Florida Carries Southern Region in Domestic Migration

Homeowners are flocking to Florida according to Clear Capital’s June 2017 HDI Market Report. The report provides insights into market trends and other leading indices for the real estate market at the national and local levels. Nationally, quarter-over-quarter home price growth slowed slightly from 0.9 percent to 0.8 percent, but Clear Capital said this aggregate measure is disguising a growing regional divide.

The West region continues to pace the nation with 1.2 percent quarter-over-quarter growth due to high levels of growth in the Pacific Northwest, the Sacramento Valley, and Arizona. San Jose has started to see accelerated growth, entering the top 15 metros with 1.3 percent quarter-over-quarter growth, despite an only 3.7 percent growth since last year. Nine of the top 15 metros are currently in the West region.

Though the Northeast currently does not have any metros in the top 15 and is the only region to experience a significant increase in distressed saturation, it isn’t far behind the West. They showed an uptick in quarter-over-quarter growth from last month from 0.9 percent to 1 percent.

Growth in the South has begun to slow down, despite the summer selling season. Quarter-over-quarter gains are down from 0.8 percent last month to 0.6 percent in June. Memphis was the worst performing market in terms of quarter-over-quarter growth last month, but is showing better signs this month jumping into the top 15 with 1.5 percent quarter-over-quarter growth and 9.1 percent year-over-year growth. Though the Florida markets like Jacksonville, Orlando, and Tampa experienced a boost in domestic migration, contributing to double digit year-over-year home price growth, the South region’s growth was stalled by Virginia Beach, Baltimore, Houston, New Orleans, Louisville, and Birmingham, all of which have grown by less than 0.6 percent quarter-over-quarter.

The Midwest, who has been the slowest growing in the region, continues its slow pace with quarter-over-quarter growth slowing from 0.6 percent to 0.5 percent last month. However, Chicago has jumped into the top three metros in terms of quarter-over-quarter growth at 1.7 percent. Despite having a declining population in 2016 and 20 percent distressed saturation, it is one of only seven metros to achieve double-digit year-over-year growth. Cincinnati is showing warning signs of slowing with distressed saturation increasing from 14.5 percent to 17.6 percent in the last month.