Snowbird Home Searches

As the Midwest grapples with a frigid polar vortex, a new study analyzes the hows and whys behind cold climate to warm climate home search patterns in the U.S.

In December 2018, nearly 17 percent of home searchers from colder U.S. metros went to metros with warm winters. As well, older home searchers aren't necessarily looking to move to warmer climes than younger searchers, particularly for warmer metros with job opportunities aplenty. Metros with the coldest winters do typically have the greatest domestic out-migration in favor of warmer climates, Trulia finds. The real estate platform also finds that almost 70 percent of cold-weather searches end up in Florida markets.

In December, 15 percent of home searches originating from metros where the average January temperature is below freezing went to places where the average January temp is above 50 degrees – up only 1.5 percentage points from the 13.5 percent of similar searches executed in the humid dog days of August. In comparison, the equivalent seasonal gap in 2017 was 2.3 percentage points and in 2016 it was 2.4 percentage points. So the small, nationwide snowbird bump that does exist seems to be on the wane.

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