Founder of Conservative Move says there is pent-up demand to move to red states
As high interest rates and low housing inventories slow home sales, the blue-state exodus from places like California and New York to Republican-run states like Texas and Florida have been affected too. Will the trend of people picking up and moving to states that match their politics continue?
Of the top five states that saw the largest percentage population growth from 2020 and 2022, according to census data — Idaho, Montana, Florida, Utah and South Carolina — all have Republican-controlled government trifectas, where the party holds the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature.
The concept of moving to a state for politics was once a novelty, said Paul Chabot, the founder of Conservative Move, which helps people sell their homes and move to conservative communities, but that’s changed.
“Now everybody understands, everybody knows about this,” he said. “It’s no longer a novelty.”
He said interest rates are definitely causing a pause nationwide but predicted what might happen if they drop to where they were last year.
“If interest rates drop or get to the level of where they were a year ago, I think we will see the biggest migration in this country in a generation,” he said. “There are so many people who want to move out of these blue states.”
Chabot said clients in the East are often looking to move to Florida, while those in the West often head to Texas, Idaho and Tennessee. For movers not looking to leave a red state, his company’s new initiative looks to match up buyers and sellers with Republican real estate agents, to give them peace of mind that their money won’t go to Democratic politicians or causes.
While Republicans point to the trend of growing populations in red states as proof Americans prefer conservative state government, it’s also made some states popular with Republicans less affordable.
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A Florida Atlantic University review found half of the top 10 most overpriced housing markets in the U.S. are in Florida, led by No. 2 Cape Coral and No. 5 Lakeland, while Tennessee, also popular with Republican movers, lands two cities of its own on the list, No. 4 Memphis and No. 10 Nashville (No. 1 on the list was Atlanta, the capital of swing state Georgia where Republicans lead a government trifecta but two Democrats have been elected to U.S. Senate).
Redfin, a real estate brokerage, predicted in 2021 that migration for political reasons would accelerate because of U.S. Supreme Court rulings on abortion and gun rights.
“Now that workers have more control over where they live, more people will seek out areas where there are like-minded people with laws that fit their political beliefs,” the company wrote.
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Politics didn’t factor directly into Redfin’s 2023 predictions, which focused instead on slowing sales and declining mortgage rates, but the company did say that those moving for affordability would find states like Florida, Texas and Tennessee with no state income tax attractive.
The predictions did hold good news for some blue state homeowners. While Redfin predicts a drop in home prices this year, many of the metro areas predicted to best hold up in 2023 are in Democratic states, like Illinois, Connecticut and New York.
