Where Young People Are Moving

A recent study by LendingTree has some interesting data points about where Generation Z (people born between 1997 and 2012) are looking to buy. It’s not NYC, SF, BOS or other coastal cities. Rather, the top ten for the youngest buyers are:

• Salt Lake City

• Louisville

• Oklahoma City

• Cincinnati

• Indianapolis

• Phoenix

• Minneapolis

• Birmingham

• St. Louis

• Virginia Beach

I look at this list and think: the kids are alright! This is such a great list of American cities that deserve a second look.

Salt Lake City is already probably overpriced, and Phoenix is nothing new, but the rest are seriously underpriced when you consider what you can buy in these places and what they have to offer if you’re working remotely. The list is like a “great wines under $20” list — serious value that would normally cost much more in other regions.

Louisville — an incredible value given its beautiful architecture, and food and drink scene. Frankly, in my own perusal of places to move to, I spent a good amount of time on Zillow and Redfin looking at Old Louisville. For example, here’s an amazing building that would be $2 million in Brooklyn, asking $525,000. (OK, I see the boarded up windows in the neighboring buildings, but Gen Z seems to be all about sweat equity.) I even spent some time looking at the weather in Louisville versus Philadelphia (Louisville basically wins, due to its longer spring and fall).

Likewise, Cincinnati has some fantastic neighborhoods like Over the Rhine, and it has a real backbone of Fortune 500 companies headquartered there, like Kroger, Macy’s and Proctor & Gamble.

Virginia Beach is a fantastic location, midway on the East Coast, and it could have a renaissance as more people look to live full-time in what were once seasonal resort communities and soon become work-from-home havens.

Lastly, Birmingham — been hearing a lot about that city ever since Food & Wine moved to the city in 2017. It’s also a college town, and so while Alabama doesn’t usually rank high in terms of trends, Birmingham has some decent job growth and prospects as a college town. It’s also a southern city that might fare ok with climate change, and seems poised to attract people priced out of Atlanta.

Also nice: many of these are older cities that lost population and have decent infrastructure. They can promote walkability in their downtowns. They have existing public transit systems. Places like Minneapolis have been at the forefront of enabling more housing development — something that older cities traditionally struggle with.

So these are really exciting opportunities for a new generation to discover and hopefully enhance with their diversity. After all, most of these cities also struggle with segregation, and it would be great if an influx of Gen Z could make these cities both younger and more diverse.