Prashant Gopal and Tanaz Meghjani are very upset that the housing market in Dallas is cooling.

South Asian buyers have been really important for the housing market in this area.

Yeah, we know.

From their article in Bloomberg:

Zach Schneider points to a room just off the foyer of a $1 million model home north of Dallas. The 40-year-old builder has staged it with shelves and a dark wooden desk, done up like a typical study. But its tall, north-facing windows hint at the use it was designed for — as a puja room, a traditional Hindu prayer space. Down the hall there's an area that could one day be redolent with turmeric, cumin and cardamom. 'A spice kitchen,' he says, highlighting an optional upgrade that could appeal to a buyer from India.

For almost a decade, South Asians have been the driving force behind this region's building boom, one of the biggest in the US during the pandemic. They once accounted for 70% of sales at Schneider's Tradition Homes. But in the past year they've dropped below 30%, leaving his family-owned company with a backlog of 125 luxury properties to sell.

Builders in Dallas are custom-building homes for all of the Indian workers.

Now that Trump has put up temporary roadblocks, these builders are mad. Sure, millions of other Americans can't get jobs and the Hindus are scattering cow poop in their new homes to pay homage to their many gods, but think of all the cold, hard cash the big-box developers and their Mexican workers were going to make!

But the momentum is quickly reversing. Indian buyers are disappearing from the market as federal and state governments tighten H-1B restrictions and many of the tech companies that employed the new arrivals fire workers in favor of artificial intelligence.

After hundreds of thousands of Indians flooded Texas in a few years, they are leaving and home prices are going down.

Prices in the Collin County suburbs north of Dallas in February dropped almost 9% from a year earlier, compared with a decline of 4% in the metro area as a whole, according to data from brokerage Redfin.

Homes are more affordable? Supply and demand works??

You mean millions of Gen Zs and Millennials who can't afford a home will be able to buy one? Prime Texas farmland won't be gobbled up by endless cookie-cutter homes? Texas won't be erecting more 90-foot statues of monkey gods?

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What will Texas do without all the pollution in the local waterways??

Think of the GDP!

The shift has knocked down home prices, slowed population expansion and risks eroding the tax base needed to fund schools and roads planned during a five-year growth streak. The changes also take a personal toll on immigrants because many have lived in the US for years and have established families and communities. Those on H-1B visas who lose their jobs not only face financial hardship but also risk having to return to their home countries if they can't get sponsored for another position within 60 days.

They have to return home and buy houses there! The worst! 😂

Alex Barron, a housing analyst, asked, "Who is there to replace them?"

Uh, Americans?