Headed to Texas: Thousands of migrants coming from California and other states
Studies show where new residents are coming from, and more companies thinking about a move.
With more than a half-million people a year moving to Texas, the Lone Star State ranks as one of the country’s top destinations for relocations.
The largest numbers of people moving to Texas hail from California, Florida, Louisiana, Illinois, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Georgia and Arizona, according to a new report from the Texas Realtors association.
And about 200,000 of the new Texans came from outside the U.S., the real estate trade group’s 2021 Texas Relocation Report finds.
“Some move here for a lower cost of living than where they’re from, a great quality of life, diverse job opportunities, good weather — there are many reasons people continue coming to Texas,” Marvin Jolly, 2021 chairman of Texas Realtors, said in the report.
California ranks first nationally among states people are leaving, according to 2019 U.S. Census data.
The Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston areas were the biggest gainers for out-of-state moves, according to the Realtors.
With the COVID-19 pandemic changing the American workplace, more companies are pondering a move.
Nationwide business and technology consulting firm West Monroe recently surveyed 150 business executives for its latest quarterly report on industry trends.
“One in four said they were considering picking up their business locations and moving them somewhere else,” said Adam Gersting, who leads West Monroe’s Dallas office. “A lot of that group are looking at Texas.
“Many behind that are saying they are looking to Texas because of cost of living, cost of talent, taxes, real estate and regulations being more favorable,” Gersting said. “The West Coast employers most often cited Texas as a choice for moves. That’s in keeping with what we’ve see in the marketplace with companies moving from California to Texas.”
Florida and Tennessee ranked just behind Texas on businesses’ location shopping list.
Gersting said employers are making plans for their workers to return to the office from home as the pandemic subsides.
“Forty-seven percent of the folks said their workforce will be on site either most or part of the time when it is safe to return to work,” he said. “That is a higher figure than we have seen in some surveys. Most of the organizations thought that their business would be at least stabilized by the third quarter of this year.”
Gersting said almost half of the execs West Monroe surveyed were looking to hire.
“We see organizations shifting to offense a little bit more and investing in front-end customer experiences driving sales as they see business stabilize,” he said.
