The great wealth 'realignment': Affluent people keep moving from NY and SF to cheaper, warmer places

• Wealthy people are moving to states including Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
• They’ve been wooed by the same things less wealthy movers seek: space, weather, and lower taxes.
• This pattern is driving up home prices in Miami, in particular, even for the highest earners.

Everyone wants to live where their dollars go further — including the wealthiest Americans.

The pandemic ushered in a “realignment” of wealth where even those with the deepest pockets picked up and established themselves in states with bigger homes, warmer weather, and lower or no personal income taxes, Bloomberg noted in a profile of a Florida island that’s home to the world’s wealthiest people.

On the whole, Americans — wealthy and middle class alike — are moving from more expensive, higher-tax states like New York and California to cheaper, lower-tax ones including Florida, Tennessee, and North Carolina, according to Census data and other studies.

It’s possible to track the moves of high earners in particular. A July 2023 study by personal-finance site SmartAsset using tax-filing data from between 2020 and 2021 found that people making at least $200,000 a year are moving to states including Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. They were leaving states like New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York, the study found. In its coverage of Florida’s “Billionaire Bunker,” Indian Creek, Bloomberg highlighted Austin, Dallas, Nashville, and Charlotte as main hubs for affluent relocators.

The moving math is undeniably attractive: Someone making $150,000 in New York City can save nearly $50,000 by relocating to Miami, while someone making $650,000 or more could save up to $200,000 making the same move, SmartAsset found.

Florida, Texas, and North Carolina are popular destinations for more than just the wealthy. Between 2021 and 2022, Florida attracted the most new residents of all 50 states, with 738,969 movers, according to Census data released in October. It was followed by Texas, with 668,338; California, with 475,803; and North Carolina, with 341,582. (At the same time, all four of those states ranked in the top 10 states people are leaving, though not in the same order.)

Major companies are also making transitions to these states in a very public fashion: Legendary hedge fund CEO Ken Griffin announced in June 2022 that he was moving Citadel’s headquarters from Chicago to Miami to, he said, leave behind the Windy City’s violence. Financial markets index provider and data firm Indxx moved its headquarters from New York to Miami citing its favorable corporate and personal tax structure. Investment firm AllianceBernstein moved 1,000 jobs from New York to Nashville in 2021 in an effort to save $80 million annually, Bloomberg reported. Asset management firm Allspring Global Investments moved from San Francisco to Charlotte the following year, noting in a press release North Carolina’s “business-friendly environment.”

Texas similarly has favorable tax policies for individuals and businesses. For similar reasons, companies like Oracle and Tesla have established themselves in Austin, while Goldman Sachs is at work on a new hub in Dallas.

Company leaders, who also happen to be billionaires, are also relocating: Griffin himself plunked down nearly $107 million in 2022 for a waterfront compound in Miami’s Coconut Grove neighborhood, the city’s first home to close with a nine-figure price.

Meanwhile, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos last year shelled out $147 million for two parcels on Miami’s Indian Creek, which is also home to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, as well as businessman Carl Icahn.

Tesla founder Elon Musk claims he’s been living in Texas for some time, having ditched California.

The reshuffling of wealth is making historically cheaper states more expensive

In Miami, in particular, this reshuffling of wealth has ushered in an era of unaffordability.

In January 2020, the median home price in Miami was $343,500, according to Redfin. In November, it was $590,000 — a 72% increase.

“Miami and most of Southeast Florida have rebranded into more luxury markets,” housing expert Jonathan Miller told BI in September. “I don’t see that as a fluke or an anomaly.”

This pricing out is even happening among the highest echelons of wealth.

On Indian Creek, the island that attracted Bezos, Kushner and Trump, and Icahn, the “merely affluent are now being displaced by the fabulously wealthy able to spend $100 million for a mansion,” Bloomberg reported.

Dina Goldentayer, a top Miami real-estate agent who has been involved in three of the island’s five most recent sales, told Bloomberg this state of affairs “is all post-Covid, and it was actually quite different before.” Around seven years ago, she said, “there would be five or six listings at the same time and $20 million was a big sale.”

A quick search on Zillow turned back more than 20 properties across Miami priced over $20 million.