Forget SF, this California city is where Millennials are moving, study says

The bar at Hawk's Public House in Sacramento, California, August 15, 2015.

Click through this slideshow for stories of people who left the Bay Area for Sacramento. The bar at Hawk's Public House in Sacramento, California, August 15, 2015.

Click through this slideshow for stories of people who left the Bay Area for Sacramento. Photo: Max Whittaker/Prime, Special To The Chronicle Photo: Max Whittaker/Prime, Special To The Chronicle Image 1 of / 30 Caption Close Forget SF, this California city is where Millennials are moving, study says 1 / 30 Back to Gallery

Millennials are flocking to California's state capital, a new study found.

Sacramento was the third most popular destination for those ages 20 to 34 in 2016, behind Seattle and Columbia, the capital of South Carolina, according to analysis of U.S. Census data by investment site SmartAsset.

SmartAsset determined the ranking by calculating total net migration in the cities — i.e. the number of people who moved in versus moved out.

Sacramento saw more than 16,000 new Millenial-aged residents in 2016, with 9,500 out-migrations. Seattle and Columbia saw net migrations of 7,302 and 6,937 respectively.

Just missing out on the top five was San Jose, with a net migration of 5,500, proving Silicon Valley continues to have a pull to the young, despite the high cost of living.

The data follow a recent trend of people leaving expensive coastal cities for inland hubs, where housing is cheaper and jobs and culture increasingly accessible. Millennials, like every other generation, want to buy homes (cue avocado toast jokes).

Most of the Millennials moving to Sacramento came from elsewhere in California, the study found.

Besides the lower cost of living – the median home price in Sacramento is about four times less than that of San Francisco – Sacramento is getting trendier by the day, with a burgeoning arts and food scene, not to mention a supply of government and nonprofit jobs.

It's not just Millennials moving there, either. The state capital grew faster than the 10 largest cities in California last year, according to a recent report by the California Department of Finance.

About 7,000 people moved to Sacramento in 2017, bolstering the population to just above 500,000 for the first time ever. At 1.43 percent, the city's population growth rate is the highest of all major California metros.

Michelle Robertson is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @mrobertsonsf.