Austin, Texas remains the nation’s leading boomtown, while Southern metros claimed eight of the top 10 positions in a LendingTree analysis of population, housing, employment, and economic growth.
The findings point to markets adding prospective borrowers and housing units. But population growth is not the same as loan growth.
The opportunity for LOs is more tactical than automatic: build relocation and new-construction referral channels, identify prospective buyers earlier, and use seller concessions or buydowns where growing inventory provides room to negotiate.
Growth Creates Potential, Not Guaranteed Volume
Austin ranked as LendingTree’s No. 1 boomtown for the third consecutive year. The metro recorded the highest housing-unit growth among the 50 markets analyzed, at 3.4%, while its population increased 3.1%.
About 17.5% of Austin residents had moved from another county, state, or country, the third-highest share in the study. Austin also recorded an 11.3% increase in new business applications, the largest gain among the metros analyzed.
Those figures suggest a growing pool of residents who may need housing and mortgage guidance.
For originators, that creates opportunities to use seller-paid closing costs, repairs, and temporary or permanent rate buydowns to help qualified borrowers complete purchases. It does not necessarily mean the market is generating more transactions.
Southern Metros Lead The Rankings
Raleigh ranked second overall after placing first in LendingTree’s work-and-earnings category. Its workforce grew 4.4%, while median earnings increased 6.5%.
Seattle placed third overall and led the business-and-economy category, supported by 5.1% real gross domestic product growth and a 9.6% increase in new business applications.
Charlotte, N.C., ranked fourth, followed by Tampa, Fla.; Phoenix; Jacksonville, Fla.; Orlando, Fla.; Houston; and Nashville, Tenn.
Texas placed four metros among the top 15: Austin at No. 1, Houston at No. 9, Dallas at No. 11, and San Antonio at No. 13.
Florida placed three metros in the top 10. Tampa ranked fifth, Jacksonville seventh, and Orlando eighth. Jacksonville recorded the largest workforce increase in the study, at 5.6%, while Orlando’s population grew 4.3%.
Those markets may offer originators larger relocation and purchase prospect pools, but local ownership costs remain important. In Florida, particularly, increasing insurance expenses have become another affordability and mortgage-qualification variable.
More Housing Has Not Solved Affordability
LendingTree’s rankings arrive as increasing housing supply gives buyers more choices in parts of the South and West. Nationally, however, greater inventory has not produced a broad sales recovery.
NMP recently reported that existing-home supply reached its highest level since 2019 while sales fell to a 14-month low. Elevated mortgage payments and economic uncertainty continued to hold prospective buyers back.
That leaves originators in fast-growing markets with two separate questions: Are more people entering the market, and can those households afford and qualify for the available homes?
Population, employment, earnings, and housing construction can support longer-term purchase demand. Near-term mortgage production will still depend on local home prices, interest rates, insurance and tax costs, available inventory, and borrower qualification.
Midwest Metros Trail
Five of LendingTree’s bottom 10 metros were in the Midwest: Detroit, Milwaukee, St. Louis, Chicago, and Cincinnati.
Memphis ranked last overall after finishing last in the business-and-economy category. Detroit ranked 49th, followed by Buffalo, N.Y., at No. 48.
LendingTree evaluated the country’s 50 largest metropolitan areas using federal data comparing 2023 with 2024. The analysis covered three categories: people and housing, work and earnings, and business and economy.
The data came from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Bureau of Economic Analysis. Earlier versions of the study included 100 metros, so this year’s full rankings are not directly comparable with previous editions.
