Three percent of RIAs relocated during the coronavirus pandemic, seeking affordable office spaces and more remote work options. Florida saw headquarters increase by 25% between 2020 and 2021, a SmartAsset
Small advisory firms were more likely to change their headquarters: Almost 96% of moves were by RIAs with less than $10 billion in assets. About 54% of the firms that changed headquarters moved the entire practice and kept no other office outside their new locations.
“Many headquarters changes among larger firms were in the works prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic,” the SmartAsset report found.
More than one in five RIA headquarters moves were out of New York City. Seventy-four RIAs moved from April 2020 to 2021 — about 21% of all moves. In the state of New York, there were 46 fewer RIAs in April 2021 than in April 2020. California also saw 18 RIAs leave, yet these two states represent the most popular states for RIAs, with 20% of RIA headquarters in New York and 13% in California.
San Francisco and Chicago saw net decreases in RIA headquarters, but the “magnitude of these decreases is small relative to New York City decreases,” SmartAsset said in the report. Nine RIAs left San Francisco and six left Chicago.
Miami is the top city RIAs moved to during the pandemic. From April 2020 to 2021, the number of headquarters there increased by eight. Following Miami is Stamford, Connecticut; West Palm Beach, Florida; Carmel, Indiana; and White Plains, New York.
SmartAsset looked at nearly 11,000 financial advisory firms that are registered with the SEC and headquartered in the U.S. and excluded firms that did not report a headquarters in their March 2020 or March 2021 SEC filings.
