All those out-of-state car license plates you are seeing have something in common.
One out of every 10 Texas transplants is coming from California, according to a study by the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University.
“The movement of Californians to Texas is not new,” research economist Luis Torres said in the just-released report. “In 19 of the last 20 years, California ranked as the top move-to-Texas state.
“The only exception was Louisiana in 2005 as a result of Hurricane Katrina,” he said. “The share of Californians relocating to Texas has increased every year since 2011.”
The Real Estate Research Center specifically looked at moves to Texas last year during the pandemic for the new report.
After California’s 10% share of transplants, Florida was the second-largest source of new Texans with a 7.2% share.
Along with moves from Southern California, Texas also attracted a stream of residents from the Phoenix area and Chicago.
“Contrary to popular belief, the majority of people moving from California are coming from the southern part of the state and not from Silicon Valley, which is farther north,” Torres said. “This is not surprising since Los Angeles County is the most populated in California.
“Four other Southern Californian counties — San Diego, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino — made up the top 10 counties with residents moving to Texas.”
Most of the out-of-state migrants last year were headed to Harris County, which includes the Houston area (10.4%); Tarrant County (7.6%); and San Antonio’s Bexar County (7.2%). Dallas County attracted 6.8% of the out-of-state moves and Collin County drew 6.5%.
“Californians preferred Travis County, with 10.5% moving there,” Torres said.
