I am a lawyer that mostly deals with pre-litigation parts of lawsuits. Really no reason to ever be in court for me. My partners made it clear that nobody is coming into the office until the end of the year. If we wanted to rent the proverbial log cabin in Montana, we were able to do so—as long as we have working internet. Now there is some talk about letting folks like me work remotely indefinitely. I love Chicago, but there is no benefit to me being here. I am renting a two bedroom in Colorado for the same price as my one bedroom in Chicago and I get some killer views of the mountains and bike trails for dayyyyyyys! I am not doing it as a cost-cutting measure, but more of a quality of life improvement.

We have been living in our Beautiful Graystone since 1965, after the riots we still stayed we live off of the Express way that's a good thing but these Graystones are expensive to heat! Our winters are no joke, also many Jobs left the city years ago because of city taxes Money is Always why a move is necessary in Chicago!

More space. I'll own everything. No more sharing. No more fun police telling me where, when, and how I have to drink my beer.

I moved to Chicago from Phoenix in November 2019. Then everything shut down due to covid 19. When everything opened up, people started killing young children again. I'm moving back to Phoenix.

Need piece of mind

I hate the cold weather and want to be closer to family. If I can WFH rest of the year I'm going to save serious cash money living at home for a bit and can enjoy the outdoors longer than the 2 months it's nice in Chi-town

I'm a new orthodontist that just finished my orthodontic residency at the University of Illinois at Chicago. We had already decided to leave Chicago after my graduation before the pandemic hit in order to escape the super saturated dental market that had little to no opportunities for full time orthodontists. Nashville was the exact opposite and I found myself being recruited by multiple orthodontic offices whose pay was much higher than the orthodontic positions available in Chicago, despite the lower cost of living in Nashville compared to Chicago.

Not moving in the next six months, however, I will be buying property in Montana in short order. The people have gone nuts in Chicago and the city is changing. I have found that more conservative states are far more enjoyable than being in the middle of mass hysteria, liberal run states. I can almost smell the pine trees and hear the quiet.

Moving out of an apartment into a house. I take the train from Providence to Boston but with COVID and the future, I won't have to go to Boston everyday so I can move out of the city and into a house to start my family.

High taxes! Moving to Tennessee gives me a $12k per year raise on tax savings alone.

Moving from the city to the burbs

We live in a condo and have kids. Were buying a house with a backyard. Inventory was low last year when we were flirting with the idea and was crazy low this year. But we found a place we really like and it will have a separate dedicated office (wfh+no school is very hard).

Illinois is a mess

I moved in May - best decision ever

Since it looks like my partner and I won't be returning to the office anytime soon, we need more space. Space comes at a high cost in the South Loop of Chicago, and without being able to enjoy the various restaurants and amenities that took us to the area, not to mention not worrying about the relatively-easy commute from South Loop to U Chicago in Hyde Park, we are looking at places in close-in suburbs that would give us more space for WFH. We'll be back to the city when it's feasible though.

I just had a baby 4 weeks ago so we needed an extra bedroom - which triggered the move. However, the COVID lifestyle greatly impacted our search. We looked for a place in the city with a LOT more space knowing both my husband and I will be working from home for the foreseeable future. Finding a place that had ample outdoor space and a dedicated office was very important. We considered moving out of the city but the uncertainty in whether I would be expected to go into the office in the coming months kept us here.

We're moving into a bigger apartment but staying in the city. We're only able to afford this because sooo many people are leaving the city as quickly as possible

Grew up in Chicago, it WAS an incredible city that I used to boast about when I traveled anywhere else in the world. Decades of corruption, incompetence, and a leadership vacuum have turned it to a dangerous place of extreme haves and have-nots. No one I vote for ever wins. I'm leaving before I get shot.

I live in an older apartment in an up-and-coming part of the city and will be moving once my lease is up at the year's end. I left the city a couple days before the Illinois lockdown to stay with family in New Hampshire and then with my partner in Minnesota, in large part to get away from a space I didn't intend to be in besides evenings after work. I have been dreading going back once my furlough ends because I'll be back in a space with loud neighbors, dirty common areas, and slow to respond landlords for most of the day. I pay $975 for a roomy 1 bedroom but will probably move to studio that has nicer amenities (for when I'm stuck inside) and closer to public transportation (for when things start opening downtown). The relatively cheap rent for my own space was great right out of college, but with so much time probably being spent at home it's time for a change.

Fuck quarantine while in a 1,200 sqft apartment. Need a house and a yard now

Have been wanting to get out of Chicago for sometime now and had a great job opportunity come up. We've lived here for almost 20 years, grew up in Northwest Indiana about 45 miles away from Chicago, so the Midwest has always been our home. Living near mountains has been a dream of mine since I started snowboarding in my teens. We have young children and think giving them more of an outdoorsy childhood will provide better experiences than my wife and I had growing up. After Covid, the need to live in or near a big city seems to be waning. The company I left and the company I've joined have both adopted work from home as their standard policy with option of "renting" a desk on a day to day basis in their main offices.

COVID was awful in downtown Chicago. My fiancee and I live on the 26th floor in Gold Coast and while our cityscape view is beautiful, it is a concrete jungle and not conducive to social distancing, quarantine or sanity during the latter and/or the winters here. It is impossible to find breathing room or greenery and going for a walk seemed foolish since my nearly 3 million neighbors are looking to do the same. We are excited for more breathing room, a backyard and saving money while owning versus renting.

Since COVID hit, wife and I are both able to WFH full time. With a baby on the way moving to OH allows us to be with family (hello Grandma daycare!) and we're able to buy much more land/house than we could in Chicago/suburbs. Plus, Perrysburg schools are top in the state.

Crime sistemic racism

Needed a single family home; not affordable within the city of Chicago

This is my hometown. I love this city but I can't take the stupidity, lack of accountability, and total mismanagement of our state and city government anymore. I'd rather see my tax dollars invested in resources that better my community than in the pockets of connected public workers and corrupt politicians.

I moved out of my apartment in May because my lease was ending. I couldn't justify to continue paying 2K a month when I had no idea what was happening with my employment situation being in Medical Sales. I have no idea what will happen in the future or where I will go.

moving into a new sky rise unit, but waiting for rent to drop a bit further in the downtown areas

Sky high property, sales and state income taxes. Fuck Illinois

I’m staying in Chicago but moving to a larger apartment to give my boyfriend and I space when we both work from home

Get out of the city, avoid virus second wave next winter

Tired of the violence

We can work remote now, why not move to a new city with great weather year round!

Too expensive for the increase in crime and the taxes will increase significantly.

Our move was made last month. The shootings started happening more frequently in our Logan Square neighborhood. Blocks from the mayors house. Our daily "shelter in place" walk included stopping at a 7-11, one of the few places open, until a young woman in her 20's was killed by a stray bullet while standing outside of the same store. Innocently waiting for her friend and gone the next second. That single, tragic event inspired us to move so we took our cancelled Baltic coast vacation money and moved shortly after to a suburb. I miss my city but it's just not safe there anymore.

I am over 8 month winters and want to be outside more of the year. Additionally, with COVID and everything happening politically, the city is more difficult to navigate than it was just months ago. I now want a car and access to nature.

The cost has gotten way to high, we are taxed to death and with 2 good incomes we still live paycheck to paycheck. The corruption in state government is so bad, they have been kicking the can down the road for decades.

My wife and I have been eyeing a move out of Chicago for as long as we can remember. We're both very fortunate to have amazing bosses and great jobs that can be done 100% remotely. Once the lock-down occurred, we had proved that remote working is feasible (and actually preferred) so we kicked our search outside of Chicago in high-gear. My wife grew up in Chicago and most of her family is still in the area. While we contemplated a move to the south (Austin/San Antonio) for awhile, we ultimately decided it's best for us (and our future children) to be in between our two hometowns. Texas is still the long play. At about the 60 day mark of being quarantined inside our downtown Chicago condo, our time on a popular real estate sales app increased exponentially. My brother lives just south of Indianapolis, so our search ended up being limited to a 30 min driving radius of his house. After additional filters for price, school quality, land size, house size, etc. we had our parameters in place. I had woken up in the middle of the night sometime in late March/early April and was browsing the app when a particular place caught my eye. It had been listed for a day and checked every single one of our boxes. Instead of driving down to look at a place that may or may not still be on the market by the time we arrived, we had my brother and sister-in-law walk through the house with our agent, a friend of my brother's, and FaceTime with us. We put in an offer and won, sight unseen. A risky and impulsive decision indeed, but overall we are extremely happy with our decision. We're both outdoorsy, crafty, people with two large dogs and a passion for cars. Having a fenced in back yard, a third of an acre, and a three car garage is something most of America takes for granted - we couldn't appreciate it more. I take that back - our dogs appreciate it even more than we do. It certainly helps that our 4 bedroom house on a third of an acre here costs about 50% of our 1k sqft condo in Chicago. Our quarantine time now is spent growing a massive garden, doing landscaping, home improvement projects, and woodworking (we've built a TV stand and a dining room table - thanks YouTube!). This beats our quarantine time in Chicago spent watching Netflix and masking up every time we need to take the dogs out. Our risk of catching COVID was significantly higher while living in a building and sharing elevators with ~1500 other residents. Being able to open the back door and let the dogs run freely makes this move worth it by itself.

My office closed and their messaging is my return is optional through 2020, although I don't see a return to normal even in 2021. The rest of the city and things I enjoyed (concerts, street festivals, my gym, parks) are mostly all closed still. I left March 14 as I didn't want to sit in my apartment alone anymore. I am saving $2K a month staying with my Dad now. I want my own place in Pittsburgh suburbs, but it is impossible to plan for the future at this time. It's nice to be back in nature and with family during these times. Not sure I would actually go back...

this city is a joke, the taxes, the mayor the governor - they are useless and corrupt

I don’t want to raise my children in a highly taxed, liberal city with a terrible mayor and an awful governor. The Chicago violence is awful—way too many gun laws.

Can't handle this again.

Too expensive for the increase in crime and the taxes will increase significantly.

Moving to the city from the outskirts (out of parents house to where the young people at)

Took a job in Chicago right before the pandemic, but now my company is on remote work for the foreseeable future

Moving closer to in-laws.

Leaving the city for more space, better public schools, closer to family, and because...kids.

Done with the back and forth of politicians and done with the crazy taxes. Will schools open? No idea.

We’ve loved Chicago and I will always hold a special place in my heart for this energetic and vibrant city but when a pandemic and riots start rolling through town it loses a bit of its charm. Between the unrest, high cost of living, and the economic uncertainty, it no longer makes logical or emotional sense to justify living here for my family.

No point in living in Chicago if summer is compromised and a second wave is coming for the winter.

I’ve been living in the same 780 sq ft 1-bed condo for 17 years (I bought it when I was pretty young). My partner has been here with me the last 3. We don’t feel cramped, but after spending so much of the last 5 months at home and realizing that travel is going to be far less prominent in our lives for the foreseeable future (due to corona- and job- and time-related factors plus a newfound appreciation of the simplicity of staying close to home), we started thinking that having a more comfortable space that is all ours might be the way to go. We love our neighborhood so when a move-in ready house came up 3 blocks from here we jumped on it. Can’t wait for the deck and yard and separate office space! We love Chicago and would likely stay here no matter what, but my partner is a city employee so moving out of the city wasn’t an option anyway. We did think about rural Wisconsin for a hot second, though.

I have health and breathing issues, double lung transplant in 2017. so Covid is nightmare, i live in downtown Chicago. This place is a mess, corrupt, broke, broken and violent. Only getting worse. I live to go to concerts, clubs, pubs and all types of restaurants. Can't do that now because of health, so I'm gone.

Tired of the violence

My wife and I both work in tech, I sell Enterprise SaaS and she works for a large hardware company based in Round Rock/Austin, TX. We moved to Chicago 2 years ago for my job and once COVID hit and we were working remote, we wanted to be closer to family. Hers is in DC/Charleston area so we picked Raleigh which is in the middle and a tech hub. We saw our building get looted during the riots and that was the final straw for us. We were in a great building two blocks off the Chicago river but wanted to be somewhere quieter and cheaper. We got a place that is twice the size and half the cost in Raleigh.

Found a great house, great neighborhood, great price no need to be in the city

Moving a short term rental property out of Chicago to Austin

I lost my corporate job in Chicago where i spent my weeks in the orporate office and most weekends in Vermont. - so moving back to my house in Vermont.

Love Cali, moved to Chicago for work but now remote so back to Cali we go. Maybe back to Bay Area once rents decrease further as more people leave. We are Kiwi's with Green Cards so could also return to Covid free NZ.

Buying instead of renting

When the pandemic occurred, my fiance and I became acutely aware that we are surrounded by others in our building, and all the things we love about Chicago (street festivals, easy public transportation, friends) have been taken away from us. Now, we're prioritizing space over location. And warm weather.