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.

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BUILDING BOOM

Dallas ranks No. 22 among U.S. metros for new-home construction

Photo by Ryan Stephens/ Pexels

San Antonio-New Braunfels leads Texas in new home construction.

As the population of the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area continues to grow, so does the need for housing. One of the primary ways to address this: Build more homes.

The region appears to be on the right track for addressing the booming demand.

A new report from Realtor.com puts the DFW at No. 22 among the top 25 new-construction metros in the U.S.

To develop the list of the top new-construction metros, Realtor.com looked at four factors in each of the 100 largest U.S. metros:

Newly constructed homes as a share of all listings.
New-construction premium. That’s the percentage difference between a median-priced new build and a median-priced existing home.
Climate risk difference. That’s the percentage difference in average flood, fire, air quality, wind, and heat risk between new builds and existing homes.
“Hotness” of the new-construction market, based on Realtor.com pageviews per listing and median time on the market for new builds.

Sun Belt markets dominate rankings
Of the top 25 metros in the Realtor.com report, 20 are in Sun Belt states.

“New construction is one of the most important ways to expand the supply of homes available to buyers, but the opportunity is not evenly distributed across the country,” Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com, said in a release.

“This year’s ranking shows that Southern metros are not only building more homes; they are also creating conditions where buyers can find newly built homes at prices that compete with, and in some cases beat, existing homes,” said Berner.

Dallas joined Texas’ three other major metros in the top 25:

San Antonio-New Braunfels, No. 14
Austin, No. 16
Houston, No. 20

More reasons for homebuyer optimism
The greater Dallas area is home to some of the hottest real estate markets in the country - especially the suburbs of Frisco, McKinney, Allen, and Denton

Dallas also fares well when it comes to new-home prices. In a recent Realtor.com analysis, the DFW metro ranked eighth for the largest share of builders slashing prices on new homes. Austin landed at No. 5 and San Antonio at No. 3 among the 100 largest U.S. metros.

The Realtor.com rankings arrived as Dallas-Fort Worth nears the prime time for homebuyers to score a deal. A recent report from real estate brokerage Redfin found mid-September reigns as the best time for homebuyers to land a deal in North Texas.

Adding to the attractiveness of buying a home in DFW: Personal finance website SmartAsset recently ranked Texas as the 18th best state for under-35 buyers.

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