Immigration Is A Strength: Illegals Drive Up Housing Costs And Rent According To Fed

Breitbart quotes the following from a report issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas:

     We then turn to the effects of unauthorized immigration on the broader local economy, focusing in particular on the housing market. We start by estimating the effects on house prices, rents, and new housing supply. First, we find that during the boom period an increase in unauthorized immigrant worker flows equal to 1% of a local area’s initial employment increased local house prices by 2.2% and increased local rents by 1.4%. The impact on rents is slightly smaller for single-family units and slightly larger for multi-family units. These magnitudes are similar to those found by Saiz (2007) based on legal immigration over the 1985-1998 period. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that [unauthorized immigrant worker flows] can explain about 30% of the total growth in house prices and 20% of total growth in rents over the boom period for the average local market. [Emphasis added]

This is only looking at the illegal immigration and not the impact of legal immigration and refugees. The article also cites from a HUD report looking at immigration as a whole: 

“This immigration-driven increase in households has contributed to a significant increase in housing demand, thus driving up housing prices,” the HUD probe continues. “In fact, in some markets, immigration has accounted for nearly all of the increase in housing demand in recent years.” 

And this:

Likewise, in 2024, Center for Immigration Studies researcher Steven Camarota revealed a similar statistic to the United States Congress, stating that “a 5-percentage-point increase in the recent immigrant share of a metro area’s population is associated with a 12-percent increase in the average U.S.-born household’s rent, relative to their income.”