n/a Domestic Migration, where are they coming from?

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Brad W

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I'm in St Johns County Florida. it seems like they are just building building and building some more. New houses are going up by the thousands.
The biggest one in my county that I'm aware of right now and is is well underway of building out is 11,000 acres, zoned for 17,600 dwelling units. I drive past the area every day.
There's another that in that last handfull of years I think is fully built out now or very close to it, 1,500 acres, about 2,800 homes. That one is a little more typical and there are many more like this one in the area.

When I go visit family in Eastern NC, it looks like there's similar building rate happening there too. I don't think taht this is an isolated thing

and these houses are necessarily cheap. There are more high density housing mixed into these developments than I would like to see in the area such as townhomes and apartments, which are probably more affordable, but on average, most of these don't seem like starter homes

Lots of standalone townhouses and apartments going up too

There are lots of little micro areas of retail popping up here and there... restaurants and similar...so there is some additional employment in the service and retail industry...but I'm not seeing a ton in the way of manufacturing or large employment...except building construction and public utilities

I'm just left wondering
where are these people coming from?
where are they working?
and maybe more, who is moving into the areas where they are coming from?

Seems like in my very small sampling of meeting new neighbors many are coming from high-cost-of-living places such as CA and NY, where they are selling modest houses for big money and coming here where they can buy a much larger home for the same dollars
But who is buying their old homes? I wouldn't think that it's all the illegal immigrants...Is it all Chinese investment firms? Are those places becoming ghost towns like I've heard happened in Detroit?
 
I've kind of wondered some of the same thing. We moved from middle TN (aka Nashville metro) to NC early 2024, and we've observed similar things in both locations as well. There are a LOTS of those pre-planned mixed-developed (commercial, multi- and single-family homes) communities popping up all over.

Having lived in middle TN area for over 10 years, it seemed that COVID and remote work accelerated those that wanted to move from HCOL areas to more reasonable ones. It drove up local prices, and from what we've been told it's doing the same thing all over NC.

As to what's happening to the homes in HCOL locations, I think there's a combination of short-term rentals and both domestic and foreign investment firms picking them up. I don't know how long this can be sustained, but it's been pretty steady for at least 3-4 years.

If interest rates come down in the next year we'll likely see more new-home construction. I just hope there won't be another 2007/08 'correction'.
 
Baked Potato said:
Doesn't the US have a defect of millions of homes? The population is growing faster than we are building.
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Yeah, consulting Dr. AI, it says there's a shortage of 3.7 - 4.2M homes due to underbuilding after the financial collapse of '08.

Not sure if that's accurate, but sounds reasonable. I had no idea that the shortage was that large.
 
Same here in Texas. We moved from Canada. Too cold up there. The vast majority of newcomers in our town are from California by a lot e.g. like 80% of new residents are from California. I think California is going to be a big state park one day - nice to visit for the landscape and weather but nobody living there lol.
 
The other thing to consider is that flyover country population is shrinking both because of the reduction of labor need for agriculture and the migration to better climates by remote workers and younger people.

Those people move into the growing areas.
 
The South East and Texas have been disproportionate receivers of "domestic migrants". The news has been obsessed with that for 5 years now.

Here's your migration figures to Florida and North Carolina, limited to those who previously lived in the USA.
Worth noting: Of every $1 that foreign buyers put into homes, $0.20 of it goes to Florida. That's a non-trivial impact, too.

Florida:
Added 2 calculated fields...
%Population of source state: What percentage of the source state's population moved to your state
%Impact on my state: What percentage that influx of newcomers represents in terms of your state population.
1756483473026.png

North Carolina:
1756483585644.png

Below is the YoY% change in state population (total population, not domestic migration).
1756482080664.png

And here's some other data showing the percentage of people who moved, and whether it's to the same state or a different state. It's a pretty steady % that moves to another state. It's just that your neck of the woods became popular!
1756482269658.png
 
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Here in the Chattanooga TN region it’s just exploding, housing going up everywhere. My next door neighbors are Bostonians originally but moved here after a tech career in California. The ones across the street moved from Manhattan, and next to them is a family just in from Chicago. Same all over the neighborhood. Thousands are leaving HCOL areas.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
Below is the YoY% change in state population (total population, not domestic migration).
1756482080664.png
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Huh, looks like a good time to move to Vermont :rolleyes1:
 
The southeast mountain region (SWVA, WNC, ETN, NGA) is being hit hard by “halfbacks”, northeast escapees who have found Florida to be too hot and too flat, so they move back to this region.
 
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I was puzzled by the housing shortage mention,
google says that the average family size in the US is 3.15 people...meaning that 1.15 people are replacing two people so there should be a housing surplus!​
but then I saw the bit about millenials moving out.... ha ha, now I get it! It all makes perfect sense! these adult kids are moving out of the basement and buying houses where they'll live alone

Bill said:
The southeast mountain region (SWVA, WNC, ETN, NGA) is being hit hard by “halfbacks”, northeast escapees who have found Florida to be too hot and too flat, so they move back to this region.
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I grew up in Eastern NC where my dad is from. Mom is from Eastern KY so I have some roots there. If I moved back to that SE mountain region, would that make me an "all-the-way-back" even though I grew up on the beach side of the state?

I'm really praying that I can turn my wife (from MA) into a halfback but so far I just get yelled at if I bring it up. To my dismay, she never wants to leave NE Florida.
I guess she doesn't care that I hate it here.:confused:
 
It's happening in Volusia County (Daytona Beach area) too. It started during COVID when four families from New York moved into my neighborhood within a few months.
They are turning huge forests into multi-thousand housing developments and are wondering why the bears and coyotes are suddenly raiding their trash cans.
 
The number of single family homes, townhouses and apartments being built in Bay County is incredible. Yet there are no new significant businesses opening up. The retail and restaurant businesses are having a difficult time staffing because they can't get employees.

So rather than asking where are they coming from, I'm curious about where they're working.
 
We get a lot of what we call halfbacks in our area of NC. People who retire the Florida and decide they can't stand it there so, they come halfway back to where they started and stick here.

We moved down from the DC area because it's only a degree or two warmer in the summer on average but substantially warmer in the winter.
 
Brad W said:
I'm in St Johns County Florida
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My son lives close to you just north of Racetrack road, and I think the same thing every time that there are too many people packing into that area.
 
The little town I live in, has grown from just over 1300 people to almost 7,000, with the majority of those moving in less than 5 years ago. By next summer, the entirety of the city limits and most of the ETJ will have been built out. When we moved here in 2009, the average home price was under $140K. You can't touch anything now for less than $300K, and the small town that abuts us to the east, it's more like $650K and rising. There are more than 16,000 homes in process between our two small towns and the major town just north of us. That town has built more than 10,000 apartment units in the last three years..
 
Sacramento county and the surrounding areas are being built out like crazy, at some point there will be no open space left. They are all fleeing the Bay Area.
 
Brad W said:
I was puzzled by the housing shortage mention,
google says that the average family size in the US is 3.15 people...meaning that 1.15 people are replacing two people so there should be a housing surplus!​
but then I saw the bit about millenials moving out.... ha ha, now I get it! It all makes perfect sense! these adult kids are moving out of the basement and buying houses where they'll live alone
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The decline however is relatively recent. The average birth rate per woman was up close to three throughout the 1960's so those folk are still around.

In addition, multigenerational housing has been going up and down over the past forty years. It started declining after WWII and didn't bottom out until around the turn of the century (and still hasn't returned to the pre-war levels).
 
donjohnston said:
The number of single family homes, townhouses and apartments being built in Bay County is incredible. Yet there are no new significant businesses opening up. The retail and restaurant businesses are having a difficult time staffing because they can't get employees.

So rather than asking where are they coming from, I'm curious about where they're working.
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Retirees?
 
We have 55 MILLION people here on visas. I'll bet we have an equal number of persons without legal status. 110 million people have to live somewhere.
 
Wasn't there a massive housing shortage after WWII.??

I do realize there are differences between the late 40s and now.
 
People fleeing states that have become untenable to live. Of course they will still vote for the same things that ruined their first state thus eventually ruining the place they fled to to escape the consequences of their previous voting habits.
 
Llewtrah381 said:
Source?
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Do you see a difference between "I'll bet we have ..." and "There are . . ."

I'll bet that the real number is somewhere between what @LWGII said and what the DHS estimates. That's still a lot.

And NO. I don't have a source except for the voices in my head.
 
MauleSkinner said:
So no real numbers exist.
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By that logic, the census is useless as well because it doesn't literally count every single person? What about crime statistics?

We live in a world of uncertainty. Some statistics have larger error bars than others because the underlying population is difficult to sample and interrogate, that doesn't make them useless. Certainly more useful than just saying "I reckon" and making up whatever nonsense you want with absolutely no methodology or evidence behind it. I know that is an unpopular opinion in our post-fact world.
 
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MauleSkinner said:
So no real numbers exist.
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A real number exists - we just don’t know it with absolute precision.

US population is estimated at around 350 million. Does it really pass the giggle test to say nearly 1/3 of that is non-citizens, legal or otherwise? Not to me.
 
AKiss20 said:
By that logic, the census is useless as well because it doesn't literally count every single person? What about crime statistics?
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nobody said anything about “useless.” Only accuracy. But both of these are estimates, just like the one being discussed, and statistics are generally the product of someone that wants to make a particular point.
 
MauleSkinner said:
nobody said anything about “useless.” Only accuracy. But both of these are estimates, just like the one being discussed, and statistics are generally the product of someone that wants to make a particular point.
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When multiple models or methodologies that actually rely on real data point to the same general number, that’s a lot greater signal of accuracy than the hand wave-y statement of some anonymous person on the internet who can’t point to a shred of evidence for their claim. Also hilarious that you imply these estimates from two very different sources (one of which is in control by someone who would love that number to be higher) are both biased but that the poster in question is somehow a paragon of independence and impartiality.
 
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