It would seem that New York City’s population is growing, especially as fewer than 10,000 rental units are listed in three boroughs alone.

But looks can be deceiving.

An analysis of March-released Census findings by the City this week found that the city lost 300,000 people between April 2020 and June 2021 — spanning the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic and into our post-vaccine reality. What’s more: People are still moving out of the city, but at a slower pace.

The number of births during that 2020-into-2021 period surpassed the number of deaths — but during that time, so many New Yorkers moved out of the boroughs that the overall population still dramatically decreased.

The biggest reason, the City reported, was locals moving to other states. (COVID deaths and a decrease in international migration also contributed significantly.) 

The Census numbers likely have a slight lag. In an analysis of them, the Department of City Planning wrote that the factors which led to a population depletion were “a result of temporary, pandemic-related phenomena [that] are likely to have reversed in the second half of 2021.” 

Other data reviewed by the City found that the amount of New Yorkers skipping town has at least slowed in recent months, based on an analysis of change-of-address data from the United States Postal Service. The publication notes it doesn’t distinguish between people who left the five boroughs and those who moved within them. But the agency received 30,900 address-change requests in April — down significantly from 53,500 last April, and above the 26,900 recorded in the same period in 2019. 

So, why the discrepancy? If the contrasting images of a less populous city and rental bidding wars are still hard to fathom — leading many to wonder if landlords are warehousing units or if units are being listed on short-term rental sites — appraiser Jonathan Miller suggests thinking about how different today’s work-life environment is than it was pre-pandemic.

“People are being motivated for different reasons that didn’t exist pre-pandemic,” Miller, the president and CEO of Miller Samuel Inc., told The Post. “The relationship between work and home has been fundamentally changed.” 

Amid record rent and sales activity, city office towers remain two thirds empty; people are making the most of their pandemic-granted ability to work remote, migrating to New York and working from home. This trend is intensely reflected in the upper half of the market, “because lower-wage earners are much more economically damaged by the lockdown and pandemic era,” said Miller. “Remote work and mobility has defined the boom we’re seeing in the city right now.”

The inbound migrants coming to New York, to work remotely or otherwise, are, however, outpaced by the amount of people who fled during the pandemic. 

“Inbound migration really didn’t start happening until 2021,” said Miller, and before that “Everything was outbound, outbound.” 

Airbnb is also a factor, Miller believes, but not the main one. “I think they’re just making a tight housing situation tighter,” he said. 

“There are fewer Airbnb listings in New York City today than before the pandemic and the City’s own Department of Planning concluded the population drop is pandemic-related and likely already reversed itself,” Airbnb told The Post in a statement. “The data makes clear: the primary driver of NYC’s long-standing housing affordability crisis is the failure to build enough homes that working people can afford and Airbnb remains eager and willing to partner with City officials to build new, affordable housing across the city.”