Driven by high mortgage rates, home prices, renter mobility is spiking in key Southern markets<\/p>\n
Jun 3, 2026, 9:30 PM UTC<\/p>\n
The gap between renters moving \u2014 and homeowners staying \u2014 is widening in many of the country\u2019s Southern cities.<\/p>\n
In Port St. Lucie, Florida, renter mobility rose 8.6 percentage points between 2019 and 2024 while homeowner mobility fell 1.3 points, according to a PropertyShark<\/a>\u00a0 analysis of Census data from 2019 through 2024 in the 100 most populous cities in the country. Similar patterns emerged across dozens of large U.S. cities as high mortgage rates and elevated home prices left more homeowners reluctant to give up low-rate mortgages.<\/p>\n Across the country, renters moved at nearly four times the rate as homeowners in 2024. In 41 of the 100 largest cities, renters moved more often compared to owners, whose mobility rate dropped. It was most pronounced in the South, which had some of the biggest changes in the mobility rates between renters and buyers.\u00a0<\/p>\n The findings suggest that while migration into many Southern markets remains strong, the people arriving are increasingly renters. Elevated home prices and mortgage rates have made buying less attainable, while millions of existing homeowners remain reluctant to give up mortgages locked in at far lower rates.<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re still strong in terms of the cost of living, climate, job markets. \u2026 That\u2019s really what\u2019s driving it,\u201d said Doug Ressler, senior analyst and manager of business intelligence at Yardi Matrix, PropertyShark\u2019s sister company.\u00a0<\/p>\n Winston-Salem, North Carolina, also had a large gap between renters\u2019 and owners\u2019 mobility rates. The average rent in the city was $1,278 and the median home was priced at $257,000, making it one of the more affordable cities PropertyShark analyzed. Still, homeowners were reluctant to give up low-rate mortgages, causing the city\u2019s mobility rate to dip while its renter mobility rate soared.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unlikely this trend, particularly in Southern markets<\/a>, will abate any time soon. For instance, Florida<\/a> could soon eliminate property taxes for most homeowners, and the Sunshine State is already one of a handful of states that does not tax income. Commuting times also tend to be shorter in many Southern markets, Ressler said.<\/p>\n Renting also remains a lot cheaper in many areas than buying, and landlords are giving up more to renters. Almost 40 percent of rentals on Zillow offered a concession this spring, a 5 percentage point increase year over year, according to the listings platform. Pre-pandemic, the figure was around 17 percent.<\/p>\n The markets with the greatest share of rental listings offering concessions are predominantly in the Sun Belt, though Denver, Colorado ranked No. 1, at 68 percent.<\/p>\n High home prices are also deterring many would-be buyers. In Port St. Lucie, for instance, the median sales price is $406,000. A 20 percent down payment on a property at that price point may not be feasible for many people, Ressler said. Compounding the affordability issue are high borrowing costs<\/a>, as the Federal Reserve is unlikely to drop interest rates.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to become more costly for homes in general,\u201d Ressler said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Driven by high mortgage rates, home prices, renter mobility is spiking in key Southern markets Jun 3, 2026,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":295019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172,124325],"class_list":["post-295018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-renter-owner-mobility-gap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=295018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/295018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/295019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=295018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=295018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=295018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}