(The Center Square) – Most new Washingtonians came from California, Oregon and Texas. That’s according to new data from the U.S. Census Bureau on state-to-state migration in the U.S. in 2022. Overall, more than 248,000 people were estimated to have moved from other states to Washington state last year.
Almost 50,000 came from California, just over 36,000 came from neighboring Oregon, and more than 19,000 came from Texas, per the data.
The remaining top 10 states supplying migrating residents to Washington last year:
Idaho (10,557)Colorado (9,396)Florida (8,368)Virginia (7,406)Hawaii (7,392)North Carolina (5,849)Massachusetts (5,773)
It turns out, however, that most new Washington residents – nearly 58,000 – came from outside the country last year. There was no breakdown of migration from specific countries in the data.
According to the last count from the state Office of Financial Management in June, Washington is closing in on 8 million total residents. OFM reports that Washington grew by an estimated 86,750 residents over the past year, below the last decade’s annual average of 98,200 new residents each year.
Part of the reason for that is “housing growth,” according to OFM, which it calls “a significant reason Washington saw population growth this year, evident in high occupancy rates in most cities in 2023. Over the past year, the state added 46,300 housing units, 300 less than the previous year.”
A recent new study by Cedar Park, Texas-based real estate marketing company Hyperwired examined which states people want to relocate to by analyzing Google search data.
The study looked at search terms such as “move to,” “relocate to” and “homes in,” followed by the name of each state, and then looked at the combined searches for each state name to find which were the most popular relocation destinations.
Notably, the study contained information on home prices in determining the top three states that Washingtonians’ are considering relocating to: They are Texas, where the average house price is $302,281, which is 47.3% lower than in Washington, where the average price is $574,114; Idaho, where the average house price is $444,557, which is $129,557 less expensive than Washington; and Montana, where the average house price is $454,414, which is a 20.8% decrease compared to Washington’s average house price.
