Pinal County is home to one of nation's hottest real estate zip codes

Why it matters: Maricopa was among the fastest growing cities in the early aughts, but was hit particularly hard by the housing bubble.

• With Pinal County adding new employers and metro Phoenix home prices remaining stubbornly high, more people are returning to exurbs like Maricopa.

State of play: Opendoor determined the hottest zip codes by ranking them based on the total homes under contract within 90 days of listing.

Zoom out: Per the Census Bureau, Maricopa was the fifth fastest-growing city in the country from 2022 to 2023, the latest numbers available.

The bottom line: The exurb boom is likely a consequence of high housing prices pushing people farther from the city center and an increase in remote work that makes living away from employment centers more palatable, per the Census Bureau.

• "Exurbs have sometimes been among the most rapidly growing communities, but this appears to be even more true now than before the pandemic," Census Bureau demographer Luke Rogers said in a report last year.