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Don’t Buy a House in These 10 US Cities: Growing Populations and Overcrowding

September 12, 2024

3 min Read

Written by Josephine Nesbit

Edited by Nicholas Morine

Orlando, Florida, USA Downtown Drone Skyline Aerial stock photo

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Population growth is usually a good indication that a city is desirable. People tend to move to areas offering more job opportunities, affordable housing and cost of living, good schools or other amenities. But is population growth a sign you should buy a house and put down some roots? Not always.

In a 2017 article published by Governing, Paul Gottlieb, an economist at Rutgers University, argued that metropolitan areas with stable or slow-growing populations are likely to have greater economic prosperity. According to Gottlieb, data suggests that mayors shouldn’t use population increase as a guaranteed route to a better economy.

Population growth also leads to overcrowding and increased housing demand, infrastructure and services. In terms of real estate, population growth is a crucial factor in determining how home prices in a given market will perform, according to Business Insider.

If more people move to a city than leave, housing demand increases and drives up home prices. Home price appreciation is great news if you’re a homeowner, but it makes buying a home slightly harder. In a recent report, Exploding Topics identified the fastest-growing U.S. metro areas using data from the U.S. Census Bureau and related sources.

Here are the top 10 on the list of where you shouldn’t buy a home to avoid an overcrowded market.