Redfin: Americans Move Out of Areas With Poor Air Quality

(Los Angeles, courtesy of Sam Jotham Sutharson/pexels.com)

Redfin, Seattle, found Americans continue moving away from places facing high risk of poor air quality.

In 2025, 277,740 more people moved out of counties deemed high-risk for air quality issues than into them.

But, the outflow is at a slower pace than it was during the pandemic. In 2021 there was net outflow of 603,270, and the rate has fallen every year since then.

And, more people are moving into counties at low risk of poor air quality–but that’s also at a slower place than during the pandemic. Counties with low risk of poor air quality posted a net inflow of 296,342 in 2025, half the net inflow of 594,556 in 2021.

Many high-risk counties that are seeing the most outflow are also in expensive areas, like the greater Los Angeles area, New York City and the Seattle area.

High-risk areas that are gaining residents tend to be on the more affordable side, like Ada County, Idaho, (with net domestic inflow of 8,528), Riverside County, Calif., (with net domestic inflow of 7,758), Placer County, Calif., (with net domestic inflow of 7,074), Canyon County, Idaho, (with net domestic inflow of 5,684), and Weld County, Colo., with net domestic inflow of 3,857.

There may be only so much that movers can anticipate, however.

“Wildfire smoke doesn’t respect state lines,” noted Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather. “My family left Seattle for a small town in Wisconsin during the pandemic. We had many reasons for moving, but a bad smoke event was the final straw. Then the smoke followed us. This summer, Wisconsin and the entire Midwest had stretches of awful air from fires hundreds of miles away. That experience evolved the way I think about climate migration: You can choose a place with lower risk, but there’s no smoke-free bubble to move to. For most people, the answer isn’t packing up and leaving—it’s adapting to a world where bad-air days can show up almost anywhere.”