Bank of America Institute finds Americans continue to move to sun belt cities for housing

The Bank of America Institute has found domestic migration within the U.S. is following pandemic trends of increasing movement to sun belt cities such as Tampa and Orlando, Florida and Austin, Texas. In particular, Austin saw the largest increase with more than 5% growth during 2020 to 2021, according to a press release.

Orlando and Tampa saw a net increase of 0.8% and Phoenix and Las Vegas saw 0.3% and 0.2% year-over-year respectively. However, cities such as New York, San Francisco and San Jose, California saw the largest outflow of people during the pandemic, which continues to this day.

In Austin, home prices are slowing, but median rent prices increased by 11%. Orlando and Tampa saw rent increases of 14%.

"Domestic migration continues to be a key theme shaping the housing market," Anna Zhou, economist for Bank of America Institute, said in the release. "While rising interest rates are dampening home-buying demand in the near term, the housing market in cities where Millennial and Baby Boomers are moving could see strength in the longer term as the former enter prime home-buying age and the latter downsize their houses."