According to some official-sounding stats:
Americans are no longer moving to Southern boomtowns
Reasons?
The cost of living has jumped, thanks to rising mortgage rates, skyrocketing home prices, and higher fees for insurance and HOAs – particularly after a string of natural disasters.
Now that the influx of newcomers has slowed, the housing markets in these cities are feeling the squeeze. Annual double-digit price jumps are no longer a sure thing.
Home prices that once seemed unstoppable are leveling off – and in many cases falling. Homebuying demand is plunging, and in some places, inventory is surging.
Places like Tampa, Dallas and Austin were once seen as affordable alternatives to high-cost cities like San Francisco and New York, but now the gap in housing costs between big-city job centers and Sun Belt metros has shrunk.
Well yes, in terms of the “unstoppable” housing prices, that was caused most of all by this influx of Californians, New Yorkers and other migrants who arrived here in the South flush with the proceeds of their overpriced real estate and were willing to pay the prices asked by sellers. (I should point out that my old Plano house sold for the asking price and was listed for eighteen hours before being snapped up by a Californian family, who paid the ask after having been involved in bidding wars in previous homebuying attempts. I should also point out that my 4BR 3BR house would have cost $1.4 million for a comp in northern California, instead of the $395k I was asking for mine. No wonder they jumped on it.)
Anyway, the good news for us in northern Texas:
Dallas – one of several Texas cities that boomed during the Covid-19 pandemic – saw a net inflow of around 13,000 residents in 2024, also down from 35,000 the year prior.
Thank fuck. The fewer liberal assholes moving here, the better for all of us.
Something else is interesting:
Now that many companies are requiring workers to come into the office, fewer people have the freedom to move – and some people who moved to the Sun Belt during the pandemic are returning to big cities.
I guess all those empty office blocks in L.A. and San Francisco need to be refilled.
And the people who paid those sky-high prices for our Texas houses who are now being forced into selling them? The houses that once sold within days can now stand unsold for months, or longer.
Forgive me for not shedding any tears. And my compadres over in Florida may share my delight.
