Noting that immigrants tend to live in rented housing and concentrate in certain metropolitan areas with strong immigrant and ethnic networks, the author compiled data on rents, housing prices, immigration, income, and employment for several metropolitan areas ranging from 1983-1997 and the 1970-2000 Censuses.
The study found a causal relationship between immigration and rents.
“An immigration inflow that amounts to 1 percent of the initial metropolitan area population is associated with, roughly, a 1 percent increase in rents and housing values”
Also, a 1% increase in the immigrant population lowers wages by 0.03%.
Not sure why you think that increased demand wouldn’t lead to higher rents. In any case, here is a later study by Mussa that found much the same numbers…
An increase in the number of immigrants equal to 1 percent of an MSA’s total population was linked with a 0.8 percent increase in rents and a 0.8 percent increase in home prices.
This same increase in immigrants was associated with a 1.6 percent rise in rents and a 9.6 percent rise in home prices in surrounding MSAs.
As immigrants move into an MSA, natives tend to move to surrounding MSAs, indicating that the spillover effects may be driven by native-population movements.
And while we’re at it, here is a study by Cochrane and Poot that looked at eight countries.
Evidence from eight countries, and from meta-analysis shows that immigration leads to higher house prices and rents, and lower housing affordability. On average, a 1% increase in immigration in a city increases rents by 0.5–1%, the effect on prices being about double that.
Just curious. Did it also find a causal relationship between immigration and lower food prices?
I ask because I’m pretty sure tomatoes picked by “native Americans” are going to be more expensive than those picked by immigrants. Also fresh fruits, nuts, berries and other products which have not been well adapted to mechanization.
Also other food related fields like chicken and turkey processing, beef and other meatpacking industries, dairy work like harvesting and milking, and lots of other fields where “native Americans” are unwilling to do the work at the wages offered.
Not in the research presented in this thread on housing costs.
On a related note, Zillow is predicting that rent affordability is expected to improve in 2026, with multifamily rents forecast to remain flat — up just 0.3%.