Moving Here, Moving There

New report shows where Dallasites want to move, and who wants to come here

Chicagoans and New Yorkers are eyeing Dallas.

Photo courtesy of Greystar Properties

The economy is unstable, jobs are up in the air, and the global population waits to see when the COVID-19 pandemic will slow down. But some people are still thinking about moving, and according to Apartment List, they're seriously considering Texas.

The website's quarterly Renter Migration Report is out, using searches made on its platform between January 1 and April 15, 2020, to map where renters are looking to make their next move.

While current Chicago residents and New Yorkers are typing "Dallas" into their search bars, accounting for 3.6 percent and 3 percent of data exploring Big D, respectively, it's San Antonians who are truly interested. A whopping 23.1 percent of current Alamo City residents made exploratory apartment searches in Dallas this past quarter. Overall, 32.8 percent of those looking for a place to live in Dallas are searching from outside the metro.

Meanwhile, 8.7 percent of apartment hunters currently living in Dallas are looking to move elsewhere. They searched for Houston (4.9 percent), San Antonio (4.8 percent), and Los Angeles (4.5 percent).

Austin is the most popular Texas city in the report, with the region increasingly being seen as an alternative to the expensive coastal metros where tech jobs have historically clustered. A staggering 70.9 percent of searches for apartments in Austin come from outside the metro, Apartment List reports, the highest share among the nation's 50 largest metros.

Aside from the 25 percent searching from San Antonio, the 4.6 percent from Dallas, and the 4.5 percent from Houston, 4.2 percent of renters searching for apartments in Austin currently live in the New York City metro. Furthermore, 2.5 percent of inbound searches to Austin are coming from Los Angeles and an additional 2.5 percent are coming from the San Francisco Bay Area.

For as many people who want to enter Austin from San Antonio, there's nearly the same amount that would be doing the opposite. Austin renters searched for San Antonio (16.8 percent), Dallas (7.9 percent), and College Station (6.4 percent).

Chicago (3.3 percent), New York (3.4 percent), and San Antonio (22.8 percent) are also eyeing Houston, while H-Town residents are looking to keep it close in Dallas (8.9 percent), San Antonio (6.8 percent), and Austin (6.6 percent).

And though we've heard about it several times, where does San Antonio fall in all this? Turns out renters who currently live there are thinking about moving to Dallas (17.7 percent), followed by Houston (12.4 percent) and Austin (8.4 percent). Residents of McAllen (5 percent), Dallas (3.9 percent), and Houston (3.5 percent) are considering making San Antonio home.

rent reports

not too shabby

Dallas ranks No. 15 nationwide on new affordability and housing report

Reunion Tower

Downtown Dallas skyline, all lit up.

A new national real estate report card has given Dallas-Fort Worth a passing grade for housing demand and affordability.

Realtor.com's first-ever Metro Affordability & Homebuilding Report Card compared the 100 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. based on two scores that measured the most important factors for potential home buyers: an "Affordability Components" score that examined the current affordability of housing for residents, and a "Homebuilding Components" score that analyzed the rate of new home construction to meet future demand. Both scores were then used to calculate the final score and assigned a letter grade.

Only 10 total U.S. metros, including Houston (No. 4) and Austin (No. 6), received grades in the "A" range (A+, A, A- ) representing the most balanced locales for "favorable current affordability conditions and healthy future inventory growth to sustain them."

"Homebuilding and affordability are inseparable, and if we want to improve affordability in a lasting way, we need to build more homes," said Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale. "The metros at the top of these rankings show that buyers benefit most when communities pair homes that are attainable for today's local earners with enough new construction to support tomorrow's demand."

Only two metros earned "A+" grades with a total score of 77.5 or higher: De Moines-West DeMoines, Idaho (83.4 points) and Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina (82.8 points).

Dallas-Fort Worth earned a "B+" overall with a total score of 67.9 points, an "Affordability Components" score of 54.5 points, and a "Homebuying Components" score of 81.3 points. The DFW Metroplex also ranks 15th in the national ranking of the best metros for affordability and housing.

Five more U.S. metros earned the same rating: Augusta-Richmond County, Georgia-South Carolina; Baton Rouge, Louisiana; Madison, Wisconsin; Wichita, Kansas; and Louisville, Kentucky-Indiana.

Realtor.com's report said the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro has a median household income of $88,783, and home listings have a median price of $426,446. The report's findings also show that newly built homes in the region cost 8.9 percent more than existing homes on the market.

DFW has a 1.76 housing permit-to population ratio, meaning the metro permits 76 percent more new homes than what would be considered typical based on its population and national average construction levels.

DFW's "Realtors Affordability Score," or the share of for-sale inventory affordable to households at different income levels, is 0.639, or slightly lower than the national average of 0.675.

Housing market grades across other Texas metros
Houston and Austin were the only two Texas metros to earn a grade in the "A" range.

Houston outperformed every Texas metro for housing and affordability with its solid "A" rating. Newly built homes in the Houston area cost about 7 percent more than existing homes on the market, and the metro has a 1.88 housing permit-to population ratio.

Austin earned an "A-" with a combined score of 72.5 points. Unlike many other U.S. metros, newly built homes in the Austin area are actually more affordable than existing homes on the market. Austin has a negative new construction premium, where new build homes are 6 percent cheaper than existing ones.

The Austin metro also has a permit-to-population ratio of 2.37. Combined with the negative new construction premium, these factors signal that "builders are delivering homes at a rate well above the metro's population share — and at prices slightly below existing homes."

This is a snapshot of the factors that impacted Austin's grade:

Realtors Affordability Score: 0.639
Median listing price: $501,200
Median household income: $102,412

Elsewhere in Texas, San Antonio-New Braunfels and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission both earned "C+" ratings, while El Paso's housing market performance was only worthy of a "D" grade.

The top 10 U.S. metros with the highest-performing housing markets are:

No. 1 – De Moines-West Demoines, Idaho (A+)
No. 2 – Ralgieh-Cary, North Carolina (A+)
No. 3 – Columbia, South Carolina (A)
No. 4 – Houston, Texas (A)
No. 5 – Indianapolis, Indiana (A)
No. 6 – Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos, Texas (A-)
No. 7 – Jacksonville, Florida (A-)
No. 8 – Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (A-)
No. 9 – Palm Bay-Melbourne, Florida (A-)
No. 10 – Columbus, Ohio (A-)

real estate housing housing market realtor.com