Today, the official census data has been released, and as the population shifts, so do the 435 House of Representatives’ seats, leaving hints of change in local markets. Every 10 years, the U.S. Census Bureau studies the American population to guarantee fair tax apportionment, but today we’d like to focus on a major result of the Census- more accurate demographic information.
Although there are Census estimates in years between the census studies, demographic information (which plays a role in how buyers make decisions) provided on real estate search sites tends to be stale. For example, as you know, sometimes people relocating to a city look at the average age to determine whether or not they’d fit in (most 25 year olds don’t want to live in a retirement area).
What is interesting to us is the change in population, for example, Nevada grew 35% since the year 2000 while Michigan is the only state whose population actually declined. What is saddening (and is fodder for another post for another day) is that when looking at the ethnic makeup of areas, even progressive cities like Austin (where AG is headquartered) have areas lumped together of the same background with varying overlap but not an even spread.
There are two interactive maps that are captivating, my favorite being the NYT project (the first image) that allows you to drill down to your very neighborhood to learn statistics, which should be useful for agents to know how the data has changed.
Click the images below to launch the interactive map and click “View More Maps” to see maps like median house values and their changes, age, income, etc:
Click the image below to view population changes and apportionment by state:
By looking at the interactive maps did you learn anything new? Share with us in the comments below.
