In this series of maps and tables, Intel examines which U.S. markets suffered from the double whammy of fewer overseas migrants and fewer immigrants last year.
At the heart of the housing market is the story of where and why people move from place to place. And now the picture is becoming clearer.
New population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau reveal areas that continued to lose people last year and areas where inflows didn’t fully offset the decline. We also see that the market continues to benefit from an influx of new homebuyers.
The data covers the year to July 1, 2025, and highlights a critical time for the real estate industry, where housing inventory and sales continued to be fractured along regional lines, as well as the uneven impact of trade policy and immigration enforcement over the past year.
Explore this data down to the county level using Intel’s interactive map.
inside and outside
Housing market growth in the first half of 2025 was highly uneven.
The successes or struggles of local markets reflected their unique inventory conditions, prevailing home price levels, and industries dependent on international trade.
However, rural markets were also affected in different ways by the flow of people into and out of populated areas. And for the first time, I understood what it was like and how it was changing.
Please see the map below. This shows the counties most affected by U.S. residents who move across county or state lines, the primary candidates to purchase a home when moving or in the near future.
Locations shaded in blue had more internal migration than internal migration during this period. In the areas shaded in red, more people left for other counties than moved in to replace them.
We’re seeing people moving in from places like California, the High Plains, areas south of the Mississippi River, and some metropolitan areas like Miami.
Markets that benefited from domestic inflows through last July tended to be concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, non-coastal western population centers, the metropolitan suburbs of Texas, the Carolinas bordering Georgia and Tennessee, central Florida, New England and parts of the Midwest.
In many of these places, the general population trends are not new.
But what was new, especially in the first half of last year, was that a market once dependent on international immigration experienced a sudden shock to its system.
The map below shows each county’s net international immigration rate for the year ending in mid-2025 compared to the previous year.
Immigration rates declined or stagnated in nearly every county in the country. And in some places, the effects were particularly pronounced.
These immigration trends coincided with increased border enforcement in the final months of the Biden administration and new aggressive detention and deportation policies in the first months of the Trump administration.
To be clear, the map above shows how interest rates have changed from 2024 to 2025, not what net immigration inflows and outflows look like at any given point in time.
Immigration remains a net positive in many markets. This has slowed or offset population decline in many cities, but it may not last for long.
On the other hand, America’s fastest-growing counties generally benefit from an influx of domestic and international immigrants.
To be sure, the housing market is affected by many other factors than population migration, but this is one important part of the picture. Intel will continue to track how these various factors play out at the regional level.
Email Daniel Huston
