Inside the Quiet Reversal of the Pandemic-Era Migration Boom
In recent years, Americans have been quietly rewriting the country's internal migration map. It’s not a flashy topic of conversation, but the subtle shifts hidden in the data are beginning to reshape the housing market, urban dynamics, and how families think about home.
According to The State of the Nation’s Housing 2025, a new report from Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, only 8.3% of U.S. households—around 10.9 million—reported moving in the past year. That figure is flat compared to 2023 and a sharp drop from the 9.8% (12.6 million) recorded in 2019, before the pandemic began. Even more striking, only 3.1% of homeowners moved in 2024—the lowest share since records began in the 1970s.
What happened to the great migration wave of the pandemic years? Back then, remote work gave millions the chance to flee high-cost metros like New York and San Francisco for more affordable havens in Florida, Texas, and other Sun Belt states. But that wave is receding—and fast.
Take Florida, for example. The state saw wild swings in migration over the last six years. Its net in-migration rate rose from 6.5% in 2019 to 8.1% in 2020, peaking at a whopping 14.2% in 2022. But in 2023, the rate plummeted to 8.2%, and by 2024, it hit just 2.8%.
Rising housing prices, soaring insurance premiums, and a higher cost of living have made the once-popular Sunshine State less appealing. Texas followed a similar trajectory: a migration peak of 7.4% in 2022, dropping sharply to 2.8% in 2024.
Rachel, a 35-year-old software engineer from Maryland, shared how she and her husband considered moving to Austin during the pandemic. “It felt like a dream—remote work, lower costs, more space,” she said. But after digging into the realities—surging home prices and less-than-ideal schools and infrastructure—they opted to stay put and renovate their D.C.-area basement into a home office.
That story is playing out across the country. South Carolina still posted strong gains with a 12.5% net migration rate in 2024 (down from 15% in 2023), and Alabama welcomed over 26,000 new arrivals. In the West, Idaho saw its rate climb to 8.3% in 2024, and Nevada doubled its rate from 2.6% to 5.2%.
But the momentum is slowing. Tennessee’s net migration gain dropped 20% in 2024, and North Carolina saw a 17% decrease—proof that even the most popular pandemic destinations are cooling off.
Interestingly, states that were hemorrhaging people during COVID are now seeing the outflow slow. California’s exodus dropped by 30%, from 344,000 in 2023 to fewer than 240,000 in 2024. New York saw similar relief, losing 121,000 people in 2024 compared to 177,000 the year before—and 60% less than in 2022.
Urban out-migration is also calming down. Cities like New York saw net population loss fall for the third year in a row, down 17% in 2024. Suburban counties also saw net migration drop 16%, while gains in smaller metros and rural counties fell by 12% and 31%, respectively.
Still, movement into rural and smaller towns remains above pre-pandemic levels, boosted by flexible work setups and retirees seeking slower-paced living. George, 44, left San Francisco for Nashville in 2021 but now admits he misses the Bay Area’s energy. “Yes, the house here was cheaper, but I miss the culture, the community, the beach weekends,” he says. “Now my company’s calling people back into the office, and Nashville just doesn’t feel like home.”
So why are fewer Americans moving?
Jake Krimmel, a senior economist at Realtor.com, notes that domestic migration in the U.S. has been declining since the 1980s. The pandemic, he says, was a brief anomaly.
“Over time, housing has grown more expensive in the highest-paying job markets, and long-distance job switching has become less common,” Krimmel explains. Economists call it a “decline in labor market fluidity”—in short, people are less likely to move for work if similar jobs exist closer to home.
Back in 2020 and 2021, a perfect storm of low interest rates, booming job opportunities, and remote work unlocked a short-lived migration boom. But as interest rates and home prices rose, and companies brought workers back to the office, the tides reversed.
Today, the affordability gap between traditional big cities and rising Sun Belt destinations has narrowed, making it harder for people to justify a major move. Meanwhile, big-city life is bouncing back—arts, culture, and face-to-face meetings are returning in force.
“The push factors are gone,” says Krimmel, “and the pull factors just aren’t as strong anymore. We’re settling back into the long-term trend: slow, steady, and mostly local.”