Revealed: Top 10 places Americans are fleeing from

New data about migration trends in the US has revealed some surprising shifts — particularly in the once-hot Lone Star State. When the pandemic hit in 2020, Americans flocked to states with more room, warmer weather, and lower tax rates. Major cities in states like Florida, Texas, and Tennessee consequently saw major housing booms. During this period, rapid surges in homebuying paired with ultra-low interest rates sparked a sudden jump in demand that outpaced limited housing supply. Resident dashed out of coastal states like California and New York in search of affordability amid economic uncertainty and remote work opportunities during COVID-19 lockdowns. Now, it seems, the trend may be over. A new Realtor.com analysis of metro areas seeing the most departures from September 2024 through August 2025 has revealed which cities homeowners are fleeing in droves.

Kansas City, San Antonio, and Indianapolis tied for having the highest turnover rate, with home 45 sales per 1,000 units, the report found. 'This year I've had the most clients that I help on the sell side actually moving out of town,' Majid Ghavami, a real estate agent in the Kansas City area, told Realtor.com. 'A lot of it has been retirees moving to warmer climates. Maybe it's those baby boomers hitting that age where they're retiring, and so they're just relocating to different parts of the country to spend their retirement years.' In the Indianapolis metro area, about 65 percent of locally based listing-viewers were browsing homes outside city, up from 47 percent in 2019, Axios reported . But the most surprising trend that has emerged is the amount of Texans who are giving up on the Lone Star State. Four of the top 10 metro areas with the most offloaded homes in Realtor.com's report are located in Texas.

San Antonio (pictured), Dallas, Austin, and Houston all saw some of the highest turnover rates across the country, the data shows. Real estate analysts say that this shift is occurring because major Texas metros developed too much housing during the pandemic to meet the demands of incoming residents. 'Metros like San Antonio, Dallas, and Austin have seen significant building activity over the past five years, which has helped temper home price growth and expand options for buyers, ultimately encouraging more frequent home sales,' explained Hannah Jones, senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com. Nowadays, however, Texas no longer has the same pull.

A report las year on migration patterns from moving company Atlas found that Texas had downgraded from an inbound migration state to neutral for the first time in five years. The same report this year found that little had changed from 2024. 'Some of the reasons for Texas decreasing could be increased living costs and potentially higher temperatures,' Atlas vice president of business Lauren Piekos told the Dallas Morning News last year. 'For example, housing affordability, we think, is one of the biggest drivers for Texas growth in recent years, and essentially it's slipping away,' she added. Pictured: Austin, Texas.

Shockingly, all six of the California metros included in the Realtor.com study saw turnover rates lower than the national average (29.7), suggesting that people are not leaving the state as much as is widely believed . Even the public figures that led the charge from California to Texas back in the early 2020s are packing up and leaving. Podcasting titan Joe Rogan (pictured) helped kick off the trend when he left Los Angeles for Austin in 2020. Many followed, but some came to regret the decision . Comedian Tim Dillon moved to Austin in August 2020, but left by the end of the year after discovering the city didn't have enough good restaurants. 'It's a horrible city without a soul,' he told fellow comedian Whitney Cummings.

Comedian and MMA fighter Brendan Schaub (pictured), another one of Rogan's cronies, ended up regretting moving from Los Angeles to Austin. The 42–year–old relocated his family to the Texas capital earlier this year, but confessed on his podcast that he was 'heartbroken' over the decision and missed LA. Comedian Shane Gillis, who moved to Austin in 2023 because Texas has no state income tax, put it bluntly to fellow comedian Andrew Schulz: 'Texas [Expletive] blows,' he said. 

Not only are Rogan's friends regretting their move to Austin, other celebrities and influencers who migrated are also having second thoughts. Transgender conservative influencer Blaire White announced that she was leaving Austin after four years to return to Los Angeles. Male model Lucky Blue Smith and his influencer wife Nara (pictured together), who is famous for her trad wife content , left Los Angeles in 2022 to move to Dallas, but two years later announced they were relocating to Connecticut to be closer to New York. 

Outside of Texas, other metros that have seen an exodus as measured by turnover rates include Las Vegas, Nashville, Charlotte, and St. Louis, according to Realtor.com. 'Markets with higher turnover tend to function more fluidly than markets with lower turnover, with a healthier balance of active buyers and sellers,' Realtor.com's Jones said. 'The markets with the highest turnover are typically more affordable and supported by robust for-sale inventory, particularly from new construction.' 'A lot of it has been retirees moving to warmer climates. Maybe it's those baby boomers hitting that age where they're retiring, and so they're just relocating to different parts of the country to spend their retirement years.' Pictured: Downtown Dallas, Texas.