During the pandemic there’s been lots of chatter about folks moving to North Texas from other states.
But so far there’ve been few hard numbers on the immigrant totals.
Now a new study from commercial real estate giant CBRE confirms the thousands of people heading to Dallas-Fort Worth last year and where they came from.
No surprise, the largest number of new D-FW transplants comes from California.
In 2020 more than 16,000 people moved to North Texas from California, according to CBRE’s a study of post office change of address information. California moves to D-FW were up more than 19% last year from 2019 totals.
Relocations from New York had an even bigger 2020 gain, rising more than 22% last year with more than 4,500 moves.
Other states that shifted thousands of workers to the D-FW area include Florida and Illinois.
“Doesn’t surprise me the California ones,” said Dr. Luis Torres, an economist with the Texas Real Estate Research Center. “New York State is probably starting from a lower base.
In 2019, most of the Texas moves came from California and Florida, Torres said.
“We are actually trying to get a better grasp on migration numbers - we are looking into possible data sets,” he said.
CBRE’s new study, COVID-19 Impact on Resident Migration Patterns, took a deep dive into relocation in markets across the U.S.
“As the COVID-19 crisis escalated and social distancing restrictions took hold, the outflow of people from dense, high-cost urban metros accelerated in 2020,” the study found. “Sun Belt metros and those in interior parts of the county either gained new residents or had fewer people leave relative to 2019.
“The biggest cohort of this urban outflow is affluent young adults who are well-educated, childless and can work remotely.”
Moves out of markets including San Francisco, New York, Miami and Boston surged, while there were more immigrants to metros including Austin, Charlotte, Dallas and Phoenix, CBRE researchers found.
Most of the relocations to D-FW in 2020 came from Houston, Los Angeles, Austin and New York City.
Immigration to North Texas from San Francisco jumped by more than 34% in 2020 compared with 2019.
Several Northern California employers - including financial firm Charles Schwab Corp - have recently shifted thousands of jobs to Texas.
Moves to D-FW from Chicago also moved up during the pandemic.
The migration to North Texas from out of state markets rose in 2020 even as the area lost jobs.
The D-FW area had lost 116,000 jobs year-over-year in December as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Greg Willett, the top economist for Richardson-based RealPage, understands why the moves to D-FW continued last year even though the number of jobs in the are declined.
“The relationship between where we live and where we work has been loosening for a while now, and the shutdown of offices during the COVID pandemic underlined that many people can work effectively from remote locations,” Willett said. “That shift tends to drive households toward metros with comparatively affordable living costs, while it makes the country’s most expensive markets less attractive.”
