Texas Housing Boom Is Over As Home Prices Fall, Residents Leave

• The Texas housing market has cooled after a frenzy of activity during the pandemic.
• Boomtowns like Austin are seeing home prices drop, while fewer people are moving to the state.
• Some say they have soured on the Lone Star amid rising housing costs and overall costs of living.

Texas was not all what it cracked up to be, according to Peter Hoholick, a native Californian who moved to Austin in 2021 on rumors that a cheaper, more laid-back lifestyle was in store.

The move fell short of Hoholick’s expectations. The weather was “miserable,” with southern humidity and temperatures trailing into the triple-digits during the summer. The cost of living was comparable to that of California, though the pay, he felt, was lower.

The tense, conservative-leaning political climate is what broke him. When Roe v. Wade was overturned, Hoholick made the decision to head back to California. His quality of life has “vastly” improved, he told Business Insider in an interview.

“I was young and dumb at this point in time,” Hoholick said of his brief stay in Texas — around 13 months. “I would never entertain the idea of moving back.”

He isn’t alone. Though some towns still attract a good deal of interstate movers, a growing number of Americans have soured on the Lone Star State, with interest in moving to Texas cooling, while interest in moving out has risen. The shift in attitudes is an indicator for the state’s housing market, which boomed during the pandemic.

The weather is hot and the political climate too charged for some, but the biggest reason the scramble for Texas may be over is simply because living there is way more expensive than it used to be, real estate experts and realtors in the state told BI.

The downbeat feelings are already evident in the state’s migration and housing data. While Texas gained 668,000 new residents between 2021 and 2022, it also lost nearly half a million people, with 494,077 people moving out of state that year, according to the US Census Bureau.

That small-scale exodus appears to be taking place in what used to be Texas’ most popular boomtowns. Dallas has seen a slight population decline over the past several years, with the city losing around 5,000 people from mid-2020 to mid-2023, Census data shows.

Austin, meanwhile, is the fifth most moved-out of city in the US year-to-date, according to an analysis from the moving firm PODS, with the town no longer considered among the top 10 most populous cities in the US.

Texas realtors also say it’s a much cooler climate for buying and selling a home, thanks to weaker demand. Median home prices in Texas have fallen around 7% from their highs in mid-2022, according to data from Redfin. The decline is an outlier compared to the broader US housing market, which is still prices hovering around record highs.

In 2022, homes for sale in Texas were being scooped up in a matter of days, but it’s…