Americans are increasingly being pulled to the southern United States, with five states in particular attracting the most transplants.
Florida and Texas had the most people move within their borders in 2023, according to a new migration survey from the National Association of Realtors (NAR).
Florida saw a net inflow of 372,870 people last year, while 315,301 went to Texas, according to the report, which analyzed US Census data.
North Carolina welcomed 126,712 new residents in 2023, and has been established previously as another fast-growing state.
Home to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina gained 91,853 more people last year.
Georgia rounded out the top five, adding 88,325 people to its growing population.
Tennessee came in at number six with a net migration of more than 76,000, followed by Arizona (57,814), Alabama (36,128) and Oklahoma (31,967).
Ohio came in tenth and was the only state north of the Mason-Dixon Line to make the list, after drawing in a net migration of 28,718.
Florida saw a net inflow of 372,000 people last year, according to a study by the National Association of Realtors. (Pictured: Clearwater Beach, Florida)
The study found that Texas welcomed a net 315,301 new residents in 2023. (Pictured: Austin, Texas)
North Carolina, another fast-growing state, welcomed 126,712 new residents in 2023
Much of the dialogue around Americans moving south assumes they are searching for warmer temperatures and sunnier skies, but that isn’t the entire picture.
According to the report, only one percent of those who moved said they did so because of climate-related reasons.
The most common things that got people to pack up and go were ‘housing reasons’ (42 percent), ‘family reasons’ (26 percent) and ’employment reasons’ (16 percent).
There is a housing crisis all across the country. Between 1995 and 2023, the median household income rose 2.3 times from $34,076 per year to $80,610.
Over the same time period, the median home sales price jumped 3.4 times from $114,600 to $389,800, according to figures from NAR.
That has led to many Americans being priced out of the market, with the average age of a homebuyer surging to 56 this year. That’s up from 49-years-old last year.
Mixing in stubbornly rising prices with historically high mortgage rates has produced the perfect recipe for housing unaffordability.
Still, there are bargains to be found but mostly in the southern US.
South Carolina, home to Myrtle Beach (pictured), gained 91,853 more people last year
Georgia rounded out the top five, adding 88,325 people to its growing population
The typical home price in California ($791,000) and New York ($459,000) is much higher than in Texas ($303,000) and Florida ($415,000), according to Zillow.
California and New York also happen to be the two states with the most people fleeing, as both states have high income taxes and stricter business regulations. Florida and Texas have no income tax.
North Carolina does have an income tax, but it’s much lower than New York’s or California’s.
About 16 percent of clients surveyed in the NAR report said they moved for lower taxes and the plurality of them moved to the south.
A greater chunk, 30 percent of clients surveyed, moved to be closer to family and friends. A third of that group moved to the south.
This phenomenon is being driven in part by seniors relocating near their adult children who have kids of their own. These older Americans often help with childcare, which has gotten exorbitantly expensive in recent years.
Between January 2020 and September 2024, the price of daycare and preschool rose about 22 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The South has become the most populous region in the US, thanks almost entirely to Florida and Texas.
Despite New York having the most populous city in the US, it is a state where many lifelong residents are fleeing for cheaper real estate (Pictured: The sun rises over 42nd street in Manhattan in a phenomenon known as Manhattanhenge on November 30, 2024)
The same is true of California, which has lost hundreds of thousands of people since January 2020 (Pictured: The downtown skyline of Los Angeles and surrounding neighborhoods)
California has been the most crowded state in the union since 1964, when it overtook New York.
New York dropped back to third place in 1994, when Texas surged past 18.1 million people. Florida later surpassed the Empire State.
And data suggests that this trend will only become more stark as the decades roll by.
A February study from moveBuddha projected that Texas and Florida would be the first and second biggest states, respectively, by 2100, followed by California, Georgia, North Carolina, and New York.
California has been steadily losing hundreds of thousands of citizens since 2019, before posting a moderate gain in 2023.
This first ever population decline in California came after the COVID-19 pandemic, when the state imposed some of the strictest lockdown measures in the country.
From January 2020 to July 2022, California lost well over half a million people.
Florida, by contrast, had more lax pandemic restrictions. The state allowed restaurants and other businesses to open with no mask mandates by September 2020, far before most other states did the same.
