The pandemic spurred a migration away from New York City. But as vaccines rise and restrictions lift, people are returning in droves.

• People are moving to New York City at higher rates than in 2019, data from Unacast shows.
• Manhattan and the Bronx are seeing the biggest spikes.
• Realtors say this is reflected in the real estate market, too, both in sales and rentals.
• See more stories on Insider's business page.

There may have been a migration out of New York City during the pandemic, but with vaccinations on the rise and the economy continuing to reopen, residents are returning in droves – more, even, than pre-pandemic levels.

According to location-data firm Unacast, migration to New York is growing twice as fast than in 2019. In January and February 2021, Unacast found that the city grew by 1,900 people – during the same period in 2019, the city shrunk by 7,100 residents.

New York and Bronx counties grew the most this year, adding 21,000 and 2,100 residents, respectively, during January and February.

Kings, Queens, and Richmond counties – which encompass Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island – all showed a shrinking population, though Kings County is experiencing a growing average income, according to Unacast.

Not quite an exodus

The trend toward people returning to the city began in the third quarter of 2020, Unacast found, following months of New Yorkers departing for other parts of the country.

According to data compiled by Stephan D. Whitaker, an analyst at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, urban neighborhoods saw an average of 276,000 people per month leave the region from March to September 2020, 10,000 more than during the same periods in 2017 through 2019.

In New York City, specifically, Whitaker estimates that the average number of people leaving the city beginning in May 2020 was more than twice as high as the previous three years - Unacast pegged the number of people who left New York in 2020 at 111,000.

Whitaker noted that while "out-migration" from places like New York was certainly high, "in-migration" declined at a higher rate during the pandemic.

"Out-migration did increase in many urban neighborhoods, but the magnitudes probably would not fit most definitions of an exodus," he wrote. "What is certain is that hundreds of thousands of people who would have moved into an urban neighborhood in a typical year were unwilling or unable to do so in 2020. These people may be harder to identify, label, and interview, but they may be best positioned to tell the real story."

'The market has to go back to a New York market'

The migration back into New York in 2021 is already showing up in real estate sales.

In the first quarter of 2021, real estate firm Corcoran Group reported 3,700 signed contracts, an increase of 58% annually, which it described in its quarterly market report as "the strongest start to any year for signed contracts since 2007, even beating out 2013 by 6%."

Sales in areas like downtown Manhattan and the Upper West Side were up 7% and 15%, respectively, in the first quarter, Corcoran said.

Across the East River in Brooklyn, Corcoran saw the highest number of sales of any quarter since 2007 during the first three months of the year, with over 1,400 buyers signing contracts.

It's not just homebuyers who are putting down roots in New York - renters who left the city are returning too. Jared Goodloe, a realtor with Compass in Brooklyn, told Insider that he's hearing from renters who expect their offices to reopen in August or September and are ready to move back to the city.

They're hoping to take advantage of the glut of inventory that's accumulated during the pandemic - but there could be a hidden downside, Goodloe warned.

"They're moving into these apartments with a lot of concessions in Manhattan, but then not to realize that next year when they go and resign the lease, the rent's going to go back up," he said.

Goodloe said he's seeing that issue arise in Brooklyn as well. He recently had a client who moved into an apartment in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn at a $300 discount, but the property manager for the unit assured him that the rent will shoot back up again next year if she chooses to re-sign her lease.

"Right now, [developers] are like, 'Let's give these people a break. Let's get people back into the city. Let's make the city more attractive again,'" he said. "But some point, I guess the market has to go back to a New York market."