Texas now holds four spots in the country’s top ten most populous cities list, with Austin pulling ahead to join Houston, San Antonio and Dallas in the latest U.S. Census Bureau report released Thursday.
According to the new report, Georgetown saw the fastest pace of growth in the country, with a 14.4% growth rate. In 2022 alone, Georgetown gained a staggering 10,887 new residents – passing even Dallas in that regard, which gained only 8,833 transplants despite its 1.3 million total population. Kyle and Leander ranked third and fourth respectively among cities with populations of 50,000 or more.
As for the Dallas-Fort Worth area, the town of Little Elm also found a spot in the top ten fastest growing cities in the U.S., placing fifth. In fact, Fort Worth as a whole gained more new residents in 2022 than any other city in the country, with a whopping 19,170 transplants now calling Cowtown their new home.
San Antonio, just behind Fort Worth and Phoenix, gained the third highest sheer number of new residents in the country and reached a total population of 1.47 million. In 2021, San Antonio ranked first in this list while Fort Worth placed third.
Texas’ overall population growth in 2022 finally crossed a new threshold of 30 million residents – only the second state ever to reach it. As new residents quite literally flood into the Lone Star state, the picture of how the housing market will likely behave moving forward becomes clearer when compared against the national backdrop of the country’s major metropolitan areas.
It’s no secret that Austin’s housing market is experiencing a season of cooling after its red-hot, record-shattering first couple of post-pandemic years – but, how does this stack up against the rest of the country? According to The National Association of Realtors’ latest report from March 2023, nationwide home sales fell 22.7 percent overall, significantly more than Texas’ 14 percent drop. The report called this gap proof of the “resilience of the region’s economy.”
In the latest Central Texas Housing Market Report, ABoR housing economist Dr. Clare Losey pointed to “inflation, the near doubling of mortgage rates, fear of a recession, and, most recently, stress in the banking system” as contributors to falling national home prices. Losey clarified that in Austin, however, “robust job and population growth have mitigated these effects” and allowed the city to remain “resilient and able to withstand broader economic turbulence effectively.”
“A normalizing housing market, along with more inventory, is unequivocally a good thing for buyers,” added Ashley Jackson, 2023 ABoR President. “Many Central Texas households would not have been able to attain homeownership had our market continued to experience record-breaking year-over-year gains in home prices.”
While the country undoubtedly navigates turbulent skies in its path back to a more stable economy, the durability of Austin and the state of Texas as a whole are encouraging signs for its now 30 million residents, who will likely see this period through with greater ease than the rest of the country. As the housing market continues to find its bearings in the current economic landscape, it’s never been more important to use a Realtor to help you navigate the market effectively from either side of the transaction.