How Mass Immigration Drove Up Housing Costs

Between 1990 and 2025, the United States added about 32 million foreign-born residents.^[4] The foreign-born share of the population doubled, from 7.9% to 15.8%. Counting their U.S.-born children, the immigrant stock now exceeds 93 million, about 28% of the country.^[5]

Those new residents push on rent and home prices alike. In San Jose, a median home costs more than nine times the median household income, among the highest ratios in the country.^[10] Nearly 40% of the metro's 2 million residents were born abroad, roughly 780,000 people competing for the same homes and apartments. The pattern repeats across the country. The metros that took in the most immigrants after 1990 are the ones where a home moved out of reach. The metros that took in the fewest stayed affordable.

The crisis is localized

Most of America has never had a housing crisis. The shortage that fills national headlines sits in a short list of large metros, where huge population increases have occurred.

About 64% of the foreign-born live in just 20 metropolitan areas.^[14] New York holds 13% of all U.S. immigrants, while Los Angeles holds 9% and Miami holds 6%. The arrivals did not land across the map - instead, they landed in a handful of cities, and in those cities, housing demand has outrun supply.

The growth followed the same lines. The 20 metros that drew the most immigrants grew 48% between 1990 and 2025. The 20 that drew the fewest grew 23%. The first group added 38 million residents over those 35 years. The second added 6.7 million.

The slow-growing metros were not small towns. Detroit held 4.2 million people in 1990, Cleveland 2.2 million, St. Louis 2.6 million, Pittsburgh 2.6 million. Each grew at roughly 0.6% a year, and their housing stayed within reach of local wages. That pace was once ordinary. Through the decades of restricted immigration from the 1920s to the 1960s, American cities grew at about that rate as a matter of course, and homes stayed affordable. The immigration magnets are the departure. They grew at about 1.1% a year, and their prices pulled away from local wages.

The line sits at 10 percent

Sort the metros over 1 million by foreign-born share and they split cleanly. Above 10% foreign-born, home prices pull away from local incomes. Below it, the ratio holds near three, whether a metro sits at 9% foreign-born or 3%.

The 37 metros above 10% foreign-born average a home price-to-income ratio of 5.3x.^[10] Below that line it holds near 3.5x, whether a metro sits at 9% foreign-born or 3%: 3.6x at 5 to 10%, 3.1x under 5%.

Pittsburgh, at 4% foreign-born, is the most affordable big market on this measure, at 2.9x income.^[11] Cleveland, at 6%, sits at 2.85x. In Miami, where 42% of residents were born abroad, a family needs about six and a half years of income to buy a median home.

Rent comes first

The ownership crisis gets the headlines. The rental market is where it begins. A renter cannot save for a down payment while rent eats the paycheck.

In 1990 the national median rent was about $600 a month.^[1] By 2024 it reached $1,837, a 206% increase.^[2] Median household income rose 45% over the same span, adjusted for inflation. Rent outran wages for three straight decades.

The immigrant gateways carry the worst of it. In Miami, rent runs past $2,800 a month and a median home costs $550,000. A 20% down payment is $110,000. A household earning the area median of $65,000 would need roughly twelve years to save it, and only if nothing were left over after rent, taxes, and food. Most never buy. Rent climbs, saving stalls, and the renter stays a renter.

Albert Saiz, an economist at MIT, measured the effect directly. An immigrant inflow equal to 1% of a city's population raises rents by about 1%.^[3] Miami and Los Angeles absorbed inflows of that size year after year for three decades. During the 1924-1965 restriction era, renting was a stage of life, something people did in their twenties before buying. In the immigrant gateways today, it is the whole story.

Building more will not catch up

The standard answer is to build. Construction matters, and it cannot keep the pace.

• America adds roughly 1.2 million legal immigrants a year
• Approximately 2-3 million have entered illegally per year recently
• New housing units built annually: about 1.4 million

Supply does not respond evenly across the country. The Sun Belt builds. Texas, Florida, and the Carolinas issue housing permits at far higher rates than coastal California or the Northeast.^[15] In the coastal metros, zoning rules, environmental review, and a shortage of developable land hold construction down.^[16] Those same coastal gateways draw the most immigrants, so the demand lands on price instead of on new units. Where builders can move fast, immigration still outruns them. Phoenix added 3 million residents since 1990 and Dallas-Fort Worth 4.5 million, and prices climbed in both.

The country cannot build enough to house the new arrivals, let alone clear the existing backlog or make room for the children already here. Subsidies, tax credits, and density bonuses do not change the arithmetic. As long as immigration runs at current levels, supply chases a target that moves every year.

What reform looks like

Three measures address the demand side directly.

1. Cut legal immigration by at least 80%, from over a million a year to roughly 200,000. This will give time for the country to recover, as it did after the first round of mass immigration in the late 1890's, 1900's, and 1910's.

2. Zero illegal immigration.

3. Increase construction and finally close the shortage, letting prices settle.

Where the foreign-born share is low, a home costs two to four times the median income. Where it is high, a home costs four to twelve the median income. Until immigration falls, that gap will keep pricing American families out of many of America's metropolitan areas.

Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau: Historical Census of Housing - Gross Rents - Median gross rent data, 1990 Census
2. U.S. Census Bureau: ACS 2023 Median Gross Rent - American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates, 2023
3. Saiz, Albert. "Immigration and housing rents in American cities." Journal of Urban Economics 61.2 (2007): 345-371
4. Center for Immigration Studies: Foreign-Born Population Report - 2025 estimates based on Census CPS data
5. Migration Policy Institute: Frequently Requested Statistics on Immigrants and Immigration in the United States - Immigrants and their U.S.-born children, 2024
6. Harvard JCHS: Home Cost-to-Income Ratio - Analysis of national housing affordability trends
7. U.S. Census Bureau: Foreign-Born Population - Official decennial census and ACS data on foreign-born population (1970-2023)
8. Migration Policy Institute: U.S. Immigrant Population Over Time - Historical immigration trends and analysis
9. DHS Yearbook of Immigration Statistics - Official legal permanent resident (green card) data by year
10. U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2023 - Median home value, median household income, median gross rent, and foreign-born share by metropolitan area
11. Construction Coverage: Cities With Highest Home Cost-to-Income Ratios - 2025 city rankings
12. Brookings Institution: Population Growth in Metro America - Analysis of metropolitan population trends since 1980
13. USDA Economic Research Service: Rural Economy and Population - Nonmetro population data, 1990-2020
14. Migration Policy Institute: U.S. Immigrant Population by Metropolitan Area - Geographic concentration of the foreign-born population
15. U.S. Census Bureau: Building Permits Survey - New residential construction permits by state and metro area
16. Saiz, Albert. "The Geographic Determinants of Housing Supply." Quarterly Journal of Economics 125.3 (2010): 1253-1296 - Land-use regulation and geography as constraints on housing supply