Daily Real Estate News  |  October 17, 2007  |   40 Million Americans Changed Homes in 2006
Nearly 39.8 million Americans moved in 2006, about half for housing-related reasons, like desire for a different-sized home, the U.S. Census Bureau says.

The West had the highest moving rate (16 percent), followed by the South (15 percent), the Midwest (13 percent) and the Northeast (10 percent).

Hispanics had the highest moving rate (18 percent), followed by African-Americans (17 percent), Asians (14 percent) and non-Hispanic whites (12 percent).

Nearly 30 percent of all renters lived elsewhere a year earlier, while only 7 percent of people who owned their own homes moved.

Most movers stayed within the same county (62 percent), while 20 percent moved from a different county within the same state; 14 percent moved from a different state and 3 percent moved from abroad.

Of immigrants, about 40 percent moved directly to the suburbs. Audrey Singer, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said traditional gateway cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles were still magnets for immigrants who move to join friends and relatives. But particularly in the South and West, where central cities were less likely to develop dense cores, immigrants are following jobs to the suburbs and settling there first.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Sam Roberts (10/17/2007)