The reform of China's socialist residential registration system (hukou) led to a shift in the residential preferences of rural–urban migrants, whereby the meaning of ‘home’ has also been changing. Data from a 2009 survey conducted in Suzhou City in Jiangsu Province highlight some emerging strategies for residential choice. Compared with ‘first‐generation’ migrants who grew up under socialism and migrated before the hukou reform, members of the ‘new generation’ born after 1980 attach less value to hukou benefits. Instead, their choice of a future place of residence appears to be related to the institutional reforms that are gradually separating social welfare provisions from the hukou system. As the draw of a local hukou declines, the strategies of a migrant's family to leverage their financial resources are found to play a bigger role in one's aspirations to establish a home in Suzhou. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.