The real estate rental website Radpad has just released some interesting findings about summer moving season and where SoCal residents might be looking to live, and we're not so sure what to think.
To no one's surprise, nationwide, June to August are considered the most popular months to pack up and move. In their study, they cite dramatic peaks in Google searches for moving-related terms like “moving truck” or “moving boxes" in the summer months, specifically in the last week of each of those three months, as tenants scramble to get ready to move at the end of the month. They also cite a 2009 U.S. Census Bureau report which found that 30 percent of American home moves occur in the summer.
All told, Radpad figures about 12 million people will be moving between now and September. Since we certainly have all too many memories of helping friends carry zillions of boxes up multiple flights of stairs to move into a new place in the heat of summer, this all seems about right. What comes as a surprise is the next bit of data in Radpad’s study, where they take a look at where residents in our area might be moving.
In their analysis, they sampled renters who already live in Los Angeles County who were searching to live in a different LA County zip code. Essentially, people who want to stay around LA but leave their current neighborhood. Of that set of movers, they figured out the top LA neighborhoods where Angelenos might be migrating over the coming season—and the list certainly came as a surprise to us.
Top neighborhoods for intra-LA moves, according to Radpad:
1. Harbor City
2. North Hollywood
3. Rosemead
4. Long Beach
5. Pico Rivera
6. Van Nuys
7. Compton
8. Sherman Oaks
Some of the searches are likely motivated by price. Harbor City and Compton are still relatively affordable neighborhoods for renters. However, Sherman Oaks chimes in with an average rental price of $2,095 per month, which is higher than the county-wide average, so clearly there are other factors at play as well. Worth noting, the study only sampled 2,000 users of the Radpad site over a single month, so clearly a lot of the rental activity going on out there wasn’t captured. Still, the snapshot is interesting and gives us a moment to think about what under-the-radar neighborhoods might be the next trendy spots to live.