Where are people moving to? Is your city in the top 10?

Question

I love the census report.  Finally the 2020 census is here and there are some interesting data points! If you’re deciding on a new market you may find this data useful in aiding your decision.

States with the highest percentage growth:Utah

Idaho

Texas

North Dakota

NevadaFastest growing cities

• The Villages, Fla.
• Austin-Round Rock-Georgetown, Texas
• St. George, Utah
• Greeley, Colo.
• Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, S.C. and N.C.

cities with the largest growth

• Phoenix
• Los Angeles
• Denver
• Jacksonville
• New York
• Charlotte
• Columbus
• Oklahoma City
• Austin
• Dallas
• Fort Worth
• Houston
• San Antonio
• Seattle

I particularly like to look at In-migration data as that is driven by internal push/pull factors that drive growth (eg condition of the economy, taxes, cultural changes).

Most of us are aware that California is losing residents to other states such as AZ, OR and TX. Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Toyota, and a drove of former golden state residents have left for Texas citing a lesser tax burden and easier political climate when it comes to regulation.

The Texas triangle of Dallas, Austin, Houston can be clearly seen on the map when it comes to cities with significant growth.

Florida continues to draw on New Yorkers and other former Northeast residents to escape the cold and call the sunshine state home. The only major county in the state that has not seen a significant inflow of migrants is Miami-Dade.

Tampa, Orlando, West Palm Beach, Pamela city, and Jacksonville have all seen large increases in population.

A surprising state that is seeing large influx of in-migration is Idaho. Affordability and Boise’s goal of becoming the next Silicon Valley are key drivers.

The pandemic has altered life significantly, including where one chooses to live. Although there were no major macro changes affecting peoples residency choices in the 2010-2020 decade we still saw large percentage changes from North to South and West states. Will this trend be accelerated with work from home normalized? Will suburbs lose their appeal with gas prices doubling from 2021-2022? Will demand for city living wane as delivery services expand and become more accessible? We won’t know the data until 2030.

Until then, please share your thoughts!  Where do you think people will be moving to in the coming decade?

Mike Dymski · Answer

The forums are slam full of discussions around strategy and analysis with tens of thousands of posts and replies dedicated to it.  The most simple strategy in real estate is to buy an affordable B-class home in a growing market and watch the rents rise, property value increase, and debt balance get paid down over time.  History shows this simple strategy works all of the time and drives wealth accumulation.

Christina Tsutsui-Tharp · Answer

Thanks for sharing. Info like this is extremely valuable. Being in Central Oregon I've absolutely seen a lot of people moving into the area but also relocating throughout the state as well.

One site that I keep an eye on for this information is HowMoneyWalks.com you can break it down by county to who is coming in from where and where they are going to.

Joshua Janus · Answer

There are 30,000 new jobs in 2022 Columbus, Ohio and only 3,000 - 4,000 new single family homes being built. Compound that with the population and job growth year over year and you run into a situation where their is a significant housing shortage. I am sure this is happening in other markets as well.

https://www.matternews.org/dev...

Michael Weigum · Answer

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina! Not only are people moving here, but over 14 million people visit here annually. Good investment opportunities are here!

Aaron Gordy · Answer

People will move to the jobs. If good paying jobs aren't there then folks won't move there, unless they are retiring. The Texas Triangle is a job creating machine. Austin has the double bonus as its the capitol of Texas so as the rest of the state does well such as in the oil industry from west Texas, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio etc then they have to pay their state taxes which is even better for Austin. The unemployment is so low in the metro that Tesla is trying to hire folks from wherever even at the local high school level to train through the local community college, which is brilliant, imo.

Ryan Kelly · Answer

Job Growth + Population Growth + Restrictions (Land, development regulations, etc) to hamper supply = appreciation. Cash flow is a different topic, but for appreciation, this list is spot on.

Kelly Asmus · Answer

I will be interested to see if this data is turned on its head due to Covid and the rise of remote work. So much has happened in the last 2 years and has really changed people's perspectives about where to live. 2020 seems so long ago and so much has happened in our world. Clearly people are gravitating toward certain areas more than others and that got an extra shot in the arm the past 2 years.

Aaron Gordy · Answer

Texas is the Lone Star State. If you hear Governor Abbot talk sometimes its as if the state is its own country. The state is consistently very very red with the capitol Austin as consistently blue. Interesting, the suburbs such as Williamson County tends to vote red. Its a very interesting dynamic. It seems that the folks that are moving to the north suburbs tend to vote red like the rest of the existing population. Austin is consistently blue and has been for a long time and is largely represented by blue in spite of the gerrymandering.

I will say that its better overall with all the new folks with better food, entertainment, etc. For example, SXSW was once just an event that occurred at a few night clubs. Now it has mushroomed to something very large which is great imo. During those events, big name acts sometimes play at their friends backyard parties as a favor and for the love of music.

The traffic is consistently bad in Austin and doesn't seem to be getting any better over the years. The toll roads makes it a bit easier. But Austin still has the small town mentality with leadership that panders to the small town mentality of embracing growth but not building the infrastructure for it. There are many within Austin that wants things to "stay the same" and vote accordingly. That is the reason why the zoning is still the same from 1980's which I call the dazed and confused zoning after the movie about Austin from around the same time frame. The zoning hasn't kept pace with the growth and is restrictive to the point that it makes the values of land and improvements very expensive relative to the other major cities in Texas.

The surrounding suburban towns seems to embrace the growth AND build the infrastructure to accommodate it such as with the main highway between cedar park and round rock. In Austin, we do not have a large road that can handle the traffic from east to west so there are always bottlenecks on highway 71 and 183.

Another thing about the city that is consistent is job growth. It has been very interesting to watch many companies grow up and expand. The metro has always had an entrepreneurial bent and has fostered creative folks. I have seen personally when a big employer such as when Dell laid off folks when it was a public company that folks created businesses afterwards. I think that is the biggest takeaway.

No real complaints overall though except for property taxes which one should protest every single year. But guess who bears the brunt of the property tax increases? The tenants. The landlords pass along the tax increases to the tenants or at least I do and tell them to vote. Its hard to complain when ones portfolio goes up in value by 20%+.

I can go on and on about the changes which I find very fascinating but it will be chapters instead of a few paragraphs. So I will pull the curtains on myself right now ... : )

Elenis Camargo · Answer

@Eric Delcol Thanks for sharing! Jacksonville is there :)

Tony Kim · Answer

I feel the same way about my state. Folks may be leaving the state in droves, but they sure aren't leaving the city of Los Angeles. Since a lot of high income earners work in jobs that can be remote or just once a week in the office, a lot of people are also moving to the burbs. Many are living in places that take well over an hour to drive into. But all the popular LA places are simply packed with people...I live in a very metropolitan part of the city and it feels congested as ever here. As someone who works in a venture capital firm that invests in technology, I can see first hand that the amount of innovation and startups being formed here in CA has been accelerating as well.

Where are people moving to? Is your city in the top 10?

Most Popular Reply