Survey says” looks at various rankings and scorecards judging geographic locations while noting these grades are best seen as a mix of art and data.

Buzz: California claimed the top three cities on a national real estate “hottest” places scorecard.

Source: Zillow ranked neighborhoods in the 100 largest metro areas in several categories — I looked at the top 10 of the all-cities list, vacation spots and college towns.  These rankings considered measurements of real estate popularity (such as how many Zillow searches) and demand (housing data such as inventory and price appreciation).

Details

Overall best cities: South Lake Tahoe, Calabasas and Malibu topped the rankings. Granite Bay was No. 7. The rest of the Top 10: East Grand Rapids, Mich., Evergreen, Colo., Jenkintown, Pa., Lavallette, Southlake, Texas and Las Vegas.

Best vacation spots:  California also took the top spot with South Lake Tahoe, and three towns in the San Bernardino mountains made the Top 10 list of “hottest” spots: Big Bear Lake got the third-highest score in this ranking; Lake Arrowhead was No. 4 and Crestline was 8th.

The Jersey Shore’s Lavallette was 2nd best. The rest of the Top 10 was filled out by Florida: Holmes Beach (5), Bonita Springs (6), Saint James City (7), Siesta Key (9) and Fort Myers Beach (10).

Best college towns: Claremont, home to five small schools, was ranked as the No. 2 college town, trailing only Tempe (Arizona State). The rest of the Top 10 was No. 3 Narragansett, R.I. (University of Rhode Island); then Provo, Utah (Brigham Young); Cambridge, Mass. (Harvard, MIT); Kettering, Ohio (Kettering College); Willimantic, Conn. (Eastern Connecticut State); Edwardsville, Ill. (Southern Illinois); River Falls, Wisc. (Wisconsin River Falls); and Druid Hills, Ga. (Emory).

Caveat

Let me note that California has nine metropolitan areas on the 100 most-populated list, according to Census data. Their 33 million total residents represent 15% of the combined population of these big U.S. regions.

Bottom Line

Want to know a key reason why California prices are high? Clearly, some folks think about buying in more than a few parts of the state, whether it’s an intrastate purchase or a move across state lines.