Salt Lake City was named the top city for millennials this year, according to a new ranking released by realtor.com®.
In the U.S., the average share of the 25–34-year-old population is 13 percent. In Salt Lake City, millennials comprise 15.8 percent of its total population. Salt Lake City also has the lowest unemployment of all the markets on the top 10 list, at 2.9 percent (below the national unemployment rate of 4.7 percent).
Some surprising cities joined the millennial hot-spot list this year, notably Buffalo, N.Y., and Albany, N.Y. Buffalo ranked number one with the most affordable home prices relative to salary at 22.7 percent, realtor.com®’s analysis showed. Albany boasts high affordability too; homeowners there use 27.3 percent of their income to purchase a home. On the other hand, Salt Lake City buyers use 30 percent of their income on their home.
"High job growth in markets such as Orlando, Seattle, and Miami, and the power of affordability in places like Albany and Buffalo are making these markets magnets for millennials." says Javier Vivas, manager of economic research for realtor.com®. "But what really stands out is that all these markets already have large numbers of millennials, which translates into strong populations of millennial home buyers."
Realtor.com® analyzed the 60 largest U.S. markets to compare the share of millennial page views in each area to the national average. The following are the cities ranked in order (listed as well with the percentage of each city’s population that are millennials).
- Salt Lake City: 15.8%
- Miami: 13.1%
- Orlando, Fla.: 14.6%
- Seattle: 15.2%
- Houston: 14.5%
- Los Angeles: 15%
- Buffalo, N.Y.: 13.4%
- Albany, N.Y.: 12.7%
- San Francisco: 15%
- San Jose, Calif.: 14.2%
Source: realtor.com®
