Real estate experts say that Amazon's search for a second headquarters is just the start of a tech-exodus from places like San Francisco, and they predict that Texas is in the prime spot to benefit, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
"It used to be that in California we owned the future. We felt like everything was happening here first," Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman told CNBC. "And now you see that swagger, that confidence in the center of the country. People in Detroit, people in Texas think they own the future."
He told the network's Power Lunch this week that San Antonio and Houston are primed to be the next hubs."Silicon Valley is going to leave Silicon Valley. That's already happened," Kelman explained.
San Antonio has spent considerable time and money building a tech economy. At the collaborative workspace Geekdom, CEO David Garcia says we're known as a cheap place to do business.
"The average rental rate for office space in San Antonio is about $30 per square foot," he explains. "When you look at San Francisco, it's $80 a square foot."
Redfin, which is an online real estate brokerage and data company, is predicting a shift out of California, as homeowners seek to avoid the higher tax rates of the recently passed Republican tax bill.
Between 2000 and 2013, San Antonio had a 30% gain in millennials, which fuel the tech workforce. That's slightly higher than Austin's 28%.
Jenna Saucedo-Herrera heads the San Antonio Economic Development Foundation."When young college graduates finish up their time at university, they're not following jobs," she explains. "They're relocating to communities of their preference and then finding jobs secondarily."
Garcia says to keep the momentum, the city needs to focus on building that tech workforce.
"When most people think of San Antonio, they think of us as a call center," he says. "Changing that, I think, is our biggest challenge."