Yeah I mean, covid was a good inflection point where it made people re-evaluate their lives and broke their decision inertia. NYC is a ton of fun, but it is al

Yeah I mean, covid was a good inflection point where it made people re-evaluate their lives and broke their decision inertia. NYC is a ton of fun, but it is also, to sum it up in one word - hard. People who have lived there 10/20/etc years and not lived elsewhere underestimate how much easier life outside the 5 boroughs can be. Some scoff at NYC people owning a weekend/vacation home, but the funny thing is due to costs... it's not just the 1%. I have had plenty of friends who rented in city while owning their weekend home. I have friends that did the math and realized a car + vacation home 2x the size of their apartment was cheaper than selling their 2bed & buying a 3bed, etc. The crux of the problem is that there isn't a ton of housing and you are competing with the global 1%. In my previous building there used to be a guy upstairs who talked about the Ferraris he kept at his home in London. My current building has a number of trust fund kids including an under-25 year old child of petrostate president/PM living in the biggest, best units upstairs. I basically make good FAANG money, but these people are another dimension, and they are everywhere in NYC. This effect goes down every level of the economic ladder where you are competing for housing with people who you would not normally be competing elsewhere.