There have been wide reports of the mass exodus from the Bay Area during the pandemic, but a new economic letter by Jerry Nickelsburg from the UCLA Anderson School of Management says that the data doesn't support the claim. Instead, he sees a temporary change due to the pandemic and believes that the market contraction could reverse once the pandemic subsides.

"My interest here was to ask if there was evidence in the data of a mass exodus in the Bay Area indicating that tech was moving out and Silicon Valley and San Francisco are not going to be what they were before. The data says no; that is not what is happening," Jerry Nickelsburg, faculty director and adjunct professors of economics at UCLA Anderson School of Management, tells GlobeSt.com.

During the pandemic, San Francisco apartment rents have fallen dramatically, indicating the troubling market conditions. However, Nickelsburg contrasts the current market conditions with the 2000-2001 exodus from the Bay Area following the tech bubble. "The data that has been cited for the mass exodus is the dramatic fall in rents. The fall in rents, however, was less on a percentage basis than we saw in 2001 when there was an exodus," Nickelsburg says. "The home prices in 2001 fell, but they are increasing today. So, this looks different than that event, and that is because there is not a mass exodus but a pandemic response."