Population Growth Forecast Charts (U.S.)
Dec 4th, 2007 by stewart
Growth, in my humble opinion, is what it really all boils down to — both in life as well as real estate. In life, if you’re always growing (and I don’t mean waistlines) chances are you’ll feel satisfied, accomplished and happy. Similarly, in real estate, you want to be where there’s a demand for housing and that means investing in locations where the population is growing.
To help put you one step ahead of the market, I’m including a couple diagrams which shows state population growth forecasts. The first diagram is a color-coded U.S. Map of the projected average annual population growth. Red is the fastest growing, bright green is the slowest. Apologies for the small print of the key; a link to a more legible pdf file is included below. The top 3 fastest growing states appear to be Arizona, Nevada and Florida. In general, the mid-states and the north-east are growing the slowest; not surprisingly, people are heading towards warmer and/or coastal climates.
Diagram 1: 2007-2012 US Annual Population Growth by State
Source: CCIM, STDBOnline.com
The second diagram I pulled together from U.S. Census data. This chart shows the Top 20 most populated states in 2000 as well as the projections for 2030.
Diagram 2: U.S. 2000 Census and 2030 State Population Projections
Source: US Census Bureau
I thought it was particularly interesting that more than 55% of the entire forecasted population growth during this 30 year timeframe will occur in just 3 states, namely California, Texas and Florida. Just a personal choice of mine, but I prefer to invest in areas where growth is coming.
Note: For those considering Texas as a place to invest, it’s the second largest state in terms of both population and area. It has an estimated 23.5 Million people as of 2007, and at an annual growth rate of 2.0% per year, that’s 470,000 new residents to absorb each year! Demand is good for the real estate investor.
Click here for the PDF version of State Population Growth Map 2007-2012.
Click here for the complete xls version of the U.S. 2000-2030 Population Growth Forecast.
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[…] came across a great blog post today by Stewart Hsu, talking about the latest Population Growth Projections for the US. This first […]
Great collection of data! This just reiterates what a great time it is to invest in hot states like Arizona! Thanks for gathering the info!
Stewart,
Thanks for the stats. I’m an agent in San Diego and I’m amazed at how hesitant people are to invest here. We have one of the most underdeveloped, developing Downtowns in the US and people are scared to buy. Now I’m not talking about some of these sub-par developments, rather the mid to high end buildings.
FYI, Downtown San Diego has about 32K residents now and we’re supposed to be closer to 90K in 2030. How’s that for growth?
Denny Oh
Just a heads up - the percent changes in your last column are incorrect. The projected change in US population by 2030 is 29% not 129%. If the US population grew 129% by 2030 it would more than double. The data on the U.S. Census website shows it correctly.
Thanks NB. Corrected and reposted the chart as of 7/6/08.