At a recent conference, the founder of one technology titan asked another if it was even possible to build a platform-technology company outside of Silicon Valley. It was a fair question, given the dominance of Google (GOOGL), Facebook (FB) and Apple (AAPL). But from where I sat, it seemed easier to build a company of that size today almost anywhere except Silicon Valley.

Others have had the same thought. A spate of start-ups and now venture funds have recently left Silicon Valley for LA ( Snapchat ), Chicago (Keepsake), Seattle (Sherbert) and even Ohio (Drive).



The company where I work, Redfin , understands this impulse better than anyone. We are real estate brokers, with technology used by 10 million-plus people each month looking to move. And the simplest trend we see in American life is that Silicon Valley is no longer just the place talented people move to; it's the place those people are moving from. (Tweet this)



In 2011, 1 in 7 people in the Bay Area searched Redfin.com for homes outside of the Bay Area. Now it's 1 in 4. As Adam Wiener, our chief growth officer, announced to other executives last month: "The dam has broken."

In the past four years, the number of Bay Area people searching for Seattle homes has quadrupled; for Portland homes, that number has quintupled. For every 13 Bay Area people searching for a home, one is now searching in the Pacific Northwest alone.

(Source:Redfin.com)

And these aren't just idle online searches. One of our Denver employees had a simple answer for where she is now meeting our clients: "at the airport," with many flying in from northern California.

Silicon Valley transplants have become so common that Redfin's Boston agents just this week reported resentment among locals who can't compete. "My God, they are pouring in," Redfin's Boston broker, Alex Coon, wrote me this morning, "particularly in Cambridge and Somerville."

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The result? According to Matt Zborezny, the Redfin agent for that area, 20 percent above asking price is the new norm.

Folks are leaving Silicon Valley, mostly because they can't afford to stay. For the first time ever, the median price for a Silicon Valley home just exceeded $1 million. That's about double what it is in other tech cities, like Boston or Seattle, and triple what it is in aspiring technology hubs, like Portland, Denver or Austin.

(Source:Redfin.com)

Those in technology who can afford to stay in Silicon Valley all know it as one of the most beautiful places to live in the world, but a wariness has sunk in as folks from other walks of life are forced to leave: coffee shops are wall-to-wall with aspiring entrepreneurs, and restaurants buzz with talk of valuations and venture capital. It can be too much.

Just today a journalist who has covered technology from San Francisco for nearly a decade told me that people here seem more focused on money than in the past. If that's true, it isn't entirely by choice: People hop from job to job and deal to deal because sometimes that's the only way they can afford to stay.

According to compensation data company PayScale.com, Silicon Valley engineers earn nearly 50 percent more than their Boston counterparts; in Seattle that difference is smaller, but still significant, at 12 percent. Nowhere is the pay difference large enough to offset the cost of housing.



For these mostly entry-level jobs, the median level of experience is two to four years, with marketing managers at five to six years. At the most competitive companies, salaries are significantly higher.

In our own experience at Redfin employing engineers in Seattle and San Francisco, we've noticed that as Google, Facebook and Dropbox have opened Seattle offices, the differences in engineering pay, especially among recent graduates of top computer-science programs, have disappeared. But the pay of all the people responsible for the actual day-to-day operations of the business-in accounting, marketing or human resources-is more closely tied to the local cost of living. This is why, as Glassdoor reports today, the best places for jobs in America are now up-and-coming tech hubs like Raleigh and Austin, ranking ahead of San Jose or San Francisco.

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