This Denver Suburb Is One of the Top Relocation Destinations in the U.S.

The hottest moving destination in Colorado this year is...Castle Rock, apparently.

Castle Rock is the most in-demand suburb in Colorado and the 25th most in-demand nationwide, according to a February report by moveBuddha. The moving company based its ranking on search data from its moving cost calculator throughout 2024, with the top suburbs having the highest ratio of planned move-ins vs move-outs for 2025.

Castle Rock's ratio is 1.32, meaning for every 100 people looking to move out of the city this year, 132 people are planning to move in. That's higher than Colorado's latest statewide average of 1.09.

The suburb landed even higher on the ranking for home values — Castle Rock has the seventh-highest home prices among the fifty most popular suburbs, the report found. Castle Rock's average home value is $671,659, compared to the national average of $355,328, according to Zillow estimates. The average home value for the top 25 in-demand suburbs is $472,000.

It's been a big year for Castle Rock. The town of around 80,000 people located 30 miles south of Denver has also landed on recent national lists for best small cities (15th place), highest qualify of life (tenth), safest cities (37th), safest suburbs (47th) and best places to live (top 100).

That's a lot of recognition for a town whose main claim to fame is an outlet mall...and a rock. The biggest news to come out of Castle Rock lately is that its largest neighborhood is $434 million in debt and the city has big plans to build a new Costco.

But whatever the town is doing is working. Castle Rock's top moving destination status is an outlier in the state. Last month, an analysis by U-Haul found that Colorado had the worst year-over-year drop on the company's national growth index, with more customers moving out of the state than into it. The new moveBuddha report was for suburbs only, excluding primary metro cities such as Denver.

"Suburbs are having a moment," the report says. "America’s most popular suburbs are proving that big moves don’t always mean big cities. And if trends continue, their popularity — and prices — will only climb."

Overall, suburbs in mid-sized metros ranked the highest in the report. It concluded that the most popular moving destinations in 2025, from first- to fifth-place, are Summerville, South Carolina; Meridian, Idaho; St. Augustine, Florida; Vancouver, Washington; and Frisco, Texas.

Here's how the rest of the top 25 stacks up: