The numbers don’t lie: Lots of people show interest in moving to Oklahoma

A recent report shows Oklahoma ranks high for states with the most move-in curiosity based on nationwide search interest.

Relocation website moveBuddha.com found the Sooner State ranks 11th for most search interest in 2022 and 15th for highest move-in interest so far in 2023. Tulsa was the most popular city, which isn’t surprising since it offers a $10,000 incentive for remote workers to move there. Almost 1,000 people took up the offer in 2021.

The data shows, for every 100 people who searched about moving out of Oklahoma, 154 searched about moving to Oklahoma. This is a positive change for the state, which saw outward net migration, especially among college graduates, rise significantly from 2016 to 2018. Edmond, Norman and OKC were three of the top seven cities to see a positive in-to-out move ratio.

It’s really no surprise considering the kind of economic growth Oklahoma, specifically Oklahoma City, has seen.

In 2022, the economy experienced year-over-year nonfarm annual job growth of 3.4% or a gain of 22,000 jobs in the Oklahoma City MSA. Add that to the city’s low unemployment rate of 2.7% and you have a recipe for success, and a mightier lure to angle people looking to migrate.

But who’s moving to Oklahoma? The answer might surprise you.

Texas and California have exported a lot of folks to our state since 2020, about 7,300 and 8,500, respectively. A lot of them moved to Oklahoma City, which helped boost us to the 20th-largest city by population, edging out Boston.

That said, there’s a Red River rivalry of a different kind that’s been brewing for years now as Oklahoma and Texas have a history of swapping residents like it’s nobody’s business. In fact, 15% of the searches about moving out of Oklahoma were about moving to Texas.

A lot of Texans, however, have investigated relocating to the greater OKC area, per data gleaned from ABetterLifeOKC.com. This website, operated by the Greater Oklahoma City Chamber, serves as a guide for people looking to move here, shows Dallas (#1), Houston (#5) and Austin (#9) were in the top 10 for site visitors by metro.