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Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Business
- Miami Herald
Map Shows States Americans Are Moving From and To
With declining births and slower immigration following the Trump administration's strict deportation policies, domestic migration is bound to become an increasingly more important driver of U.S. population change, a recent study found. Florida and Texas, which have both been among the fastest-growing states in the nation for years, know what a positive impact a booming population can have on the local economy and job market, as well as what happens when this demographic explosion starts to wane. This year's State of the Nation's Housing report, released earlier this week by the Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) of Harvard University, found that the movement of Americans across the country has declined in 2024 all across the country, including in the states that are traditionally the most popular among movers. Last year, according to researchers, the nation reported the lowest rates of household mobility on record since the 1970s. According to the latest Current Population Survey, about 8.3 percent of households (10.9 million) reported moving over the past year, a rate unchanged from a year earlier and down from 9.8 percent (12.6 million) before the pandemic, in 2019. In the same year, the homeowner mobility rate dropped to an all-time low of 3.1 percent, down from 3.7 percent in 2023 and 4.3 percent in 2019. That means U.S. homeowners made 24 percent fewer moves last year than in 2019, before the pandemic unleashed a surge of remote workers relocating from large, busy metropolises to smaller, more affordable towns. The South was the main beneficiary of this influx of people relocating to cheaper, more livable parts of the nation, with Florida and Texas adding hundreds of thousands of new residents over the past five years. The rate of domestic migration in Florida increased from 6.5 in 2019 to 8.1 in 2020, 11.4 in 2021, and reached a peak of 14.2 in 2022. In 2023, it fell to 8.2, and in 2024, it plunged to 2.7. In Texas, the rate increased from 4.2 in 2019 to 5.6 in 2020, 6.7 in 2021, 7.4 in 2022, and 6.3 in 2023, only to fall to 2.8 in 2024. While domestic migration remained the main source of population growth last year for 11 states, primarily in the South, net gains from migration fell in several of these states. In North Carolina, domestic migration decreased by 17 percent from the previous year, while in Tennessee, it decreased by 20 percent. Not only has in-migration-the process of relocating permanently to another part of one's home country-slowed down in the states that were most benefiting from it over the past five years, but out-migration from states that were hemorrhaging residents also slowed down last year. The number of residents moving out of California, for example, dropped by 30 percent in 2024, from −344,000 in 2023 to −240,000 in 2024. New York, another state where out-migration has surpassed in-migration in recent years, lost 121,000 people on net to interstate migration in 2024, about 30 percent fewer than in 2023 (−177,000) and 60 percent fewer than in 2022 (−296,000). Since 2019, the cost of homeownership has skyrocketed nationwide, including in states that previously offered more affordable options. The median sale price of a typical U.S. home was $313,000 in the first quarter of 2019, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau; in the first quarter of 2024, it had surged to $426,800. As of the first quarter of 2025, $416,900. Mortgage rates have also gone through the roof since 2019. If historically low monthly payments during the pandemic spurred a homebuying frenzy nationwide, rates lingering around the 7 percent mark are now hindering demand, pushing buyers to the sidelines. The result is that packing up and moving to another state has become a trickier operation for many Americans, considering the overall cost of purchasing a new property. On top of that, return-to-office orders from companies that had been pressured to offer remote working options during the pandemic are now forcing many employees to go back to the same busy metros they had left. According to the JCHS study, last year there was a slowdown in moves out of urban centers across the U.S., which had accelerated during the pandemic. Net moves from dense urban counties, such as those in New York City, researchers found, fell for the third consecutive year in 2024, down 17 percent from the previous year. At the same time, net moves into suburban counties fell 16 percent year-over-year, while gains in smaller metros and non-metro counties declined by 12 percent and 31 percent, respectively, over the past year; however, these remain higher than pre-pandemic levels. Related Articles Map Shows States With the Best Major Airports in the Shows 10 Housing Markets Where Buyers Have More PowerMap Shows Most Expensive Home Sales Across USMap Shows Which States Will Feel Hottest Today 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Newsweek
2 days ago
- Business
- Newsweek
Map Shows States Americans Are Moving From and To
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. With declining births and slower immigration following the Trump administration's strict deportation policies, domestic migration is bound to become an increasingly more important driver of U.S. population change, a recent study found. Florida and Texas, which have both been among the fastest-growing states in the nation for years, know what a positive impact a booming population can have on the local economy and job market, as well as what happens when this demographic explosion starts to wane. This year's State of the Nation's Housing report, released earlier this week by the Joint Center for Housing Studies (JCHS) of Harvard University, found that the movement of Americans across the country has declined in 2024 all across the country, including in the states that are traditionally the most popular among movers. Last year, according to researchers, the nation reported the lowest rates of household mobility on record since the 1970s. Fewer Americans Are Moving Across the Country According to the latest Current Population Survey, about 8.3 percent of households (10.9 million) reported moving over the past year, a rate unchanged from a year earlier and down from 9.8 percent (12.6 million) before the pandemic, in 2019. In the same year, the homeowner mobility rate dropped to an all-time low of 3.1 percent, down from 3.7 percent in 2023 and 4.3 percent in 2019. That means U.S. homeowners made 24 percent fewer moves last year than in 2019, before the pandemic unleashed a surge of remote workers relocating from large, busy metropolises to smaller, more affordable towns. The South was the main beneficiary of this influx of people relocating to cheaper, more livable parts of the nation, with Florida and Texas adding hundreds of thousands of new residents over the past five years. The rate of domestic migration in Florida increased from 6.5 in 2019 to 8.1 in 2020, 11.4 in 2021, and reached a peak of 14.2 in 2022. In 2023, it fell to 8.2, and in 2024, it plunged to 2.7. In Texas, the rate increased from 4.2 in 2019 to 5.6 in 2020, 6.7 in 2021, 7.4 in 2022, and 6.3 in 2023, only to fall to 2.8 in 2024. While domestic migration remained the main source of population growth last year for 11 states, primarily in the South, net gains from migration fell in several of these states. In North Carolina, domestic migration decreased by 17 percent from the previous year, while in Tennessee, it decreased by 20 percent. Not only has in-migration—the process of relocating permanently to another part of one's home country—slowed down in the states that were most benefiting from it over the past five years, but out-migration from states that were hemorrhaging residents also slowed down last year. The number of residents moving out of California, for example, dropped by 30 percent in 2024, from −344,000 in 2023 to −240,000 in 2024. New York, another state where out-migration has surpassed in-migration in recent years, lost 121,000 people on net to interstate migration in 2024, about 30 percent fewer than in 2023 (−177,000) and 60 percent fewer than in 2022 (−296,000). Why Is Domestic Migration Declining? Since 2019, the cost of homeownership has skyrocketed nationwide, including in states that previously offered more affordable options. The median sale price of a typical U.S. home was $313,000 in the first quarter of 2019, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau; in the first quarter of 2024, it had surged to $426,800. As of the first quarter of 2025, $416,900. Mortgage rates have also gone through the roof since 2019. If historically low monthly payments during the pandemic spurred a homebuying frenzy nationwide, rates lingering around the 7 percent mark are now hindering demand, pushing buyers to the sidelines. The result is that packing up and moving to another state has become a trickier operation for many Americans, considering the overall cost of purchasing a new property. On top of that, return-to-office orders from companies that had been pressured to offer remote working options during the pandemic are now forcing many employees to go back to the same busy metros they had left. According to the JCHS study, last year there was a slowdown in moves out of urban centers across the U.S., which had accelerated during the pandemic. Net moves from dense urban counties, such as those in New York City, researchers found, fell for the third consecutive year in 2024, down 17 percent from the previous year. At the same time, net moves into suburban counties fell 16 percent year-over-year, while gains in smaller metros and non-metro counties declined by 12 percent and 31 percent, respectively, over the past year; however, these remain higher than pre-pandemic levels.
USA Today
7 days ago
- Business
- USA Today
Lawmakers press Fed chair on rates as home prices and rents keep rising
As the housing crisis deepens across the United States, policymakers are increasingly looking for answers. On June 24, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., brought concerns about how housing costs impact her constituents to an unlikely venue: the semiannual testimony of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Capitol Hill. More than half of the Black women in the counties Tlaib represents have experienced some sort of eviction, she said, citing data published in an academic journal. Those numbers, she said, are 'horrific,' considering how traumatic evictions can be, and how they diminish access to equitable housing conditions. But it's just one statistic. A report out Tuesday from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University highlighted the challenges across the country: Insurance premiums and property taxes are surging, high rents have left record numbers of Americans burdened by costs and pushed many into homelessness, and persistently high mortgage rates are locking first-time buyers out of the market and fraying the American Dream. Against that backdrop, Tlaib pressed Powell to explain the Fed's rationale for monetary policy that keeps interest rates high. She asked, don't high rates keep a lid on new construction, which leads to higher prices if supply doesn't keep up with demand? 'There's a longer run shortage of housing in the U.S., which there's nothing the Fed can do about,' Powell responded. 'In the short run rates are high,' he acknowledged, 'and that's going to weigh on housing activity, but the best thing we can do for the housing market is to restore price stability so that rates come down.' 'They're both right,' said Selma Hepp, chief economist with real estate data provider Cotality. 'It's natural to look at the issue of mortgage rates right now because it's low-hanging fruit but this is a long-term problem,' Hepp told USA TODAY. In fact, levels of new housing construction have consistently fallen short, year after year, ever since the subprime housing bubble burst almost two decades ago. Meanwhile, construction expenses like land and labor have ballooned in the past few years – rising at nearly double the rate of overall inflation, Hepp said. Tariffs on construction materials will only exacerbate that. Tlaib isn't the only one looking for outside-the-box solutions to the housing crisis. A bipartisan group of representatives including Wisconsin Republican Scott Fitzgerald and New York Democrat Grace Meng have urged the Trump administration to release Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from government conservatorship and invest an expected $250 billion windfall from the transaction into middle-class housing. 'I'm glad that members of Congress are raising this issue,' Hepp said, adding Tlaib and others are right to point out the human cost of the housing crisis, which they see in their own districts – for renters as well as owners. 'Ideally, I'd love to see less finger-pointing and more solutions,' Hepp said.
Newsweek
24-06-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
Harvard's Housing Market Study Flags Worrying Trends—'Shocking'
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. The housing affordability crisis that has been keeping the dream of homeownership out of reach for millions of Americans over the past few years is unlikely to ease "anytime soon," according to a new report by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. The State of the Nation's Housing 2025 found that sky-high home prices—which are still rising at the national level—historically elevated mortgage rates, and rising home insurance premiums and property taxes are still keeping Americans on the sidelines of the market, despite growing inventory. The result is that sales are falling across the country as many Americans cannot afford to buy a property. While experts believe these dynamics will bring down home prices by the end of the year, Harvard researchers said, "The increasing possibility of an economic downturn threatens to deepen these challenges." Challenges Still Facing Homeowners in 2025 Home Prices As of early 2025, U.S. home prices were 60 percent higher than they were in 2019, before the pandemic homebuying frenzy spurred by historically low mortgage rates began. The prices were not only significantly higher than before the health emergency but were also still rising at a rate of 3.9 percent year over year, according to the Harvard study. In 2024, the median price of an existing single-family home hit a new high of $412,500. As of May 2025, according to the latest Redfin data, it was $441,738, up 1 percent from a year earlier. A construction worker carrying lumber at a site where a new home is being built in a neighborhood destroyed by a wildfire in Pacific Palisades, California, on May 7. A construction worker carrying lumber at a site where a new home is being built in a neighborhood destroyed by a wildfire in Pacific Palisades, California, on May 7."This is a shocking five times the median household income," Daniel McCue, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Housing Studies, said in a news release. "This is also significantly above the price-to-income ratio of 3 that has traditionally been considered affordable." While prices have continued rising this year, existing-home sales dropped to a new 30-year low of 4.06 million, the study found. Rising Property Taxes and Home Insurance Premiums It isn't only sky-high home prices that are keeping prospective buyers off the market. The cost of homeownership has increased dramatically over the past few years as property tax bills have risen as a result of skyrocketing home values, and home insurance premiums have climbed following the increased frequency and severity of natural disasters across the country. Home insurance premiums jumped 57 percent from 2019 to 2024, according to the Harvard study, "with the sharpest increases in areas with the greatest risk of a climate-related disaster." Property taxes also climbed nationwide by an average of 12 percent between 2021 and 2023. Consequently, a growing number of Americans homeowners are cost-burdened, meaning they spend more than 30 percent of their income on housing costs. In 2023, according to the Harvard study, the number of cost-burdened homeowners rose by 646,000 to 20.3 million, representing 24 percent of all homeowner households. Mortgage Rates Historically high mortgage rates are also discouraging buyers from making a purchase this year. Last year, according to the Harvard study, monthly mortgage payments on a median-priced home for first-time buyers with a 30-year loan rose to $2,570. That is 40 percent higher than it was in 1990, requiring buyers to earn an annual income of at least $126,700 to afford a home and the associated taxes and insurance costs, researchers found. "Only 6 million of the nation's nearly 46 million renters can meet this benchmark," Alexander Hermann, a senior research associate at the Harvard center, said in a news release. The situation is unlikely to change this year or the next. As of June 18, the nationwide average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.81 percent, according to Freddie Mac, more than three times higher than the lows reached during the pandemic. Experts believe mortgage rates will keep hovering between the 6 percent and 7 percent marks throughout 2025 and 2026. The Number of Americans Reaching Homeownership Has Shrunk With the long-standing affordability issues weighing on prospective buyers, the number of Americans who can realize their dream of homeownership is shrinking. Last year, the U.S. homeownership rate fell for the first time in eight years, down 0.3 percentage points to 65.6 percent. The rate has continued falling in the first quarter of 2025, sliding to 65.1 percent. The situation is even more dire among first-time homebuyers. The homeownership rate dropped by 1.4 percentage points in 2024 for households under the age of 35 and by 0.8 percentage points to 61.8 percent for households aged 35 to 44, according to the Harvard study. In the same year, homeownership rates for households aged 45 and above remained relatively unchanged. An Uncertain Future The future of the U.S. housing market is "inextricably linked" to that of the country's economy and federal policy, Harvard researchers said, adding, "As such, much of its future is uncertain." President Donald Trump's tariffs on the U.S.'s trading partners, many of which affect crucial construction material, are bound to bring up the cost of building a home, builders and experts have said. The cost of building materials went up by 36 percent between February 2020 and February 2025, the Harvard study found, and it is likely to continue surging in the coming months. Estimates show that the Trump administration's tariffs may add $12,800 to $25,500 to the cost of building a new single-family home. Homebuilders surveyed by the National Association of Home Builders said they expected tariffs to push up new home prices by $10,900. Trump's aggressive stance against illegal migration could also exacerbate labor shortages in the construction sector, further increasing the cost of homebuilding. About one-third of construction workers are foreign-born, the Harvard study found—about twice the rate of the overall labor force. On top of these issues, reductions in federal staff and funding threaten to exacerbate an already-unprecedented housing crisis, the study concluded. "There must be a concerted effort to do more to address the affordability and supply crises," Chris Herbert, the managing director of the Harvard center, said in a news release. "The potential consequences of inaction are simply too harmful to the macroeconomy and the millions of households striving for a safe, affordable place to call home."
USA Today
24-06-2025
- Business
- USA Today
America's housing is pulling further out of reach, report finds
Harvard researchers document the increasing costs and challenges of finding housing for both renters and owners A new report from one of the nation's premiere housing research groups confirms what many of us already know: residential real estate is pulling further away from ordinary Americans, becoming more expensive, less attainable, and increasingly stymying efforts to make a market that works for everyone. The State of the Nation's Housing 2025, from the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, lays out the numbers in stark detail. What those numbers actually look like can be seen in the charts below. Do young people complain too much about the high cost of housing? Americans have always stretched to buy their homes, and many older people remember when mortgage rates were in the double digits. But by one measure, conditions have rarely been this challenging. The median-priced home was five times greater than the median household income in 2024, according to the report, 'significantly' above the ratio of three times, which has traditionally been a rough rule of thumb about what's affordable. Going back to 1990, the only other period in which the ratio was this high was 2005, at the height of the subprime bubble. More: OK, boomer: Why older Americans have the upper hand in the housing market Of course, one of the oldest truths about housing is that all real estate is local. Even now, there are plenty of places where dollars stretch further. Consider: a borrower would need an income of $595,389 to afford the median-priced home in the San Jose, California metro area, which is just over $2 million. But you could pick up a typical home in Waterloo-Cedar Falls, Iowa, or Charleston, West Virginia, for one-tenth that amount. Read more: Rents remain far above pre-COVID levels. Use this tool to check prices in your area Finally, it's worth remembering that it's not just homes for purchase that are pulling out of reach. The rent is still too darn high for far too many Americans. There are some policies that may help alleviate high costs, Whitney Airgood-Obrycki, a senior research associate at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, told USA TODAY. Zoning tends to be the first point of friction. Allowing multifamily housing in places that are zoned for single family only can ease that. But the reform needs to go beyond that change. "We can make building as easy as possible," Airgood-Obrycki said, "but for people at the bottom of the market who are severely rent burdened and have been over time, new construction really isn't going to solve their problem." Read next: Homeowners have nearly 40x the wealth of renters. But what's causing the wealth gap? That is where federal and state subsidies, in the form of vouchers and public housing, can be helpful, Airgood-Obrycki added. The Harvard report reminds readers that 'cost burdens' have a human toll: in January 2024, 771,480 people were homeless, up a whopping 33% since January 2020.
