AUSTIN, Texas — For the first time on record, Austin is losing homebuyers to other cities, according to Redfin.
Austin was the No. 1 destination for homebuyers in early 2021, but now more people are looking to pack their bags.
"The number of people who are moving to Austin is now lower than the number of people that are leaving Austin," Redfin Chief Economist Daryl Fairweather said.
According to Redfin data, in February 2021, Redfin said the net inflow of people using its database to find homes in the Austin metro was about 8,500. For context, prior to the pandemic, in September 2018, it was about 1,800.
This past September, that net inflow number went negative, with 441 looking to leave Austin.
The shift is for many reasons.
"I lived in Austin nearly 20 years," Joah Spearman said.
Spearman said he just left for the San Francisco Bay area because of Austin's culture shift.
"I think that we've lost a lot of those values around supporting local businesses, supporting local musicians, supporting that kind of the creative culture in lieu of just supporting growth," Spearman said. "That's really just turned me off from the city."
Spearman was one of more than 20 people who responded to a social media post asking if they were planning to move and why. People cited cost of living, property taxes, tolls, climate and politics as reasons for their moving plans.
"Also, you know, we're not living in the same era of remote work," Fairweather said. " A lot of tech companies have called people back to the office. "
Those offices are sometimes out of state. But Redfin said most Austinites are moving to more affordable places in Texas, like San Antonio and Corpus Christi.
Garrett Beem, an Austin realtor and the founder of Nesthaven Properties, said more people are simply moving back home.
"Surprisingly, East Texas being a big one," Beem said. "Taylor County, Colorado being a big one. Tennessee, Nevada and, surprisingly, San Jose and L.A. So a lot of that is also people have moved out here and realized the heat or whatnot wasn't for them."
There is some good news for those willing to stick it out. Austin's median home price is down about 5% year-over-year, the biggest decline in the U.S.
"Austin is not getting more expensive anymore like the run-up in prices ... it's pretty much in the rearview mirror for the time being," Fairweather said.
Yet another sign that the local housing market is cooling off.
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