The Counties Where Population and Price Changes Don’t Match

This post looks at the locations with mismatches between their recent population change and recent home price change.

Home price growth and population growth have always been strongly associated. That’s mostly been true this past year - real estate prices in places with high population growth have outperformed places without. But there were some interesting exceptions to that rule this year.

The map highlights locations with the biggest mismatches between population change and price change over the past year (looking only at counties with populations of 250,000 +). And the table below it provides the data behind the map.

The counties in green all had high population growth in the past year, but average to below-average price growth. They are found primarily in the northeast and central parts of the country, with clusters in the larger New York City and Washington DC areas. It is interesting that these places, facing a major population surge, had such tepid price growth.

On the flip side, some of America’s hottest real estate markets happened without local population increases. Florida and California had several counties where price increases were among the highest in the country despite stagnant or even declining population numbers. California’s price resilience in the face of dramatic population decreases is particularly noteworthy, as are the population slowdowns in hot markets like Nashville (Davidson County), Salt Lake City, and my home county of Durham NC.

I wouldn’t go drawing too many conclusions from this list just yet. But population change is a major driver of price growth. It’s worth keeping an eye on whether more counties in hot markets start seeing population slowdowns, or more counties in the Northeast or Midatlantic rebound in population, and whether prices start reflecting these changes.