The last decade has seen many residents relocate to the East and West Coasts due to the strong job markets in those locations as well as employment and income growth. But a recent survey found that trend is likely about to change. According to Zillow’s Quarterly Home Price Expectations Survey released Wednesday, job growth in the middle of the country is expected to attract more residents as businesses look for cheaper locations to expand.
More than half of the survey respondents said that job expansion in the middle of the country and nearly one quarter said that high housing costs on the coasts will prompt residents to relocate to Middle America. As to the question of whether the trend of residents moving to the coast would reverse, more than half of the experts surveyed said it has already started to reverse or expect it to reverse in the future. A quarter of the experts said they believe the shift toward Middle America is permanent.
One of the most nagging issues in the housing industry since the recession has been the dearth of young homeowners. And the news is staying bad for now. According to Fannie Mae, the national homeownership rate of households headed by 25- to 34-year-olds has fallen by about 10 percentage points, to 37 percent, since the peak of the housing bubble in 2006. This drop-off in younger buyers leads a generally down homeownership rate overall. In fact, national homeownership rates have hit multi-decade lows, with a decline of roughly 4 points over the same time period.