Following employment opportunities and more affordable housing markets, Millennials are increasingly moving to smaller cities like Durham, N.C., Grand Rapids, Mich., Oklahoma City, and Omaha.
In most of the top Millennial markets, unemployment rates and home prices are generally lower than the national average, and Millennials earning the average income in these markets can afford one quarter of the local for-sale housing stock. In Oklahoma City, these buyers can afford 30 percent of the local housing stock, versus 2 percent in San Diego and 13 percent in Boston, CNBC reports.
For example, Madison, Wisconsin, is a new mecca for Millennials, according to a recent study from the National Association of Realtors, which ranked the top Millennial housing markets based on both their high share of current young residents and of millennials moving in. Three out of 4 recent transplants to Madison were millennials and they have mostly stayed in the area, giving the city an overall high millennial population.
The growth is partly due to a burgeoning tech sector as well as the growing popularity of the University of Wisconsin with out-of-state students. Google recently announced it was expanding its Madison offices.
PB Topical Ref
