I am not one for mushy demographic survey stats, but this one intrigued me because it incorporates Census findings and overlaps with housing sales. “Who Moves? Who Stays Put? Where’s Home?”

>As a nation, the United States is often
portrayed as restless and rootless. Census
data, though, indicate that Americans are
settling down. Only 13% of Americans
changed residences between 2006 and
2007, the smallest share since the
government began tracking this trend in
the late 1940s.

>A new Pew Social & Demographic
Trends survey finds that most Americans
have moved to a new community at least
once in their lives, although a notable
number—nearly four-in-ten—have
never left the place in which they were
born.1 Asked why they live where they
do, movers most often cite the pull of
economic opportunity. Stayers most
often cite the tug of family and
connections.

On the surface, this seems to contradict the surge in sales activity in 2004, 2005 and 2006 during the housing boom. However, NAR indicated that roughly 36% of all sales in 2004 were investor or vacation home sales. I interpret this as a surge of secondary housing, not primary, which is one of the reasons the surplus housing stock is going to be difficult to absorb over the next several years. Although I can’t find an updated version of those numbers (likely because they would not be rosy enough), I suspect they are nearly a non-factor now.

Exercise: try counting the number of times you have moved in your entire life, including higher education if applicable. I moved roughly every 4 years before I left for college, then every year of college (2x) and every 2 years until I owned my first house. After that I averaged once every 6 years. 8 states. I am sick of moving.

The findings that interested me most:

* Most adults (57%) have not lived outside their current home state in the U.S. At the opposite end of the
spectrum, 15% have lived in four or more states.
* More than one-in-five U.S.-born adults (23%) say the place they consider home in their heart isn’t where
they’re living now. And among those who have lived in two or more communities, fully 38% say they aren’t
living in their “heart home” now.
* The Midwest is the most rooted region: 46% of adult residents there say they have spent their entire life in
one community. The least rooted is the West, where only 30% of adult residents have stayed in their
hometown. Residents of the South (36%) and East (38%) fall in between.
* College education is a key marker of the likelihood to move: Three-quarters of college graduates (77%)
have changed communities at least once, compared with just over half (56%) of those with a high school diploma
or less. College graduates also are more likely to have lived in multiple states.
* Movers are more likely than stayers to say there is a good chance that they will move in the next five years.
Not surprisingly, only a third of those who rate their current communities highly predict they’ll move within
five years, compared with half of those who give their current communities a poor rating.