Big cities — including Miami, Houston, and Austin, Texas — seem to be out of vogue with movers this year. Smaller spots outside larger urban hubs, meanwhile, are attracting more residents than they're losing.
An Insider analysis of US Postal Service data, which adds up the change-of-address requests from individuals, families, and businesses in each ZIP code filed in 2023 so far, can give a hint to where Americans are moving to and from. Insider combined the ZIP codes the USPS tracked into the number of people who moved in and out of each city.
People tend to leave larger cities and flock toward smaller areas on the outskirts for a few reasons, but one key driver is affordability, Danielle Hale, Realtor.com's chief economist, told Insider.
In cities like Miami and Austin, the flood of people who moved in over the past few years has slowed to trickle — but the influx of newcomers has boosted rents and home prices. Many residents priced out as a result are leaving for cheaper areas nearby, she said.
That's also why cities like Katy, Texas — just outside Houston — and Henderson, Nevada, a suburb of Las Vegas, are seeing more people move in than out, the change-of-address forms indicate.
The rise of remote work has also played a role. People who lived in cities like New York and Los Angeles now have a sense of the number of days a week they need to be at the office in person, Hale said, and feel more comfortable living in a cheaper area farther from a city center — especially if they don't need to commute every day.
"If you can find similar lifestyle amenities in a place that's more affordable," Hale added, "I think that people are open to making the move."
To be sure, this data is not a perfect representation of moving patterns. For one, it takes into account only the first five months of 2023, and businesses are included along with individuals and families. The pool of people it tracks is self-selecting, as it's optional to file a change-of-address form. Many people move over the summer to avoid pulling kids out of school midyear, so end-of-year change-of-address data may shed light on other patterns.
Also, bigger cities are more likely to both lose and gain people because of their larger populations; the USPS doesn't adjust its numbers according to population. Indeed, the US Census Bureau provides more comprehensive annual estimates of population changes across the US, but its figures are not released until much later, about a year after the time it's measuring.
Still, while the data is incomplete and imperfect, it provides a glimpse into where people want to move that's closer to real time.
Read on for the seven cities that saw the most net people move in — the most popular cities to move to — and seven that lost more residents than they gained. Each city is listed with its 2022 population according to census data, its typical home price according to Redfin, and the net number of people moving in or out for the year so far, according to the USPS.