Will COL (Cost of Living) in the Sunbelt cities dramatically rise in the next decade or two?

[Spade]

Originally Posted by tenken627

Why do you think Houston will stay relatively cheap while Austin, Dallas, and Atlanta become expensive?

Yeah I'd like to know this as well. While the inner loop of Houston is dirt cheap compared to the coasts, it's not as cheap as people make it out to be and I think it's only going to get more expensive.

[BPerone201]

The reason why the COL in sunbelt cities tend to be low is because they're growing. Vacant homes, and heaps of new construction has sunbelt msa's in need of buyers to support the growing job market as ASAP (so they keep it cheap). Once the msa's of sunbelt cities start to become stable, the COL will rise since and people will start to pay more for the more limited housing stock. This does though, depend on the levels of education and crime rates as well.

[Lovely95]

Originally Posted by tenken627

Why do you think Houston will stay relatively cheap while Austin, Dallas, and Atlanta become expensive?

These cities are going to be building up more. I see them taking more drastic measures to increase urbanity. Austin is going to be mighty expensive in my opinion, if things go their way. The only part of Houston that might start to break normal incomes banks are the downtown area and uptown since I see those getting more built up over the years, the latter the most. In all, I think the city will have more cheap areas than the other three so Houston will look more affordable compared to them. That doesn't mean Houston won't build up, but it will just be more affordable all around.