Weighing factors including population growth, median age, higher education degrees, job growth and more than a dozen other factors, website Point2Homes.com generated a list of the most dynamic American cities.
According to the site, which is a division of Yardi Systems Inc. that covers real estate market trends and new and develops original studies on many real estate topics, the methodology involved evaluating more than 150 metro areas and looking at 18 different factors for generating the list.
They company looked at:
- Human Capital: increases in population and immigration levels (influx of foreigners as well as U.S. citizens from other parts of the country), positive changes in a city’s median age;
- Education and Culture: increases in the number of residents holding higher-education degrees, rises in school enrollment levels and internet subscriptions, and growth in the number of people employed in Arts and Entertainment;
- Economic Activity: the evolution of a city’s GDP, boosts in incomes and job opportunities, growth in the number of registered patents and companies that are active on the market, as well as declines in unemployment and poverty rates;
- Housing: home price appreciation, increases in building permits, and decreases in the number of vacant homes.
Not surprisingly, the list was dominated by cities in the Southeast and West Coast, which have been the benefits of positive demographic trends for many years.
In the following gallery we feature the top 25 cities on the list along with a sampling of some of the metrics that were used. Point2.Home.com's site features a full table of all 150 cities.