This American City Is the Easiest To Relocate To

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 5, 10:01AM EST

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This American City Is the Easiest To Relocate To — © DenisTangneyJr / iStock / Getty Images Plus

Americans have moved from place to place at a nearly unprecedented pace compared to recent years. Among the reasons are the desire to leave expensive coastal cities like New York and San Francisco to less expensive cities and towns inland. This has caused home prices spikes in some of these smaller communities. There is also the perception that the “quality of living” is better outside America’s largest metros. And, the COVID-19 pandemic has made millions of Americans less tethered to the locations of their company’s offices.

One hurdle to moving is home prices and inventories. Amerisleep looked at this challenge in a research report that covered the easiest cities to relocate to. It compared housing data in America’s 200 largest metros and screened for increases in home prices and home inventory between 2018 and 2021. The authors commented: “Cities where house prices have risen below the average, and more houses are on the market, combine the best of both worlds for people looking to start somewhere new.”

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The data used for the study were taken from Zillow and the U.S. Census. Cities were rated on a point system. The city at the top of the list was Napa, CA at 5.88. The authors wrote as they compared 2018 to 2021, “The result is down to a 31% increase in the number of houses on sale since 2018 – the highest rate of all areas included in the study. In addition, there has been a relatively low 13% increase in property cost, from an average of $101,872 in March 2018 to $115,575 in the latest available figures. Napa’s current population is 79,246.”

Napa was followed by Abilene with a score of 5.42. Its population was 125,182. Austin was next with a score of 4.85. Its population was 961,855.

On the far end of the spectrum: “Out of the top 200 populated cities that were in the study, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, is the most challenging city for people to relocate to. Tuscaloosa has a population of 99,600 and has seen a decrease of 49% in house availability since 2018.”

Click here to read Most Expensive Cities To Buy A Home

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.