Why Millennials Are Following Boomers to the South

Americans picked up and moved south in droves during the pandemic, presumably motivated by remote work and a desire for cheaper housing and more wide-open spaces. So why, two years after the Covid crisis began, did the number of people moving to the South keep setting records in 2022?

While remote work trends have persisted, recent data released by the US Census Bureau showed that more people were going back to the office in 2022 than in 2021 — yet the great southern migration hasn't slowed. So we need to think bigger.

The pandemic has clouded two other major factors in domestic migration that boil down to an aging population and regional housing prices.

Key metro areas in the US Northeast and West are finally surpassing the stratospheric home-price levels from the mid-2000s. Meanwhile, millennials and baby boomers now find themselves in a different phase of life, with different needs and wants, than in the 2010s when migrating to the South wasn't as popular.