The Californization of the Texas Housing Market (WSJ) [View all]

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https://www.wsj.com/economy/housing/texas-housing-california-migration-affordability-a50c78f
https://archive.ph/skBPu

The Californization of the Texas Housing Market
Migration from more expensive states has pushed home prices out of reach for many locals; ‘a very hard market for first-time buyers’
By Adolfo Flores
Oct. 10, 2023 9:00 pm ET

Texas has long had a reputation as an affordable place to live, in large part because homeownership stayed within reach for the middle class.

Now the state is being walloped by the same forces that have made homes a lot less affordable in many cities previously known for reasonable prices: pandemic-era migration from California and other more expensive areas.

California to Texas was the most popular interstate relocation route in the country in 2021, according to an analysis by storage-space search site StorageCafe using Census Bureau data. During that year, about 111,000 people — about 300 a day — moved from California to Texas.

Soaring prices have left many longtime residents grumbling about the Californization of Texas.

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas recently analyzed data on housing affordability in Texan cities, defined as the percentage of the housing stock affordable to families earning the median income in those places. At the beginning of 2014, nearly two-thirds of homes in San Antonio were affordable for a median-income family. By the end of 2022, fewer than one-third were. Affordability, defined as what a family spending 28% of its gross income on housing could buy, also declined in Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin, before ticking up slightly early this year.

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