Here’s where all those new Austinites are coming from: Updated

It’s not exactly breaking news that a lot of people are moving to Austin. It’s not even surprising that people are moving to Austin at a higher rate than they’re moving to any other large metro area in the country, with the rents and new apartment construction rising to meet them.

Austin tends to fall around fifth in national rankings of such things as rising rent and population numbers—likely because U.S. migration (people moving within the country, as opposed to immigration, people moving from one country to another) is flowing in a southwesterly direction in general, and growth is distributed among a few already large cities in the region.

Let’s look at the data

According to a “Austin Migration Insights,” a report published Wednesday by the Austin Chamber of Commerce, the Austin metro area gains about 30,800 people per year from domestic migration, 7,300 from international migration, and 16,500 from natural increase. The report covers the 2010-2018 period.

Using U.S. Census numbers the report also notes that the city ranks first among the top 50 largest metros for new residents as a percent of total population. Despite the California cliches, the majority of new migrants to the Austin metro is from other parts of Texas, according to the report, which reaffirms several years of data that rebuts the California Thesis.

Within Texas, the areas that contribute most significantly to the Austin metro area’s annual growth are Houston, Dallas, and San Antonio. New York and Los Angeles, however, take fourth and fifth place, respectively, in that respect—meaning Austin still receives a substantial number of new residents from out of state.

The Austin metro area added 310,931 new residents—an average of an average of 55,100 per year—during the 2010-18 time frame, putting it ninth on the list of fastest-growing U.S. metros for total number of new residents during that period, With a 26.3 percent increase in population, the city ranks first among the top 50 largest metros in terms of having the greatest share of its total population as new residents.

Austin Chamber of Commerce

Let’s look at more numbers

A late 2019 report from Commercial Cafe, which is part of real estate analytics company Yardi Matrix, yields similar results. It puts Austin in fifth place on its list of major metro areas drawing a large number new residents from other big cities in the country. Using U.S. Census estimates for 2013-2017, the study concludes that Austin a net average of 26,733 residents per year from other U.S. metro areas during that period.

Phoenix, Arizona; Inland Empire, California; Houston, and Dallas occupy the first four spots on the list.

The rate of that influx from other cities, however, was the highest of any city in the study, which finds Austin’s population growing 1.3% per from internal (U.S.) migration alone. Despite what a California-bashers might want you to think, Austin gets its largest number of new residents from other Texas cities—Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and San Antonio, to be specific. Naturally, some people move in the opposite direction, but tops net migration among three other major metros in Texas.

The study attributes much of the Austin’s growth to its “status as a new tech city” citing companies such as Dell, Apple, Ebay, Amazon, Google, and IBM being likely draws and noting that the number of people working in computer, engineering, and science jobs grew by as much as 7.6 percent year over year, with yearly growth rate of the total number of workers in Austin at 3.8 percent.

Other notes from Commercial Cafe include that the Austin had the largest percentage growth of office space in its top 10 list, adding 11% to its square footage between 2013 and 2017.