Report: Hot Cities for Franchise Expansion Shift in 2019 from Big City Metros

What are the best places to expand your brand? According to a survey from Realtor.com, it's not big cities - at least if you base your marketing on where your target demographic lives. In other words, where are the Millennials moving to, starting families, and raising a new generation of consumers... uhh, we mean children.

"As buyers continue to be priced out of big cities, demand is sparking up in smaller, less dense markets where housing is more affordable," according to "Big City Metros Fall Off Realtor.com's 2019 Hottest ZIP Codes Report," the fifth annual report on this topic, released this summer.

Basing its rankings on items such as median listing price for homes, days on the market, job growth, and unemployment, the top 10 ZIP codes for home seekers and buyers are, in order of ranking: Grand Rapids, MI (49505), Omaha, NE (68144), Boise, ID (83704), Shawnee, KS (66203), Rochester, NY (14609), Livonia, MI (48154), Melrose, MA (02176), Arlington, TX (76018), Goffstown, NH (03045), and Colorado Springs, CO (80916). Five of the cities are new to the list.

According to the report, "Homes in this year's top 10 sell in an average of 17 days, 40 days faster than the rest of the country, and 20 days faster than their respective metros, on average."

The report noted three consistent factors behind the growing popularity of these cities: large numbers of high-earning Millennials scooping up homes, relatively affordable home prices, and strong local job markets.

"Even though buyers are moving to smaller markets, they are looking to retain an urban lifestyle by living closer to the city center," said Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com. "This tells us that today's home buyers are trying to have it all - proximity to downtown, room to grow, and affordability - and they're finding it outside of the biggest cities in the U.S."

An article in Pizza Marketplace about this study looked into how these trends might affect the food and franchised businesses. For more on the report, including an infographic on the top 10 cities, see the full press release from Realtor.com.