The four U.S. metro areas with the highest inflation rates in the third quarter of the year are also four of the hottest migration areas, a new Redfin report found.
Atlanta, Phoenix Tampa and Miami saw double-digit consumer price index percentage growth year over year, and all four ranked near the top of Redfin’s most popular destinations for relocating homebuyers.
The price of goods and services rose 11.7% in Atlanta year over year, the second-highest inflation rate among metro areas measured by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Of the cities analyzed in the report, Atlanta was the seventh-most popular relocation destination among Redfin users in the third quarter, the company said.
Phoenix had the highest inflation rate at 13%, followed by Atlanta, Tampa at 10.9% and Miami at 10.7%.
“The pandemic triggered a great rebalancing of affordability,” Redfin Deputy Chief Economist Taylor Marr said in the report. “Americans left pricey coastal job centers and moved to more affordable places in the Sun Belt, but now those more affordable places are seeing affordability erode faster than anywhere else in the country. Some of these areas may lose their titles as top migration destinations in 2023 as a result.”