Home, they say, is where your heart is. Last quarter, new data shows, the majority of prospective U.S. homebuyers imagined taking their heart on the road.

In what Realtor.com says signals “a structural shift in demand,” local buyers over the past three years have represented a historically small share of online listings traffic to area homes for sale.

In the fourth quarter of 2025, nearly 62% of views for homes in the 100 largest U.S. metro areas represented out-of-market demand, according to a new Realtor.com analysis, which is down slightly from 64.7% over the three months ending 2024 and 64.6% at the end of 2023.

The structural shift is observed by the listings platform in the rise of “cross-market shopping” that began during the COVID-19 pandemic. Out-of-market views only made up 48.6% of online listings traffic across the largest metros in the fourth quarter of 2019, before the onset of the pandemic in the U.S.

At the end of 2025, 87 of the 100 largest metros saw out-of-market demand outperform local demand, the analysis says, “showing a market that is more interconnected and mobile.” What Cotality calls “affordable, fast-growing Sun Belt and lifestyle-driven metros” such as Lakeland and Cape Coral in Florida and Durham, N.C., led the country, drawing from an outside buyer pool of retirees, second-home shoppers and families.

Southern metros have seen the highest share of out-of-market listings traffic since 2019, while Northeast metros have experienced the fastest growth from out-of-market shoppers.

Approximately 39 of the 100 largest metros in the fourth quarter shifted from being locally driven to being dominated by out-of-market buyers, with the most dramatic swings observed in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit and Omaha, Neb.

A variety of factors played into that pivot. In New York and Washington, D.C., for example, where the shares of local buyer traffic were 73.7% and 60.6%, elevated housing costs represent a barrier in the marketplace that limits entry from out-of-market shoppers, according to Realtor.com.

In contrast, “Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta benefit from strong internal economies and job markets that keep residents shopping for their next home within their current metro,” the analysis explains.

But the markets where the swing to out-of-market interest has been most pronounced may have a structural advantage — all are experiencing rapid growth in AI-related jobs, data center expansion and power infrastructure projects, says Realtor.com, which has attracted broad interest to these “fast-growing, opportunity-rich regions.”