The events of the past 6mo have caused tons of people in places like NYC, SF, etc who were on the fence to cash out an move elsewhere.

Housing prices, local politics, just about everything is gonna suck real bad for the people in the destination locales because a bunch of people with more money than them are showing up and trying to tell them what to do.

That’s been a hidden instability of those markets, in my opinion - housing prices being so outlandish makes it trivial to cash out. For an average renter, moving probably maxes out at a few thousand.

Weak topsoil because of too few roots leads to a dust bowl like scenario.

I'm really curious about the macro political effects too- if a surge of CA-based liberal leaning tech workers move to Texas, is Texas purple?

If you look at the 4 big cities of Texas they are all blue. Its just surrounded by a sea of red.

Hence the reliance on gerrymandering to maintain majorities. Look at the congressional districts around Austin

This has already happened in Nevada and now Arizona.

The 2020 election will tell. Up to now, it has definitely not been purple.

H. Clinton did relatively well in Texas -- it's one of the few states where she out-performed Obama. Still, a 800,000 vote gap is much too large too close in only four years.

Austin is pretty pricey by Texas standards and San Antonio is on it's way up. Property taxes in Texas are what may surprise you depending on where you are from. I used to live in the Seattle area and property taxes there are around 1/2 of what they are in Texas. Neither has a state income tax and both have around the same sales tax rate.

>Austin is pretty pricey by Texas standards

Because for a long time it was cheap by California standards. Same story with Denver, Boulder, now Boise, etc. etc.

I don’t know about rents but single-family home sales and prices are surging.

Yeah, part of this may be that one- and two-bedroom apartments are undesirable during a pandemic.

I know it's a sentiment I've expressed to friends and family: I bought a house last year and I've repeatedly thought "boy I'm sure glad I'm trapped in a single-family home with a nice backyard for a year, rather than in my old apartment for a year". I would have been climbing the walls there.

Of course there are more factors in single-family home prices as well: interest rates are directly tied to how much money people can afford to borrow, so the rate reductions this summer drive a surge in housing prices, and generally the fed injected a ton of money into the financial system that is sloshing around looking for safe places to park, and housing is a very safe place to do that. There are a lot of properties being bought up by investment firms to rent out.

My theory on that is that people are spooked by the virus and want to remain isolated. That and living in a smaller apartment isn’t that much fun when you have to spend all your time in it versus going out to eat or meet friends.

There's been a few articles lately about the number of west coast people moving to Texas to the point that Texas will be considered a purple state after the upcoming election.

I'm from Texas, moved to CA for a number of years, and have since returned to TX. Things like no state income tax and lower sales tax are major attractions, add to that the dirt cheap prices of property in comparison to CA. There are other things that are cheaper that just make day-to-day life easier. Fuel prices are much cheaper in TX. Auto registration fees are cheaper. In TX, my Corolla was <$75 per year while in CA it was >$400. When I registered my car in CA, I was required to pay taxes on something purchased in another state. (Why CA limits this tax/ransom to cars is a real question. Why not any large ticket purchases like computers,washer/dryer,fridges,etc.)

TL;DR - It's pretty widespread. TX population is rapidly increasing

> Why not any large ticket purchases like computers,washer/dryer,fridges,etc.)

Technically they do. You’re supposed to declare purchases on your taxes and pay the “use tax” on them. It’s just that you can’t get away with not paying the tax on a car so it’s easier to enforce.

> There are other things that are cheaper that just make day-to-day life easier.

Not having any protections or laws supporting laborers help make things cheaper too. No parental/sick leave, no per day overtime maximums, no mandatory break times, no non compete ban, lower minimum wages, etc.

Not that it’s the only reason, but I notice it to be a trend in “low cost” states. The exception seems to be WA, which has decent labor protections, but not quite as good as CA.

More labor protections also tend to cause higher unemployment rates. The unemployment rate in Texas is currently about half the rate in California. No one wants to see desperate workers exploited by employers, but if we increase worker protections too much then we end up hurting the people we meant to help.

Only because other states are offering cheaper labor by not having those protections, much like other countries offering cheaper labor by not having worker/environmental protections.

Theoretically, I agree it's possible to have too much worker protection, but it's a laughable notion in the US where pretty much all but a handful of states have no protections and "too much worker protection" is not even a remote concern.

I have a family member complaining that they cannot eat and have to stand for 8+ hours straight, a pharmacist because who is enslaved by their student loan debt, and are on the wrong side of supply and demand and there is no law that says employers need to give their employees the ability to pause and eat. So they snack on junk food in their pockets while they work.

I think it's worth keeping in mind that this is not a reflection of low prices in TX but of insane prices in CA. Tons of states have costs on the order of TX.

Maybe so, but they aren't TX, so you got to discount them for that. ;-)

Or give them a raise in value. TX is a double edged sword as a brand.

Austin house prices are up about 12% year over year