There is a mass migration underway in America as weary Californians who have tolerated some of the highest taxes in the nation, having weathered some of the most stringent protocols for Covid safety, and are fed up with homeless encampments in their neighborhoods, are packing up and moving to Texas.
To read it in the news you might think they were all moving to Austin.
“Austin is definitely the number one spot, but if I had the data I would think Houston has got to be either second or third,” says Chair-Elect Jennifer Wauhob of the Houston Association of Realtors. We have a lot to offer. “Because we have such a great economy, housing is more affordable, it’s the fourth largest city in the US, so they’re coming here as well. It’s not just Austin.”
Oh joy. They’re a factor in what is driving up house prices. That nice 2-bedroom, one-bath, 13-hundred square foot on a .23 acre lot San Francisco house with a view of the Golden Gate Bridge sold for $1.5 million, and you can buy a whole lotta house in Houston for that money. It’s pricing some of the natives out of the market.
“People from higher priced states like California are importing their home prices. To them our houses are so affordable they don’t mind paying what’s being asked,” Wauhob says. Out of state homebuyers have been known to run-up prices three-digits over asking price, and pay cash.
photo: Getty Images