Realtor.com Leaves California To Set Up Base In Texas — It's Just One Of Many Companies Leaving The West

Website listings and data company Realtor.com is the latest high-profile Californian-based company to relocate to Texas. In moving from Santa Clara to Austin, alarm bells sounded in Silicon Valley as it lost another high-profile tech business to the Lone Star state.

“With the move, the company has made Austin its top hiring location and has committed to the long-term growth of its team and office footprint in Texas,” Realtor.com announced on Feb. 6, adding that the area’s affordable cost of living, “aspirational lifestyle,” and “expansive tech and academic communities” make it an ideal home base.

Realtor.com is a unit of News Corp (NASDAQ:NWS, NWSA)).

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Affordability And Lifestyle

In conjunction with the move, and in a blow to Californian prestige, Realtor.com said: “Austin and Texas offer a strong and growing talent pool, a powerhouse economy with unparalleled housing growth, affordability of living only matched by its aspirational lifestyle, expansive tech, and academic communities, and a dynamic and vibrant city at the heart of the thriving state of Texas. There is no better place for us to call home.”

It continued: “Over the coming years, we are committed to growing our presence by hiring great local talent and by bringing new recruits to Texas. Basing Realtor.com in Texas puts our company at the heart of innovation and inspiration at a moment of national economic renaissance for America. We are proud to be housed in a state which understands the crucial role played by business in providing opportunities for personal growth, professional success and community achievement. Our investment in Austin is a downpayment on The American Dream.”

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Realtor.com's announcement echoed oil major Chevron's (NYSE:CVX) last year that it would move to Texas from California. The company is now based in Dallas.

“We believe California has a number of policies that raise costs, that hurt consumers, that discourage investment, and ultimately, we think that’s not good for the economy in California and for consumers,” Chevron CEO Mike Wirth told The Wall Street Journal in August.

A Deluge Of Companies Leaving California For Texas

Realtor.com joins a deluge of companies that have traded the Golden State for the Lone Star State. These include Chevron, SpaceX, X, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) , and Charles Schwab (NASDAQ:SCHW).

Recently, Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg moved trust and safety workers to Texas and is reportedly exploring moving the social-media giant’s legal residence to the state. Smaller but high-profile companies, such as TV chef Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant business also made headlines by moving to Texas from California.

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Other large companies, including CBRE Group (NYSE:CBRE), Green Dot (NYSE:GDOT), Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE), Oracle (NYSE:ORCL), and Pabst Brewing Company, have moved to Texas in recent years, according to Concordia University.

Population Surge

Aside from differing politics, many companies cite the cost of living, affordable land, and lack of state income taxes as drivers for the move. Texas’s population increased by 1.6% in the year to July 2022, Newsweek reported, citing Census Bureau data. Over the same period, California decreased by 0.3% and New York by 0.9%.

Bloomberg reported that Realtor.com has around 60,000 square feet in its Austin headquarters, and some workers who used to be based out of Santa Clara have been instructed to work remotely. However, according to commercial real estate brokerage Cushman & Wakefield, Austin’s construction boom has resulted in office vacancies of nearly 30%.

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