‘Great Reshuffling’ pours people into Austin, Zillow says

A reverse goldrush is going down.

Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth are top markets for people moving from the Los Angeles area, according to a new Zillow report that analyzed moving-company data.

The Covid-19 pandemic has caused many Americans to rethink the meaning of home and their living arrangements, thanks partly to the rise of remote work, according to Zillow’s first Mover’s Report.

Some 11% of Americans have already moved in the past year, some by choice and others by necessity, according to the survey. Austin is a beneficiary of what the Zillow report terms the Great Reshuffling, which is causing millions of additional households to enter the real estate market as a result of the pandemic.

Austin and the Dallas area are part of a Sun Belt surge, as movers with the ability to work remotely seek out relative affordability and warmer weather.

Austin ranked No. 3 and DFW ranked No. 4 on Zilllow’s list of Top 5 Metros for Net Inbound Moves. Phoenix ranked first, Charlotte ranked second and Sarasota, Florida, ranked fifth.

According to the report, Los Angeles is the top origin of movers who land in Austin, followed by San Jose and San Francisco. Dallas’ top three, in order of origin, are pegged are Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.

But it’s important to note that this is just a snippet of total relocation data. Zillow based its numbers on SIRVA/North American Van Lines data for moves in the first 11 months of 2020. 

The fact of the matter is, wider data from the Texas Demographic Center indicate that the majority of people, by far, who move to the Austin area are coming from other parts of Texas — and most of them don’t use the moving service cited by Zillow. U-Haul, for instance, has its own migration numbers here but dissects its data differently than Zillow.

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The latest U.S. Census Bureau numbers, reported about a year ago, combined with anecdotal data since the pandemic that shows population growth has accelerated since, indicates the Austin area could be adding roughly 200 people a day at this time — babies included.

Zillow research finds the pandemic could bring an additional 2.5 million households to the surging U.S. real estate market, in addition to the more than one in 10 people who have already moved in the past year.

The data from North American Van Lines also finds some of the country’s largest and most expensive housing markets saw the highest net outbound moves, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. Zillow saw for-sale inventory in these metros climb, while inventory nationally hit new lows.

“The pandemic brought an acceleration of trends we were seeing in 2018 and 2019,” Zillow senior economist Jeff Tuckersaid in the report. “More affordable, medium-sized metro areas across the Sun Belt saw significantly more people coming than going, especially from more expensive, larger cities farther north and on the coasts. The pandemic has catalyzed purchases by millennial first-time buyers, many of whom can now work from anywhere.” 

For an in-depth report on Austin’s housing market and expected viability for the coming years, click here.

Courtesy of ABJ. See full article here.