Tampa among top hot spots for new residents in U.S.

May 26, 2016

Ashley Gurbal Kritzer | Tampa Bay Business Journal

Tampa should benefit during the summer moving season — it’s the No. 1 hot spot for new residents in the U.S., according to Realtor.com.

Realtor.com this week ranked cities based on three sets of data:
• Census Bureau migration data collected from 2009 to 2013 that tracked people’s moves in and out of metropolitan areas
• The number of cross-metro moving requests on moving.com
• Cross-metro search traffic on realtor.com

The data was “adjusted for city size and based our calculation on the ratio of inbound to outbound moves to come up with the most desirable cities — where more people are moving in than moving out.”

With a median home price of $230,000 and an unemployment rate of 4.4 percent, Tampa took the top spot. Jacksonville was No. 2, and Orlando came in at No. 7.
Ranked by top destinations for millennials, though, Tampa came in third, behind first-place San Antonio and Jacksonville in the No. 2 spot. Miami and Orlando rounded out the top five.

“What do these metros have in common?” Realtor.com writes. “Affordable housing and strong job markets, mostly. Some of these places are just beginning to join the ranks of the housing market’s elite class.”

New York, Chicago and Detroit were the top three cities losing the most residents.