A new report on Apartment List’s Rentonomics blog finds that millennials are moving away from the California and Northeast coasts in droves and heading to cities in the central part of country. Oh, and what cities are top their lists for migration? Those would be Charlotte, N.C., Nashville, Tenn., and (wait for it) Austin, Texas.
Among the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the United States, Austin ranked third in millennial population growth from 2005-2015, with an increase of 16.4%, according to the report.
Texas in general saw big leaps in its millennial population, according to the study, for which the site’s data scientist, Andrew Woo, analyzed ten years of U.S. Census data. Woo found that eight out of the top 10 large metro areas for millennial population growth were located away from the coasts, while New York (-5.1 percent), Los Angeles (-15.8 percent), and San Francisco (-0.7 percent) all posted declines.
The cities with the biggest jumps were Charlotte, Houston, and Austin, while those that registered some of the biggest declines in this demographic—adults aged 18 to 35—were in the Midwest and south, specifically Detroit, Miami, and Phoenix. These drops corresponded with income growth, suggesting that wage growth and local job markets play a relocation decisions. Nationwide, millennial population growth is correlated with median income; in Austin specifically, median income increased by 9.7%.
While the study found that millennial home ownership continued to decline all over the country, Austin's fell at 6.5 percent, less than the national average of 7.4 percent.
• Where are millennials moving to? [Apartment List]