Observations on H-1B Visa Changes, Labor Supply, and Housing in Select U.S. Markets

Abstract

The H-1B visa program was established in 1990 to admit highly skilled foreign workers into occupations where employers reported shortages. Controversy followed over whether the program displaced domestic workers, and over whether concentrated arrivals of well-paid visa holders raised local housing demand and prices. Prior work reports that price effects were largest where rapid population growth met an inelastic land supply. Concentration was uneven across metropolitan areas, and the measure commonly used to capture it, approvals per 100 workers, reflects the employer address recorded on the petition rather than the residence of the worker. That distinction matters for interpreting the most concentrated markets. A Presidential Proclamation issued in September 2025 imposed a $100,000 payment on new petitions, including those filed by employers exempt from the numerical cap, a group that includes institutions of higher education, affiliated nonprofit entities, and nonprofit and governmental research organizations. A federal district court vacated the payment requirement in June 2026, and it remains unenforceable while an appeal proceeds. State-level restrictions on H-1B hiring in Texas and Florida followed. This paper assembles descriptive observations rather than causal estimates. In the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area between January and August 2026, active listings rose approximately 30 percent while list price per square foot returned to its January level. The pattern is consistent with a quantity adjustment preceding any price adjustment. The observations reported here rest on secondary sources and on a short window of preliminary data.