Out-of-Towners Are Flocking to New Construction: Here’s Where Demand Is Highest

Out-of-town home shoppers are driving the new-construction market, drawn by increasingly commonplace price incentives and larger properties—and budget-friendly Sun Belt hot spots are seeing the strongest pull.House hunters routinely look beyond the confines of their local market online, but that wandering eye is especially pronounced for buyers who have their heart set on a new build, according to the latest quarterly New Construction Insights report from Realtor.com®.Nationally, out-of-metro buyers accounted for more than 67% of page views on newly built homes this spring, compared to roughly 65% for existing homes. Simply put, new-home demand is more likely to come from outside buyers than existing-home demand, and this is true across urban and suburban markets. In several metros, most of them located in the well-supplied South, out-of-towners overwhelmingly dominate the local new-construction scene.Lakeland, FL, tops that list, with out-of-metro shoppers accounting for more than 83% of new-construction views in the second quarter. It was followed by Cape Coral, FL (82.4%), Port St. Lucie, FL (80.9%), North Port, FL (80.5%), and Durham, NC (80.2%).Other destinations popular with ...