Much has been written, discussed and debated over the past year about Californians moving to Texas, frequently settling in our Dallas neighborhoods. From Gov. Greg Abbott’s “Don’t California my Texas” campaign to major university studies and New York Times reporters comparing the two states, the topic is as hot as we are in the summer.
But the migration to Dallas and Texas from Cali and other states has slowed since last year at this time, according to the real estate researchers at Redfin.
That’s partly a reflection of national trends — 29.5% [of participants in a Redfin survey] looked to move to a different metropolitan area in October 2021, down from a peak of 31.5% at the beginning of the year, but still higher than the 26% levels before the coronavirus pandemic.
Economists expect migration to slow even further.
“With many employers making remote work permanent, we expect people to continue relocating at a higher rate than they did before the pandemic,” said Redfin’s chief economist Daryl Fairweather. “What will likely change are the places people choose to relocate to. Popular Sunbelt migration destinations [including Dallas] will probably fall out of favor as skyrocketing home prices have rendered them less affordable. Northern cities like Columbus, Harrisburg and Indianapolis will likely rise in popularity as homebuyers seek better bang for their buck.”
The top places for relocating homebuyers in October (Redfin’s latest dataset) were Miami, Phoenix, Sacramento, Tampa and Las Vegas. Dallas remains up there at No. 6, but the number of people planning to move here has dropped since October 2020, the research showed.
In October 2021, 3,717 households seriously sought a home for purchase in Dallas (scroll for methodology). In October 2020 that number was 4,247. In October 2021, 25.2% of Redfin users aiming to move to Dallas were from outside our metro. That’s down from 31.2% in 2020.
And where is the majority of out-of-state inflow coming from? Well, it is still California. Los Angeles to be exact. But Los Angelans also are heading to Vegas and Phoenix.
The median home price in Dallas is $379,000 and in LA it is $810,000. If you do have a choice, that seems it would be a major factor.
Redfin’s migration analysis is based on a sample of about 2 million site users who searched for homes across 111 metro areas in October, excluding searches unlikely to precede an actual relocation or home purchase. They’ve been logging this migration data since 2017.
More 2022 housing predictions from Fairweather here.
