Dive Brief:
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Detroit and Honolulu are thousands of miles apart, but distance isn’t the only differentiator. The pair lead a new ranking by Realtor.com of the top 10 cities in the U.S. in which residents are least likely to move, having stayed in their homes since 1990.
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For Detroit, a struggling economy and blight across large swaths of the city have many owners in negative equity on their mortgages, making selling near-impossible. Alternatively, Honolulu’s high home prices and geographic isolation make selling and repurchasing homes there a challenge.
- The ranking, which is based on Census Bureau data, also tracked cities where the highest percentage of owners moved into their homes after 2010, with Orlando, FL, Irving, TX, and Reno, NV, topping that list.
Dive Insight:
Cities with robust job centers are recording more moving activity, whereas markets whose economies are slow to recover have proven stickier where population migration is concerned.
While the West Coast has lead in home-value appreciation, the South is gaining ground as metros there draw newcomers with employment opportunities and a generally low cost of living. A recent report from Zillow found that Nashville, TN, Portland, OR, Dallas-Fort Worth, TX, and Orlando are experiencing home-price growth of more than 10% whereas the pace has ebbed in the West. In general, more migration has been recorded from major coastal metros to smaller, inland markets over the past several years.
Still, relatively few Americans are moving. Recent Census Bureau data show that roughly one in 10 Americans moved from 2015 to 2016, the lowest level since the agency began tracking migration in 1948. According to moving company Atlas Van Lines, the number of interstate and interprovince moves in the U.S. and Canada last year fell to 75,427 from 77,705 in 2015.
Increasing demand is putting pressure on already-waning supply. There is currently a 3.6-month supply of for-sale home stock nationwide, according to the latest S&P Core Logic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, which noted that home prices reached their highest level in 30 months in December 2016 with continued growth anticipated.
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