For a year or so I have been watching city and county governments enact laws to restrict the ability of illegal immigrants and perhaps legal immigrants to reside in their communities. The premise has been that the immigrants are taxing local government resources and causing a drop in the quality of life for everyone. Whether the root cause is xenophobia, I am not debating. I am interested in the effect of the efforts so far, particularly on housing trends. Government efforts have varied in their approach. Sometimes they have restricted the number of bedrooms or types of rooms inside a residence. Sometimes they have beefed up the ability of their law enforcement agencies to check the immigration status of citizens. And some jurisdictions have tried to mandate English as the official language.
My suspicion is that this would lead to a large decline in the demand for housing in these areas and that there would be a lot of foreclosures. Well, it may actually have occurred and contributed to the housing decline in different areas. An example is in the suburbs of Washington, DC. A recent Washington Post article, Census Figures Show Migration to Outer D.C. Suburbs Nearly Halting, details the changes in the population patterns in the DC metro area.
Inner Suburbs
For example, Arlington County grew by 3 percent from July 2007-July 2008 and by 1.6 percent from July 2006-July 2007. Last census year, there were 1,750 domestic migrants and 2,403 legal immigrants. Note that the number of illegal immigrants could be high but not reported. Housing prices in Arlington County have declined 10% since their peak. A little further out, Fairfax County grew by 1.1 percent from July 2007-July 2008 and by 0.6 percent the previous year. Last year, Fairfax County had a loss of 5,437 domestic migrants, but the large number of immigrants more than made up for it. Housing prices in Fairfax County have declined 23% since their peak. To my knowledge, neither Arlington nor Fairfax have enacted any legislation which would harm the legal or illegal immigrant populations.
Outer Suburbs
The population of Prince William County increased by 1.4 percent compared to 2.2 percent the previous year. Housing prices in Prince William County have declined a whopping 41% since their peak. The Washington Post article mentions a decline in domestic migrants and an increase in immigrants although it doesn’t give the specific numbers. Prince William has stood out as one of the most anti-immigrant counties in the DC area.
Conclusions
I’d like to see more details of the changes in population of legal and illegal immigrants to Prince William County. Then it would be interesting to see numbers for foreclosures based on migrant status. My hypothesis is that the housing collapse in Prince William is partly self-induced by the county’s efforts to restrict immigration. Ryan Avent brings another perspective and cogently analyzes the numbers based on wealth in Housing in Washington. But some have concluded that the exodus is due to a preference for urban localities such as Sommer Mathis in No One Wants Outer D.C. Suburbs Anymore. I am not convinced that this is the case.
Anybody else not convinced?
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