Why not live and work where you vacation? That's the question that continues to drive sustained interest in moving to Sarasota. In a recent report from Coldwell Banker, Sarasota was the second most popular destination in the country when users compared their current home to other cities.

Overall, the Sunshine State as a whole outshone its competitors as the top state to garner the most interest, with one out of seven people using a new online tool created by Coldwell Banker looking to move here.

Although the report reflects data from March through June of this year and only takes into account people’s interest in the area, an uptick in those who carried out their plans and moved has been an ongoing trend.

“Since Covid started, there's been incredible surges in real estate purchases and migration, and in the last 12 to 18 months Sarasota has become very trendy from a new construction perspective, especially luxury construction," says Duff Rubin, the president of Coldwell Banker Realty in Florida. "Historically, these kinds of buyers go to Miami and Naples. Now they’re coming here.”

Warm weather and the absence of a state income tax are the classic reasons to move to the area, and it’s still more affordable than most more established cities in California and New York. But Rubin points to more recent motives to have taken root.

“The politics, whether you like them or not, gave people more options,” says Rubin. “[During Covid], it attracted families who wanted their kids to have in-person learning. Then add the remote work experiment and people asked themselves, ‘Why live on the 30th floor of this building when I can be at the beach?' Even for those who settled on traveling back and forth, making Florida their primary residence came with a tax incentive."

Recent migration data from U-Haul and change of address requests also point to Sarasota as a hot destination.

The interest and migration may also be due to the hype. Sarasota has ranked high on a slew of lists boasting its qualities. This year, Sarasota was named the best place to live in Florida by U.S. News & World Report and has topped its best places to retire list two years in a row.

Last year, it was on Time magazine's list of the World’s Greatest Places, while the local nonprofit Architecture Sarasota was featured in The New York Times, and Travel + Leisure.

The Coldwell Banker data revealed Austin, Texas, topped searches, followed by Sarasota; San Diego; Denver; Nashville, Tennessee; Tampa; New York; Naples; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Seattle.

The top states where people were looking to make the move to Florida included New Jersey, California, New York, Illinois, Ohio and Massachusetts. Trailing Sarasota, Miami, Naples and Tampa were the most commonly searched cities in the state.