Top Ten Markets During and in a Post-COVID Environment in 2021-2022

The National Association of REALTORS® identified top 10 markets that have shown resilience during this pandemic period and that are expected to perform well in a post-COVID-19 environment. In identifying these markets, NAR considered a variety of indicators that it views to be influential to a metro area’s recovery and growth prospects in a post-pandemic environment in 2021-2022, including:

1) Fraction of the workforce working from home (2019)
2) Share of multi-generational households (2019)
3) Net domestic migration in a metro area (2019)
4) Movers from expensive West Coast areas moving into another metro area (2018)
5) Unemployment rate (September 2020)
6) Share of workers in retail trade, leisure and hospitality industries (2019)
7) Small business openings relative to January 2020 (Nov 2020)
8) Mobility to retail and recreation places relative to January 2020 (Nov 2020)

Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler, Arizona
The Phoenix metro area attracted the largest number of movers from West Coast metro areas. It’s the third largest destination of movers, next to Dallas and Atlanta. In 2018, nearly 200,000 people moved in Phoenix, of which nearly 29,000 or 14.5% were from West Coast metro areas. A high fraction of workers, 7.9%, work from home. Next to Dallas, it has the second largest share of multi-generational households, at 4.5%.