Realtor.com top housing markets

What to make of a year-over-year comparison of the top housing markets as published by realtor.com? 

• The 2021 list is composed of seven 2mm+ population markets, with the rest at under 1mm... Boise, Harrisburg, Oxnard
• The prior year’s list OTOH had zero in the 2mm+ category and only four in 1mm-2mm tranche... Winston-Salem, Memphis, Rochester, Tucson
• Within regions, there’s a flight to mass... Denver > Colorado Springs, Charlotte > Winston-Salem/Charleston/Columbia
• Even with Elon Musk’s emigration to #TechSAS, no one needs to worry if the last person leaving California will be turning off the light
• Only one market shows up in both lists... Boise

Despite the mounds of breathless anecdotes about discontinuous mobility, the real action is in the larger established markets, as consumers take the leap into home ownership, existing ones trade up and others incrementally fan out within the metro areas in search of space and affordability.