My guess is that ubiquitous air conditioning made the south tolerable.

Or it’s just a price thing. Lots of Canadians bought winter-homes in Florida and Arizona during the 08 crash.

My gut feeling is that the spending habits of people who can afford a second "winter" home don't really reflect those of the average consumer...

What I meant was cheap housing due to overbuilding.

I think it's safe to assume most people don't prefer to live in places with freezing temperatures, risk of pipes bursting, salt corroding your vehicles, roads with potholes, etc.

Only reason I can think of would be if the place had good skiing/snowboarding/snow activities, but you need decent mountains and snowfall for that.

Edit: NYC/Boston are outliers that have other exceptional offerings, especially related to economic opportunities. There is also inertia of being a place where people settled in first and set down roots, but I imagine most people would consider the weather of the upper midwest and upper PA/NY regions to be a negative.

>I think it's safe to assume most people don't prefer to live in places with freezing temperatures

How is this "safe to assume"? Given the history of the world, and migration that is overwhelmingly to places that have seasonal freezing temperatures, this seems comically ill conceived.

I love winter, even though I don't partake of winter sports. I love cooler temperatures. It's a lot easier being comfortable when it's cold than when it's hot. The number of pests, diseases, and perils are just so far fewer.

I'm not going to say something as asinine as "people don't prefer to live in places without winters" because I know other people have different tastes, but an enormous number of us seem to rather like cold weather.

My statement was not "people don't prefer to live in places without winters". I was careful to restrict it to places that result in things that I think most people consider drawbacks to quality of life. There are places with cool climates, where you don't have to deal with all of those issues.

>There are places with cool climates, where you don't have to deal with all of those issues.

Relatively few in the US. The Bay Area is something of an outlier for having generally temperate summers and having no or rare snow in the winter. If your priority is "nice" weather year-round, it's hard to beat Northern California. The Pacific Northwest mostly qualifies too but, of course, it's wetter and grayer for much of the year which many find off-putting.

The western end of Western Europe also qualifies.