5 Best Real Estate Markets for Hipsters

BOSTON (MainStreet) -- Check it out, Daddy-O -- if you like your music live, your beer exotic and your clothes from small boutiques, here's a look at the hippest cities in America to move to.

"'Hipster cities' are a little more forward-thinking -- a little more progressive, a little ahead of the curve," says Rich Beattie of Travel+Leisure magazine, which recently surveyed more than 60,000 tourists to rank 35 U.S. locales for "hipness."

Respondents ranked cities they've visited for the presence of six hip things -- coffee bars, independent boutiques, microbrew restaurants, live music, a tech-savvy population and the presence of offbeat people. Locales that scored well offer "an energy that some people really thrive off of. I think that's what would lure someone to live there," Beattie says.

Of course, he admits squares would find a hip city "to be an absolute annoyance. It all depends on what a particular person is looking for."

Presuming you're the former and not the latter, grab your black beret and your copy of Being and Nothingness and check out these five hip locales -- along with a look at each city's real estate market. (Median list prices refer to median asking prices as of April on Realtor.com, the National Association of Realtors' official property-listing site.)

Fifth-hippest U.S. city: Portland, Maine
Median list price: $259,900

Maine's largest city makes the list thanks mostly to ranking third nationwide for microbrew restaurants (4.64 out of a possible 5) and fifth for independent boutiques (4.44).

"It might not be as obvious that Portland has the kind of independent ethos that you find in larger cities like San Francisco, but it's certainly there," Beattie says. "A number of top chefs have moved to Portland to open up great restaurants and bars, and that certainly speaks to the independent feel that the city has."

As for housing, Portland's median list prices on Realtor.com have dropped 3.4% on Realtor.com over the past year to hit $259,000.