Nashville ranks fourth for cities with most net inbound moves

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) – As we approach a third year into the pandemic, the housing market continues to soar.

Zillow and Allied Van Lines found that those who moved in 2021 were most motivated by warmth, sunshine and savings, ranking Nashville as the fourth most popular location for net inbound moves.

This data shows people are escaping the snow for the sunbelt, leaving high-priced areas for more affordable places like Tennessee, even though typical home values in Metro Nashville are up 24.9 percent in the past year.

“I’ve had people from California and Chicago,” Amanda Sievert, a real estate agent based in Clarksville, part of the Ashton Real Estate Group of RE/MAX Advantage team said.

Meantime, research from the National Assocation of Realtors found that rural areas had the highest share of inbound moves in 2021 at more than 54 percent, followed by micropolitan areas with a low commuting flow and small towns with a high commuting flow.

“We’re getting a lot of money out of state that’s coming in here…a lot of in state money. The pandemic helped with that because once you’re living in your home and you realize you need more space, that’s when people decide to venture out and buy something bigger and better,” Daniel Wree also with RE/MAX but based in Dickson, said.

Here locally, Zillow found that out-of-towners moving into Nashville relocated into zip codes with home values that were $58,000 cheaper than where they moved from.

Most of our newcomers are from Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City.

“What you can get here, square footage wise versus California, you’re going to pay close to a million for something that’s 3,200 square feet. Here, you can get it under $400,000, depending on where you’re at,” Sievert said.

Because of all of the people moving here, cheaper Middle Tennessee areas are seeing more growth, paired now with growing pains.

“A lot of these counties that are experiencing these exponential growth patterns are seeing an uptick in traffic, an uptick in upset citizens just because of the rate of growth.”

Those who moved out of Nashville went to zip codes where average home values are $60,585 lower than where they moved from, Zillow says. The most popular destinations former Nashvillians moved to were: