PR Newswire
Midwest and Northeast cities rise in the rankings this year as affordability issues grow
SEATTLE
,
Dec. 21, 2022
/PRNewswire/ — Prairie Village,
Kansas
, was
Zillow®’s most popular market of 2022
, showcasing rising interest in the Midwest and headlining a dramatic shift from 2021’s predominantly
West Coast
leaders.
Grand Rapids, Michigan
, won out for most popular large city, while top vacation, seaside and small towns were found in the Northeast.
Florida
won out for favorite retirement towns, and
Tempe, Arizona
, retained its title as the top college town.
Using Zillow page-view traffic, available housing inventory, price appreciation, sales data and other housing metrics that indicate consumer demand, Zillow analyzed thousands of ZIP codes within the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas to create a ranking of the site’s most popular U.S. cities.
“The most popular places on Zillow showcase a few trends we’ve noticed over the course of the year — most notably that affordability has become the chief driver of the market. The Midwest and most Northeastern markets saw relatively small run-ups in home values over the course of the pandemic, and now are still affordable enough for residents to shop in,” said Anushna Prakash, economic data analyst at Zillow.
A shift from fully remote to hybrid working situations may also be a factor. While the percentage of employees working remotely all or most of the time is lower than in the early pandemic, the share working from home at least some of the time is now much higher,
according to Pew Research
. This may help explain the higher popularity in 2022 of vacation spots and small towns within a somewhat reasonable, occasional commute to downtown employment centers.
Most popular on Zillow overall:
Prairie Village, Kansas
An upscale suburban community just minutes from downtown
Kansas City
,
Prairie Village
was pushed to the top of Zillow’s popularity rankings with site-leading page views of for-sale listings per day. Established on the
Kansas
–
Missouri
state line and featuring a number of activity-filled parks, posh shops and restaurants,
Prairie Village
was also tops on Zillow’s popularity rankings for small towns.
“I think when most people are looking at houses, they are looking at building a home, and that goes beyond the four walls of the structure you live in and expands to the community,” said
Earvin Ray
, owner of Ray Homes in
Kansas City
. ”
Prairie Village
offers the trifecta of beautiful homes, a spectrum of accessible price points and great amenities, such as highly rated schools, community events and local shopping.”
The
Kansas City
metro area is one of a host of Midwest markets still seeing robust competition for houses because they’re relatively affordable. Mortgage costs as a share of income and the years needed for renters to save up for a down payment are far lower than the national average.
Rounding out the top three are
Derry, New Hampshire
, a charming New England town less than 45 minutes from downtown
Boston
; and
Bon Air, Virginia
, a small residential community near
Richmond
with historic Victorian cottages lining its main road.
Most popular large city:
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids, Michigan
, topped the popularity chart among cities with populations greater than 200,000, driven by category-leading page views per listing and relatively affordable homes. A wide selection of breweries and a growing local foodie scene are putting
Grand Rapids
on the map for connoisseurs.
Richmond, Virginia
— still a very competitive area for home buyers — landed in second place, and
Omaha, Nebraska
, took third. The three top results led the category for page views per listing, and all feature typical home values significantly lower than the national average of
$357,733
.
Most popular seaside town:
Beverly, Massachusetts
This
Boston
suburb features miles of coastline and easily accessible public parks, helping to make it Zillow’s most popular seaside town
1
in 2022. Top rankings for page views and relatively low home values compared to its competition helped propel
Beverly
to the crest of the category.
Gloucester, Massachusetts
, and
Newport, Oregon
, (the most popular beach town in 2021) ranked second and third for similar reasons.
Most popular retirement town:
Dunedin, Florida
With
Dunedin’s
location on the Gulf Coast west of
Tampa
, along with local access to plenty of waterfront parks and country clubs, its popularity as a retirement town
2
is easy to understand.
Florida
is home to the top three cities in the category, with
Sarasota
placing second, and St. Pete Beach in third. Demand for homes has surged in
Florida
throughout the pandemic, as the state is both a sunny, relatively affordable locale and a prime retirement destination, and it has stayed hot as expensive Western markets cooled in 2022.
Most popular small town:
Windham, New Hampshire
Windham
, a bedroom community outside
Boston
, scored highest on Zillow’s index after
Prairie Village
. Typical home values of
$738,574
in
Windham
are higher than the
Boston
metro
($643,642)
. Zillow defined “small towns” as cities with populations between 15,000 and 25,000.
Hockessin, Delaware
, located outside
Philadelphia
, followed
Windham
for third.
Most popular vacation town
3
:
Lavallette, New Jersey
A popular summer vacation destination for dwellers of nearby
New York
,
Lavallette
features long, sandy beaches for swimming, surfing and fishing in the Atlantic; space for bocce, tennis and rollerblading; and opportunities for crabbing, sailing and other water sports in Barnegat Bay. It’s also a hot spot for retirees.
Indian Rocks Beach, Florida
, and
South Lake Tahoe, California
, followed
Lavallette
in Zillow’s results.
Vacation areas have seen a surge in popularity over the course of the pandemic as remote work makes them viable for visits longer than just weekends and holidays. Applications for mortgages in vacation areas rose 30% from 2019 to 2020, with activity concentrated around mountains and coasts, according to a
Zillow analysis of Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data
.
Applicants for vacation home mortgages across the U.S. had more than twice the median household income as applicants for primary homes —
$170,000
versus
$79,000
— and skewed much older than applicants for primary homes, with the majority of second-home applications coming from Gen Xers and Boomers, the analysis found.
Top college town:
Tempe, Arizona
Part of the
Phoenix
megaplex,
Tempe
is home to
Arizona State University
. Reigning as Zillow’s top college town
4
for the second year in a row, the city is home to the second-highest total number of rental listings among college towns studied, after
Cambridge, Massachusetts
, and has one of the largest populations of undergraduate and graduate college students.
Smithfield, Rhode Island
, where
Bryant University
is located, came in second place; while
Bowling Green, Ohio
, home of
Bowling Green State University
, landed third.
1
Listing description data was included in index scoring for the “most popular seaside town” category. Zillow defined “seaside towns” as areas where more than half of listings mentioned the beach, and excluded all cities that don’t feature the word “beach” in at least 50 listings on Zillow.
2
Using the latest available U.S. Census data, Zillow defined “retirement towns” as areas where at least 33% of the population is over the age of 65 and has no children or other relatives (other than a spouse) living in the home.
3
Zillow defines “vacation towns” as areas where more than 33% of the housing units are designated for non-primary use. Based on 2021 American Community Survey data.
4
In this analysis, “college towns” are defined as cities with the share of an area’s population of college students at least 20% or more based on 2021 U.S. Census data; also used were ZIP code–level populations, aggregated to the city level.
About
Zillow Group
Zillow Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: Z and ZG) is reimagining real estate to make it easier to unlock life’s next chapter. As the most visited real estate website in
the United States
, Zillow® and its affiliates offer customers an on-demand experience for selling, buying, renting, or financing with transparency and ease.
Zillow Group’s affiliates and subsidiaries include Zillow®; Zillow Premier Agent®; Zillow Home Loans™; Zillow Closing Services™; Trulia®; Out East®; StreetEasy®; HotPads®; and ShowingTime+™, which houses ShowingTime®, Bridge Interactive®, and dotloop®. Zillow Home Loans, LLC is an Equal Housing Lender, NMLS #10287 (
www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org
).
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