They’re moving out.
A shocking 27% of New Yorkers are planning to leave the Empire State in the next five years, with 30% saying they wish they lived somewhere else, according to a poll from Siena College Research Institute released Wednesday.
Affordability, ease of retirement, politics and crime and safety were among New Yorkers’ biggest gripes, according to the poll. Among the most dissatisfied: Republicans, independents, black people and those earning under $50 thousand a year.
Here, New Yorkers share their reasons for fleeing New York.
Priced out of housing market
When Bonnie Grubbs, a teacher, and her husband, Alex, a musician and arborist, outgrew their 660-square-foot converted two-bedroom co-op in Clinton Hill in 2021, they found themselves priced out of bigger homes in their $700 thousand price range.
And so they moved into a $3,000 rental on the border of Bed-Stuy — where they were plagued by frequent power outages, rodent infestations and an unreliable landlord. The last straw was when the ceiling caved in on them after the upstairs neighbor’s radiator broke.
“My friends said the city literally spit us out,” Bonnie, 36, told The Post.
In February of this year, they moved to San Antonio with Bonnie’s family where they are living rent-free until they can buy a place of their own.
“All of our money was going to childcare, and all of our money was going to rent. We were tight [with cash] in a way we hadn’t been since we were freshly married in grad school. It didn’t feel good.”
Outgrowing roommates
At 26, Zoe Hines, a music publicist, is ready to have an apartment — one that doesn’t involve roommates and flights of stairs.
She loves the convenience of city living, but says she’s sick of the congestion and ready for a sunny start and more living space for her money in Los Angeles. When she learned her friend in LA was paying around the same price — $2,475 a month — to live alone and with more amenities, she decided to plan her move for this June.
“The amount of space he had in his room — he had his own bathroom — it seemed like so much more,” she said. “I feel like LA has more flexibility, so that’s something I’m looking forward to. I want to switch it up and have a calm lifestyle where everything is slowed down for me.”
Cash-strapped from taxes
Alexis Wilson and her fiancé Matt Andrews, both nurses, recently moved from New York to southwest Florida with the hopes of starting a family.
They needed to stretch their paychecks and wanted to move to a state without income taxes.
“When we moved we saw a drastic increase in our paychecks,” Wilson, 27, told The Post.
They were also able to double their square footage in the Sunshine State — plus they have access to a dog park, pool and gym.
“We were able to buy a house after a year and a half of renting, which I don’t believe would have been possible in New York with the amount of taxes.”
Aging out of state
Carol Anderson, 76, lived in her apartment on the Upper East Side since 1985. But by 2022, her maintenance was going up another 10%. She was paying $3,900 a month in maintenance fees, another $3,200 in mortgage payments and had she kept a car in the city, she would have been shelling out nearly $800 for a parking space.
“I was in New York for $10,000 a month,” Anderson, who runs a successful communications firm, told The Post.
“I don’t know how the middle class can really make it. Every penny I was making was going to paying bills. I wasn’t saving anything,” she said, noting that she unsuccessfully tried to refinance her home.
In June 2022, she decided to move down south to New Orleans where she’s paying $2,200 a month in maintenance fees for a condo —and one-third of what she paid in New York on real estate taxes, she said.
“I aged out of New York,” Anderson said. “I love New Orleans more.”