A one-time Southern boomtown’s housing market has flipped, with more people leaving the metro area than moving in for the first time since records began – a stark warning sign for the broader US market.

Over the past year, since June 2024, about 1,330 more people left Atlanta, Georgia, than arrived, the latest Census Bureau data shows. This ends decades of steady growth driven by newcomers from other US cities, especially from the North.

The news comes amid grim warnings about the state of the housing market across the US, especially in Florida. 

Atlanta, home to corporate giants Delta, Coca-Cola and Home Depot – and the birthplace of Dr Martin Luther King Jr – is showing signs of strain. 

A 623‑unit apartment complex in the upscale Buckhead area even went into foreclosure last year. 

Exorbitant housing costs and traffic problems are pushing people to choose smaller, cheaper cities in the US, like Chattanooga, Tennessee, instead.

‘Like other markets across the United States, Atlanta’s inventory is rising due to people moving,’ Bonneau Ansley, who owns Atlanta-based Ansley Real Estate, told the Daily Mail.

‘Atlanta does not have any geographical constraints so when people are moving out of Atlanta, the metropolitan area, they might be moving to Milton or downtown Norcross or Woodstock, Georgia. Atlanta is growing outward into some other submarkets.’

Ansley added that for people wanting more affordability, there are ‘a segment of folks that are moving out of Atlanta core.’ 

He added that the city’s housing inventory hadn’t kept up with population growth for a long time.

‘We haven’t had enough houses to sell over since Covid started,’ Ansley said. 

Between 2020 and 2023, new housing builds for single-family homes was just 0.6 percent of the market. 

Redfin lists the median home price in Atlanta is currently $430,000 – that’s about five times the average for the area.

According to the US Census Bureau, 74 percent of homes in Atlanta are single-family homes.

That puts a cap on the total number of people who can live in the city, which has so much potential. 

It’s home to Coca-Cola’s headquarters along with a museum showcasing the soda’s history – and that’s just one of many businesses with their core in the southern city.

Over the last 20 years, Atlanta has created its own booming movie and television industry away from Hollywood. 

The city gives production tax breaks for working in the state. It is where Netflix filmed Stranger Things, AMC filmed The Walking Dead and Marvel filmed Ant-Man starring Paul Rudd. 

Marvel especially loved the tax credit. The studio has spent more than $2 billion in Georgia on two Avengers movies, two Black Panther movies and two Guardians of the Galaxy movies. 

Tyler Perry also runs his Tyler Perry Studios out of Atlanta. 

There is also has a rich musical history, from Southern gospel to hip-hop. 

Outkast, Usher, Future, Lil Baby and Ludacris all call the city home. 

Atlanta also has deep ties to the Civil Rights movement. The iconic eternal flame at the King Center burns near the resting place of Dr Martin Luther King Jr and Coretta Scott King.

Sports are big in Atlanta, too, with the Braves (MLB), Falcons (NFL) and Hawks (NBA) all playing for the city they love. 

With all the business booming in the area, it’s curious why residents would flee. 

Multi-family homes would help to reduce the housing shortage in metro Atlanta, but developers are facing strict zoning laws. 

Politicians have to set aside land specifically for multi-family housing, but many areas are zoned exclusively for single-family homes and don’t allow for large apartment complexes.

Ansley did say the lack of housing made the city a seller’s market for ‘over five years’, but now that there’s so much inventory, buyers could be in luck.

‘Inventory increasing this year, it has helped the buyers have more options and be more picky in their process,’ he said. ‘But factoring in more inventory, there’s still a higher interest rate.’

Ansley also said that due to the high inventory of homes, sellers also need to lower prices. Since 1950, Atlanta’s population increased 10-fold to 6.3 million, reports the US Census, making it the eighth-largest city in the US.

The city gained around 33,000 newcomers per year in the five years before Covid-19 hit in 2020.

People were moving for work and affordable housing. Now, the job market is weaker and there are higher-than-average office vacancies in the city.

Atlanta was growing as a region overall in part due to a wave of international immigration before Donald Trump took office again. Now, it’s no longer a haven for immigrants. 

The city is also being filled with huge data centers instead of new housing. The centers store and process data for everything people stream, scroll and swipe online. 

Data center construction is growing faster in Atlanta than any other major city. 

According to real-estate firm CBRE, construction for the centers was up 76 percent in the city during the first half of 2024 compared with the same period a year prior.

Meta, Google, Microsoft and X all operate Atlanta area data centers, and are planning on building more. 

It remains to be seen if Atlanta’s slowdown continues, but according to census data, many smaller Southern cities like Huntsville (Alabama), Wilmington (North Carolina), and Knoxville and Chattanooga (Tennessee) are getting the spillover. 

People are looking for cheaper housing there and the popularity of remote work is still allowing many people to live wherever they want.