Best Real Estate Investing Markets (2025)

All right, the year has wrapped up and there was a lot of coming and going from one market to another. So, which markets are poised for growth in 2025? We're going to talk about that and more on today's episode. Let's get ready to scale. Hey guys, I'm Jeanette Friedrich, Director of Investor Relations here at Blue Lake Capital, where we specialize in multifamily investments across the US. Given that, one of the things that I always pay very close attention to is what's called net migration trends, which is just a fancy way of simply saying where people are moving to and where they left. The reason we pay attention to important factors like this is because it helps us keep our fingers on the pulse of the markets and helps us to identify which markets are likely to see stronger growth than others. It's a really important factor that any investor wants to take into consideration and the great news is the information is very easy to access. So, today we're going to talk about two different reports that came out for 2024 that are going to help you understand which markets are most likely poised for growth and which are headed for a downturn. Now, the reports that I'm referring to are U-Hauls at annual 2024 moving trends, in addition to Allied Van Lines moving trends for 2024. Now, the reason why I'm using both reports is important to know because you want to take into fact who your target demographic is. So, depending on what type of investments you do, so for example, we do class B multifamily investments, which generally means our tenant base is typically either blue-collar or maybe a mix of blue-collar and white-collar, but nonetheless that's an important factor that we want to pay attention to. So, I'm a little bit more inclined to pay attention to U-Hauls report over Allied Van Lines, which typically indicates more white-collar moves, people that have really strong and good jobs, where their move was actually paid for, typically much more so than in the U-Haul report. Either way, depending on what you're investing in, if it's luxury properties, you might want to pay attention to Allied Van Lines more, but if it's something that's a little bit more middle class, then you would want to pay attention to the U-Haul report. So, without further ado, let's talk about what these reports said. So, first of all, I'm going to start with U-Haul's report and talk about which states people moved to the most, and it was pretty interesting. So, first of all, Tennessee came in at number five. In addition to that, Florida was number four. North Carolina came in at number three. Texas came in at number two, and for the very first time ever, South Carolina actually came in as the number one most moved to state from U-Haulers. Now, this actually did correlate pretty well with the Allied Van report, but not completely. So, Allied Van report showed North Carolina as number one with South Carolina as number two, then Tennessee followed in third place, and then Georgia, and then Virginia, which is also very interesting and likely tied to the return to office mandate for a lot of our federal workers. Ready to Scale is brought to you by Blue Lake Capital, where we hunt down the best multifamily investment opportunities that we can and invite investors to join in with us. We target class B value-add multifamily properties across the Sunbelt. Our CEO, Ellie Perlman, invests a substantial amount of capital into every deal. This means our interests are aligned with yours. If you're an accredited investor looking to expand your portfolio and diversify sponsors, be sure to visit us at bluelake-capital.com. Blue Lake Capital, be bold, be extraordinary, and keep moving forward. All right, now let's talk about the flip side. Where was everybody leaving from? So, basically, this means that more than likely, these markets are going to be in a downturn, and it's no surprise to know that California came in dead last as in the number one state that people left the most. I guess I'm the only freak of nature that actually moved to California last year and not out of it. In addition to that, Illinois was a common theme between both the U-Haul report and the allied van lines, and so was New York, Pennsylvania, Washington, and very surprised by this, Colorado, and we're going to talk a little bit more about Colorado in just a moment. So, these are markets that people were leaving, and it's really important to pay attention to that because if you have an investment opportunity in one of these markets, that's something that you might want to take into consideration. If it's a short-term hold period and you're looking for growth right off the bat, it might not be the timing in that market to make those types of investments. However, if it's a heck of a good deal and it's for, say, a 10 or 20-year hold, then there still might be viability to consider that investment. All right, now let's talk about some fun surprises. So, Oklahoma, interesting, jumped a massive 30 spots to rank number 11, which is the most growth that I have seen in any of these reports for Oklahoma in a long time. In addition to that, Indiana and Maine also grew by 18 to 19 spots respectively, which is a really interesting sign. I am a huge fan of Maine, so I can appreciate and understand why people are really starting to maybe migrate towards that area. And then Colorado, as I mentioned, very surprisingly actually slid 31 spots last year. So, it went from a very favored destination to apparently it's losing favor with people. Now, all of this is more than likely tied to a number of different factors, including weather, as well as, you know, job opportunities, cost of living, a lot of the factors that people are, of course, taking into consideration as they are trying to build out their own lives and their own successful financial futures. So, I hope you found this helpful. Migration trends are really important to pay attention to, and they can help you understand which markets are smarter to invest in this coming year and which ones maybe aren't. Are you surprised by these rankings? Make sure to leave us a comment if you're watching along on our YouTube channel, or if you're listening along, make sure to leave it in a review. So, if you're planning on moving to, we definitely would like to know about that and why and where you're headed to. Thanks so much, and I hope you guys found this helpful. I'll see you on the next episode.