We can hit a broad target in predicting what people will do, based on trends, demographic studies, prices, amenities, and past behavior, when it comes to buying a home.

We know that people will always love the seashore, but we don't know which white sand beach is going to be the hot new relocation destination.

Location always plays a part, but so do other factors. Is air travel available? If so, how expensive is it? Are there big cities nearby where second home buyers are likely to fuel the market for vacation homes? Is the beach easy to get to? Does the weather mean seasonal or year-round use? How much beach is private or open to the public? How near to the beach is a home for sale? The questions go on and on.

People move primarily to be near family and friends, which is one reason why pundits are wrong to assume that all seniors want to spend their retirement on a Florida beach. While that's true for many, others would prefer to live out their days among familiar surroundings.

New York City real estate brokers are just as wrong to avoid taking listings on one-bedroom homes, as was mentioned in a recent New York Times article. Couldn't they have predicted that rising prices would eventually make smaller properties more desirable? They could have been getting those first-time buyers, singles and second-home buyers into those stagnant one-bedrooms.

Don't make the same mistake. Study your own market. Watch the cost per square foot of housing and it's easy to see where the trends are going.

Why is there suddenly an improvement in the market for one bedrooms? Because trends are broader than what's happening in New York City.

Smart Realtors keep up with national news as well as local trends. The U.S. Census says that young single homebuyers are the fastest-growing segment. Homeowners younger than 25 have doubled over the last 10 years to 1.64 million from 807,000. Many aren't marrying right away, and want to build equity in a home right out of college.

(If you are a real estate agent reading this, don't ever allow yourself to disparage a type of home or a home's location. The truth is there are only areas that have either been discovered or forgotten, and housing markets are made or broken on the way up or down. Sellers aren't paying you because it's easy to sell their homes for them, and buyers aren't paying you to steer them to more expensive property. And nobody's paying you to steer people away from their listings because there are too many on the market. They're paying you to be creative. If there are too many one bedrooms on the market, hold a single buyer's seminar, and show them the ropes on how to buy a home, for example. Keep in mind, nobody ever got rich paying others for getting there first. Be a leader and create your own market by being the first to see the possibilities in a forgotten neighborhood.)

Inmigration and outmigration

You may be wondering if your state or city is going to be the next hot thing. One thing's for certain: people will go on living, dying, marrying, divorcing, remarrying, having children, blending Brady Bunch families, caring for aging parents, emptying their nests, making and losing money, and relocating.

Through these life changes, they buy and sell homes. They believe that owning a home improves quality of life. It can put you in or take you out of an environment that is essential to lifestyle.

That's what creates housing markets. Anything else we think -- that housing numbers are produced by speculation or long-term investment -- is pure guesswork, because we don't know what we don't know until all the facts are in.

To find out where people are headed, the U.S. Census is a great place to study outmigration and relocation trends. In its report, Domestic Migration Across Regions, Divisions and States, 1995-2000, released August 2003, the Census found that some interesting patterns were developing. Over 22 million people changed their state of residence, and half of those relocated to a state outside of their home state's region, creating a criss-cross migration pattern the likes of which the country hasn't seen since Horace Greeley advised young men to "Go West" over a century ago.

Before we go further, let's be sure we're talking apples to apples.

• Migration is commonly defined as moves that cross state, division, or regional jurisdictional boundaries.

• Inmigration is migration into an area for a certain period.

• Outmigration is migration out of an area for a certain period.

• Net migration is the difference between immigration and outmigration in a given period.

• Gross migration is the sum of inmigration and outmigration for an area for a given period.

According to the study, Nevada had the highest net migration of all the states with a gain of 151.5 people for every 1,000 residents in 1995. In fact, it has been the fastest-growing state for 18 years.

California had the highest gross migration, exceeding 3.6 million between 1995 and 2000, yet, outmigration exceeded inmigration by 756,000 people. As far as trends go, the states of Nevada and Arizona had the most net migration. The south as a region had the most net migration, particularly in the states of Florida, Georgia and North Carolina.

That's some interesting reversal of fortunes for states such as California and New York which are outmigrating population to greener pastures. The trend suggests that the northeast and Midwest will be out populated by the south by 2010. More residents will live in Florida than New York in less than five years, and North Carolina will outpopulate New Jersey in less than three. For the first time, Massachusetts lost residents, as did Ohio, Michigan, West Virginia, Connecticut, Maryland, suggesting a seismic population shift from densely populated eastern cities to warmer, less crowded southern and western states.

There are only three ways states can grow -- more births than deaths, immigration and immigration from other states.

California, though it remains the most populated state at 35.9 million today, continues to lose more residents to other states than it gains. It's growth is due primarily to foreign immigration.

For those worried that their area may be in for a bubble burst, the U.S. population will increase by 10 percent by the end of the decade. Where they will go, nobody knows. But, they'll settle somewhere.