August 4, 2025
There’s a quiet force reshaping the U.S. economy right now—and it’s not coming from Wall Street or Silicon Valley. It’s happening on factory floors in Texas, South Carolina, and Michigan.
Manufacturing is coming home.
We’re seeing a real surge in reshoring—a term that used to sound like policy vaporware is now showing up in job announcements and land use plans across the Sun Belt. And if you’re in real estate, especially in housing development, you need to be paying attention.
What’s Driving the Shift?
A new report from the Reshoring Initiative shows that Texas leads the nation in manufacturing job announcements for both 2024 and 2025. The push is fueled by multiple forces:
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A recommitment to “Made in the USA” policies under Trump 2.0
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Escalating tariffs (up 455% year-over-year)
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Supply chain risk after years of geopolitical instability
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A growing recognition that chasing low FOB prices overseas isn’t worth the hidden costs
We’re talking real numbers here. In 2024, nearly 245,000 jobs were announced from reshoring or foreign direct investment (FDI). Of those, a record 157,000 came from reshoring alone—outpacing FDI for the first time in modern history.
That’s a long way from 2010, when just 10,000 jobs were reshored.
Who’s Leading the Charge?
The big names are putting up big numbers:
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Walmart: 300,000 jobs in 2025
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Apple: 20,000
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CMA CGM: 10,000
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GE Aerospace: 5,000
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Tesla: $5.5 billion in U.S. investments
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Samsung: A staggering $65 billion
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Stellantis, GE Vernova, Siemens and others are contributing as well
These aren’t one-off pilot programs. They’re high-dollar, long-horizon investments—and they’re planting themselves in the very regions already seeing the most population and economic growth.
Why This Matters for Housing
Here’s where it gets real for developers like us.
More jobs = more people = more demand for housing.
Texas, which has seen both a housing cooldown and a surge in inventory, is well-positioned to absorb this growth. But other states like South Carolina and Michigan could see pressure build fast.
According to Realtor.com’s Joel Berner, builders in Texas and the Carolinas may not have to dramatically increase pace—but steady price growth is expected. That’s code for “tight market, rising values.”
But affordability is the wildcard. These reshored jobs tend to fall into two categories:
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High-skill, high-wage (think aerospace and chip manufacturing): supports ownership even in a higher-rate environment.
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Low-skill, lower-wage (assembly, logistics): supports rental demand, especially in states like Mississippi or New Mexico.
And don’t underestimate the impact on secondary markets. One new facility with 2,000–5,000 jobs can shift pricing in an entire MSA—especially when inventory is already tight. That means we’ll likely see upward pressure on both rents and for-sale prices in these pockets.
What I’m Watching (and You Should Be Too)
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Zoning and entitlements in suburban and exurban areas near major reshoring hubs
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Workforce housing opportunities near new manufacturing sites
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BTR and multifamily in regions seeing wage-divergent job growth
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Municipal incentives for housing development aligned with industrial policy
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The next wave of infrastructure investment following reshoring job anchors
Final Thought
This reshoring wave isn’t a trend. It’s a structural shift. And if we play it right as developers and investors, it could open up a decade of opportunity in markets most people wrote off a few years ago.
The smart money isn’t just following population growth—it’s following payrolls. And right now, those payrolls are headed straight for the factory floor in the American South.
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