Building momentum

Texas gains big recognition as one of top states for tiny homes

This is what a tiny treehouse oasis could look like.

Photo by Thanin Viriyaki Photography

Tiny homes keep popping up across Texas. In downtown Lake Dallas, for instance, about a dozen families have settled into a tiny home village billed as the first center-of-the-city development of its kind. In the Austin area, several tiny home communities are already open or are in the works.

A new ranking indicates Lake Dallas and the Austin area are onto something. IPX1031, a financial services provider for real estate investors, puts Texas at No. 2 on its list of the best states for tiny homes.

“Sure, everything might be bigger in Texas, but that doesn’t mean your home has to be,” IPX1031 says. “With an average tiny home cost of $48,120 and a median income of $64,034, you can get the most bang for your buck when it comes to tiny living in Texas.”

Georgia grabs the No. 1 spot on the list. IPX1031 based its ranking on each state’s average cost to buy a tiny home, median income, cost of living, average annual temperature, and percentage of parkland.

While Texas takes second place in the ranking of the best states for tiny homes, it doesn’t rank highly for interest in this style of living. A review of Google search activity by IPX1031 pinpointed Vermont as the state where residents are most curious about tiny homes, followed by New Hampshire, Maine, Wyoming, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Alaska.

A survey last year by IPX1031 found that 56 percent of Americans would live in a tiny home, with affordability cited as the No. 1 reason. Most tiny homes measure 400 square feet or less. By one estimate, tiny homes make up about 1 percent of the U.S. home market.

By the way, Texas’ richest resident, Tesla and SpaceX leader Elon Musk, on November 13 swatted down speculation that he’s living in a Boxabl tiny house along the Gulf Coast. While hailing Boxabl as a “cool product,” Musk tweeted that he’s been living in a small $50,000 home in South Texas for the past two years.

“Feels more homey to live in a small house,” Musk told his 64.5 million Twitter followers.

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No Cap

Dallas was a top-10 destination for Gen Zers on the move for 2023

Photo by Lance Asper on Unsplash

Who wouldn't want to live in a Gen Z paradise like Dallas?

As Gen Z enters adulthood, many are flocking to the nation's biggest cultural hubs like New York City, Los Angeles — and now Dallas, which had the ninth-highest inflow of Gen Zers in 2023.

Dallas' new reputation as a Gen Z hotspot was unveiled in a recent report by American home improvement brand This Old House, which analyzed migration trends across multiple generations using 2023 U.S. Census Bureau data.

Dallas saw an influx of 13,770 Gen Z residents last year to become the generation's No. 9 most popular city. That's 4,223 more Gen Zers than the net migration rate from 2022, the report found.

Real estate marketplace Zillow seems to agree on a statewide scale, declaring Texas as the No. 1 destination for Gen Zers on the move in 2024.

However, as Gen Z Dallasites may have learned, it's going to take a big bite out of their paychecks to live in such a highly sought after city. A March RentCafe housing cost analysis predicted Gen Z adults living in Dallas are likely to spend over $149,000 on rent by the time they are 30 years old.

While Dallas saw big gains in its Gen Z population last year, many other big cities saw a mass exodus. Plano, for example — which gained 1,295 Gen Z residents in 2022 — lost 4,028 Gen Zers in 2023, the report discovered.

The biggest Gen-Z exodus was in El Paso, with a drop of 5,607 — "a sharp turn from 2022 when the city saw an increase," the report said. "Other cities, including Plano, Texas; Memphis, Tennessee; McKinney, Texas; and Wichita, Kansas, are seeing similar declines."

"Gen X, baby boomers, and the Silent Generation are also moving away from major cities, particularly New York City and Washington, D.C.," the report said. "They’re heading to some of the same cities as Gen Z, including Houston and Jacksonville, Florida."

The top 10 cities that gained the most Gen Z residents in 2023 are:

No. 1 – New York City, New York
No. 2 – Los Angeles, California
No. 3 – Houston, Texas
No. 4 – Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
No. 5 – Chicago, Illinois
No. 6 – San Diego, California
No. 7 – Seattle, Washington
No. 8 – Charlotte, North Carolina
No. 9 – Dallas, Texas
No. 10 – Minneapolis, Minnesota

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