Austin’s Growth Cools Off: Why People Are Leaving
Austin has been one of America’s fastest-growing cities for years, but lately you might have noticed a shift.
Between July 2022 and July 2023, about 2,500 more people moved OUT of Travis County (which covers most of Austin) than moved in – the first time in 20 years we’ve seen a net loss like that. In 2024, Austin slipped from the 2nd to the 4th fastest-growing metro in the nation, with domestic migration at its lowest level in 15 years. It’s not cataclysmic — The Austin metro is still growing overall, thanks to births and people moving in, but the explosive growth rate has definitely cooled.
So what’s going on? Why are some Austinites saying goodbye to our city?
I feel especially equipped to answer this as a born-and-raised Austinite who has helped many people leave Austin through my job as a Realtor. I want to share with you some of the reasons people tell me they are leaving.
Spoiler: it’s not just one thing, although it can be boiled down to wanting a lifestyle change.
Brutal Summers Are Taking a Toll 🌡️
It’s no secret that Austin summers are hot, but recent years have been on a whole other level. I was born here in 1983 and can testify that my childhood summers were not like the ones we experience today.
Climate change is making our summers longer and more extreme, and some folks simply aren’t willing to put up with it. The summer of 2023 was the hottest on record in Austin – the city endured 80 days at 100°F or above. At one point, we had over 40 consecutive days where the high was in the triple digits. Think about that: more than a month straight without a break from 100-degree heat! 🥵 (I remember, I was there, and am still traumatized by it.) In fact, all of 10 of Austin’s hottest summers occurred after 1998.
While many of us cope by hunkering down in the A/C, some Austinites have decided enough is enough and compare Texas summers to no better than a Chicago winter in how much your life feels restricted. I’ve personally had clients who decided to move out of state purely because of the heat. One family chose to relocate to North Carolina after enduring one too many 100°+ days, trading our scorching summers for a slightly milder climate. I’ll put it this way: nobody I have helped relocate ever moves to a warm climate.
The Political Climate: Life After Roe v. Wade 🏛️
For many Austinites, it’s not just the temperature climate that matters – it’s the political climate.
Austin might be a liberal oasis, but we’re still in the heart of Texas, and Texas politics have swung hard to the right. The overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 was a pivotal moment for some of my clients. When the Supreme Court struck down Roe, Texas immediately enacted one of the nation’s strictest abortion bans.
Suddenly, reproductive rights in Texas virtually disappeared, and a lot of people I spoke to (especially women and parents of daughters) felt a sense of alarm. It’s not just a feeling – there’s evidence that restrictive laws are influencing migration. A recent analysis of address-change data found that since Roe was overturned, the 13 states (including Texas) with near-total abortion bans collectively lost about 36,000 people per quarter due to net out-migration.
I’ve seen this play out in my own work. I helped a family here in Austin with a young daughter relocate to Colorado shortly after the Roe v. Wade decision was overturned. They told me they loved Austin, but as parents, they felt they had to move to ensure their daughter would grow up with access to reproductive healthcare and in a state whose values aligned with theirs. That was a heartbreaking move for them – they were truly torn – but it shows how deeply personal and political factors can intertwine.
And it’s not just abortion. Texas’ conservative turn in general (from debates over school curriculums, to LGBTQ+ rights, to loosened gun laws) has made some Austinites feel out of sync with the state. Austin voters often find themselves at odds with laws crafted by state leadership. For some, moving to a state that better matches their political and social values brings peace of mind. After all, it’s hard to feel “at home” if you’re constantly worried that state policies don’t align with your fundamental beliefs.
Moving for Affordability 🏡
For many Austinites, especially long-time residents considering retirement, the lure of more affordable living—combined with a break from our congested streets—is becoming a powerful reason to move to mid‑sized cities or suburbs, either in Texas or outside of the state.
Yes, Austin is still the cheaper option when compared to Los Angeles, New York City or Seattle, but it’s the most expensive city in Texas, and more expensive than most major cities in the South, with the exception of South Florida.
The median sales price of home in the city of Austin in July 2025 is $435,000, and is $590,000 in the Greater Austin area, which includes the suburbs. That’s still about 30 percent more than what homes cost before the pandemic.
A study highlighted by the Houston Chronicle shows the migration boom of the Sun Belt—including Austin—is cooling off. While northern cities like Austin were once seen as affordable alternatives to pricey coastal metros, rising costs are narrowing that gap. One report specifically mentions that Austin has newly entered the top move‑out list—not for politics or climate, but due to “declining affordability, being priced out of housing, and a lack of space for new builds.”
Jobs, Jobs, Jobs 👨🏽💻
Not everyone leaving Austin is motivated strictly by cost of living or politics. Plenty of moves are driven by jobs or economics. Employment-related reasons accounted for roughly 16% of moves in 2022.
Austin’s economy is strong, but it certainly has been effected by tech layoffs, as this was one of the fastest-growing segments of our economy in the last 20 years. The thousands of layoffs and job freezes that were enacted in the last three years by companies such as Dell, Meta and Facebook have taken a toll.
Many of these laid-off workers would happily move for a new job. And we’ve seen the rise of remote work enable people to live anywhere. A tech worker who came to Austin for a job might now have the flexibility to move closer to family or try living in another country and still keep their job.
In my opinion, we are simply a more transient city than we used to be because people started moving here for jobs and not because of how much they liked the city or living in Texas. So when the economic or political picture changes, these folks have no strong ties to Austin and leap at opportunities to move.
Needing the grandparents 👶🏼
And then there’s the classic “moving closer to family.” A tale as old as time!
This is a big reason a lot of people in their 30s tell me they are moving. Once they start having kids, they want to be closer to grandparents and family. And it can be a hard sell to convince aging parents to move to Austin. For instance, Texas ranks 34th in the nation on AARP’s scorecard on long-term care. Texas consistently scores somewhere in the middle on Best Places to Retire lists, and when taking into account property taxes and sales taxes, it is far from the cheapest when it comes to taxes.
Nationally, about 26.5% of people who moved in 2022 did so for family-related reasons, making it the second-largest motivator after housing — meaning, people who moved for a bigger house or a change in neighborhoods.
One couple I worked with decided to leave Austin to be closer to their relatives on the East Coast after they had their first baby. They loved the vibe here, but having grandparents around for support won out.
Closing Thoughts: This All Makes Sense
One of the reasons I like helping people leave Austin is because I truly understand why they’re going.
I feel it too — the unrelenting heat, the state politics, the rising costs.
It’s not surprising to me that Austin’s growth has slowed; if anything, I’m surprised it didn’t happen sooner.
For years, part of Austin’s charm was that it offered a creative, laid-back lifestyle at a fraction of the cost of coastal cities. But once that affordability vanished, it became harder to justify the trade-offs.
