The burbs are becoming cool again for younger Americans. 8 'hidden gem' communities for homebuyers.
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- Millennials and Gen Z are packing up and leaving cities with high housing costs.
- They're moving to suburban and exurban communities while balancing hybrid work schedules.
- Here are 8 hot housing markets located outside major metropolitan areas, according to Zillow.
Young Americans sick of the high housing costs in major cities but unwilling to commit to going country are exploring a third option: moving to the burbs.
This development is a marked departure from the "back to the city" movement pioneered by millennials in the 2000s and 2010s. However, considering the historical context, moving out of crowded urban areas isn't unprecedented.
Suburbs are as American as apple pie. Armed with postwar GI Bills providing housing assistance and bank accounts bolstered by economic expansion, Americans poured out of cities and into mass-produced suburban Levittowns in the 1950s and 60s. Thus, the American dream of a home with a white picket fence was born.
According to Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow, young Americans are taking it one step further and moving to the exurbs — communities located past denser suburban areas but still within commuting distance to the metropolitan center.
"These communities strike a balance between suburban amenities while being located less than 90 miles outside of the offerings and thriving job markets of large urban centers like New York City or Boston," Divounguy told Business Insider in an email.
Post-pandemic, millennials, and increasingly, Gen-Z, have been giving up city life for the suburbs and exurbs, partly because they're getting priced out but also because they've developed changing lifestyle habits regarding flexible working arrangements.
"The increase in hybrid work models is likely contributing, leading more people to discover hidden gem cities that they may have previously overlooked when daily commutes were standard," Treh Manhertz, senior economic research scientist at Zillow, wrote in a recent report.
According to the moving company Hire a Helper, cities like New York, San Jose, and Los Angeles were top of the list for cities millennials moved out of in 2023. And between 2021 and 2022, millennials and Gen Z comprised almost two-thirds of the total number of departees from New York, an analysis conducted by Business Insider found.
That's not to say city living is out. Young people are still moving into expensive markets, according to Divounguy, but there's an undeniable proportion of the younger population leaving the cities.
This trend was reflected in 2024 Zillow user preferences. The real estate company analyzed metrics such as page-view traffic, home value growth, and days on market to gauge which housing markets with the highest level of consumer demand. Out of the top 10 most popular housing markets on the site, seven were suburban or exurban locations, which are listed below.