% of 2,150 users across these two major cities anticipate the housing rent to decrease within the next year. A Blind user and Engineer at Twilo said “I’m bombarded with emails from Redfin about new listings and price decrease notifications. What’s going on?” 

Download full deck: here.

Since this original survey, the story has evolved. Earlier this month, VMware and Twitter announced they are cutting pay for remote employees who move out of the Bay Area, per Bloomberg. On Blind, a Bloomberg user ran a poll asking, “Are folks willing to take the trade off in this new Covid-19 future we have?”

The poll had 5,591 responses and robust dialogue with 561 professionals commenting on their own experiences, here are some key learnings: 

  • 48% of professionals responded to the poll stating “No I shouldn’t get a pay cut if I’m doing the same work.”
      • 61% of VMware professionals responded to the poll stating “Happy to take a paycut for better WLB and reduce Total cost of Living” 
      • 47% of Twitter professionals responded to the poll stating “Happy to take a paycut for better WLB and reduce Total cost of Living” 
      • 63% of Netflix professionals responded to the poll stating “Happy to take a paycut for better WLB and reduce Total cost of Living” 
      • 67% of Square  professionals responded to the poll stating “Happy to take a paycut for better WLB and reduce Total cost of Living”

You can see the report highlighting the overall responses here.

A user at VMware responded to the poll saying, “I’ll gladly do this. It’s only a reduction on base, and base makes up half of my TC. So a net 6.5% decrease in my TC to move to a place where houses are 20% of the price and taxes alone make up ~5-6% difference? Sign me up” 

Are you moving out of your metropolitan area? Are you willing to take a pay cut to do so? Join the conversation.