News

Brand growth strategy: New data shows smaller cities are HOT

August 21, 2019

Some recent research on the hottest cities for home sales not only informs brands about where the population is moving, but might give some food service brand leaders pause, since not a single top 10 city this year is a major U.S. metropolitan area and the biggest chunk are in the Midwest.  

Realtor.com said in a news release about the findings that Grand Rapids, Michigan, with latest population estimate of 200,217 according to the U.S. Census Bureau, housed the top national zip code this year for home sales in code 49505. In fact, according to data uncovered by this website, all of the top 10 cities for home sales this year had fewer than 500,000 residents, including four cities that had fewer than 100,000 residents.  

Realtor.com said their data indicates the following ranking for top home sales in the U.S. this year: 

1. Grand Rapids, Michigan (zip 49505) pop. 200,217. 
2. Omaha, Nebraska (zip 68144) pop. 468,262.
3. Boise, Idaho (83704) pop. 228,790.
4. Shawnee, Kansas (66203) pop. 65,845.
5. Rochester, New York (14609) pop. 206,284.
6. Livonia, Michigan (48154) pop. 93,971.
7. Melrose, Massachusetts (02176) pop. 28,193.
8. Arlington, Texas (76018) pop. 398,112.
9. Goffstown, New Hampshire (03045) pop. 18,106.
10. Colorado Springs, Colorado (80916) pop. 472,688.

Also notable for food service brand leaders as they develop their growth strategies is the fact that the Midwest has so many players in this year's list, followed by relatively small-town Northeastern U.S. cities. For home owners, top ranking in this listing means homes sell 40 days faster than elsewhere in the country (about 17 days on average). For restaurant brand leaders they indicate that population is showing a preference for smaller, less dense locales.

Home buyers, of course, seek these area for more affordable home stocks after many have been priced out of the larger cities. But for restaurant brands this shift is in many ways counter to the predilection for dense, highly populated areas for franchise growth since such areas potentially hold more sales. 

Last year's top 10 data also indicated that the hottest selling zip codes were those on the outskirts of some of the largest, most densely populated cities in the country, such as New York and San Francisco. But this year, these places were bounced off the list to make way for those that were not in a major metro circle, including places like Omaha, Nebraska and even Manchester, New Hampshire. 

However, a few of the popular smaller metros from previous years prevailed, like Boise and Colorado Springs. But overall, this year's top 10 hottest markets taken together have half of the total number of households of those on last year's list and 7% fewer households per square mile.