Will Move States for Affordable Housing

The news has been full of talk of future migration and displacement trends in the U.S. driven by climate change. CNBC’s Ana Teresa Sola reports, a migration is already underway, propelled by a different factor: a shortage of affordable housing.

“Last year, consumers moving interstate tended to pick new metropolitan areas where housing costs and competition are less severe, and construction is keeping up with demand, according to a recent Zillow Group analysis of United Van Lines data,” Sola writes. “Homes in those consumers’ new metros cost $7,500 less, on average, compared to the places they left.”

The Zillow analysis found movers are also increasingly relocating to areas with more home listings per resident, which also coincides with markets where it’s more financially feasible for builders to develop new housing stock. For the most part, that’s the South and the Midwest.

“That’s why you’re seeing these relatively more affordable Southern, Midwestern markets rise to the top of the list,” Orphe Divounguy, a senior economist at Zillow, told CNBC. Cities that have both affordability and rapidly expanding job markets—like Charlotte and Raleigh, NC, which have become tech and financial hubs—have double the draw, Divounguy added.

According to the Zillow analysis, which used United Van Lines® data, the ten most moved-to  ten cities for inbound movers include Charlotte and Raleigh, NC; Providence, RI; Indianapolis, IN; Orlando and Jacksonville, FL; Nashville, TN. Houston and San Antonio, TX; and Birmingham, AL.

Meanwhile, the cities that had the most net out-bound moves are Chicago, IL; San Diego and Riverside, CA; Cincinnati, OH; Detroit, MI; Boston, MA; Memphis, TN; Oklahoma City, OK; New York and Buffalo, NY.