Demand stop-loss: Can a court ruling revive H-1B buyer mojo?

Last week, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts struck down the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee for new H-1B visa applications, which many American employers utilize to recruit highly skilled foreign workers. 

Will the ruling, which grazes a highly sensitive policy debate over immigration pulsing through our nation’s politics, inject a needed adrenaline burst in a once-typically-reliable segment of home buyer demand, H1-B visa holders?

A broader policy crackdown on H-1 B visa holders has taken a chunk out of housing demand in local markets – particularly those with higher concentrations of tech- and professional-level households.

While the national impacts are unremarkable, demand in such communities – where average household incomes tend to be higher – has been dramatic. 

H-1B visa buyers leaving the housing market has had a substantial impact on certain suburban towns north of Dallas, Ted Wilson, Principal at Residential Strategies, a market research and consulting firm that consults with homebuilders in Texas, told HousingWire TBD.

According to Wilson, 70% to 75% of new home sales in Celina – about 40 miles north of Dallas – between 2021 and 2025 were to international buyers, many of whom were H-1B visa holders who had laid down roots in the DFW area.

By the end of last year, this buyer segment accounted for only about 15% to 20% of buyers in Celina, he said.

Celina’s population grew a whopping 276.8% between 2020 and 2025, from just over 16,000 residents to more than 64,000. Skilled and knowledge-worker immigrants, attracted to nearby jobs in tech and other sectors, drove the bulk of that growth. With many of those buyers now exiting the housing market, local builders have been caught flat-footed. 

“What we have really witnessed over the last couple of years is a complete retreat of the H-1B visa buyers’ impact on the DFW market, and it has created challenges within the DFW homebuilding market,” Wilson said. “Not only have sales withered from it, but in markets such as Celina, there was an expectation that we were going to continue to see the presence of these buyers in the market. Builders planned for it, and we now have a lot of neighborhoods… with a huge excess supply of lots in the Celina market. That’s creating a negative financial impact on a lot of people in that market.” 

A broader crackdown on H-1B visa holders

The downturn in Celina’s housing market cascaded after the $100,000 fee for new H-1 B visa holders took effect last September. Other policy shifts, such as a 60-day window for these workers to find a new job before leaving the country, along with a broader reduction in immigration levels, further reduced the presence and impact of these buyers in the local market.

H-1B visa holders account for a very small fraction, less than 0.5%, of the overall U.S. workforce. As a result, fluctuations in H1-B visa policy don’t exert an outsized impact on the national housing market.

There have, however, been noticeable impacts in certain areas. Furthermore, these buyers, with a median salary of $140,000, according to an analysis by Deel, tend to be more discretionary buyers who purchase homes priced above the local average.

According to data from Manifest Law, these high-income immigrant households were most heavily concentrated in states such as California, Virginia, New Jersey, New York and Texas.

Meanwhile, metro and market areas such as Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Boston, New York City, Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth had the highest concentration. 

The administration’s policy shifts somehow made Celina an epicenter of homebuyer-demand destruction. Homebuilders who had anticipated – and invested and budgeted on – continued growth in the city are now grappling with a market where demand has largely evaporated.

Given the rapid decline in demand, Celina is now a ‘poster-child’ of standing new-home inventory, with little prospect of moving it profitably. 

While a balanced market would typically have about a two-year lot supply, the Celina market ended the first quarter of 2026 with an annualized start pace of nearly 1,700 homes and more than 7,000 finished lots, representing roughly 50 months, or more than four years, of supply, Wilson said. An additional 7,600 lots were under development, adding another 54 months of future supply that is expected to come online over the next year. However, demand has dried up.

“It’s a wipe out, and I think the expectation we had, and that others had, was that Celina was going to follow the same pattern that we’ve seen in Plano, Frisco and Prosper, and grow to be about 4,000 starts per year, but that’s just not happening, because we’re missing that buyer in this market,” Wilson explained.

The muted impacts of the federal ruling

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin struck down the Trump administration’s $100,000 fee for certain H-1B visas on June 12, finding that the fee functions as a tax that must be approved by Congress.

Within days, the Trump administration appealed the decision, so the ruling is now in limbo. 

The consensus is that the federal ruling, even if it stands, likely would not, in isolation, be sufficient to unlock demand from this buyer segment, whether in Celina, Texas, or other impacted markets across the country.

High-income immigrant buyers still face significant uncertainty, and until there is a more fundamental policy adjustment and a shift in the vibe, many might stay on the sidelines. 

“With the uncertainty revolving around immigration reform, I think that even if this is removed after appeal, there will still be hesitancy about what’s next. I am not sure there will be stability in that area until policy is changed,” said a homebuilding executive from Northern Virginia, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. 

Dr. Selma Hepp, Chief Economist and SVP at Cotality, who originally hails from Croatia, agreed with that sentiment. 

“Being an international person myself, I don’t think that one specific ruling will change things immediately. I think it’s more about this overall narrative around not welcoming international employees and foreign visa seekers. It’s just a general feeling of, ‘maybe I should sit this out,’” Hepp said in an interview, noting the lingering policy uncertainty. “It makes it very difficult to make some long-term decisions, such as purchasing a home.”

However, Compass Chief Evangelist and New York-based broker Leonard Steinberg said brokerages under the company’s umbrella have felt the impact of the $100,000 H-1 B fee. The recent ruling, if it stands, could have some implications for the luxury market, Steinberg argued. 

“We have seen the adverse effects of this fee; to be certain,” he said. “Eliminating this fee could be extremely helpful in attracting underserved talent in the US. This is usually a prime audience for real estate. The impact is likely to be felt most on the high end, as very highly skilled workers in short supply locally often have well-paid jobs.”

“[Effects of doing away with the $100,000 fee] will vary greatly from region to region based on supply and inventory levels,” Steinberg added. “This audience will find ready-to-move-in, renovated homes most attractive.” 

How AI and tech layoffs play into the mix

Policy is only part of the story. Recent layoffs and a pullback in hiring across the tech industry, historically the largest source of H-1B employment, have also weighed on demand among these buyers. The slowdown in hiring has affected not only immigrant workers but also the overall labor pool.

Markets that attract many highly educated immigrants, such as Seattle, Silicon Valley, Northern Virginia, and portions of Dallas-Fort Worth, have borne the brunt of tech layoffs. 

“A lot of these markets have suffered from slowing demand otherwise, so we cannot necessarily always tease out slowing of demand due to these international buyers versus overall slowing of demand,” Hepp noted. “You may want to attribute something to one driver, but there are actually a lot of things going on at the same time, so just a caveat there,” Hepp said. 

Ram Konara – a Texas-based Realtor with StarPro Realty who works with many immigrant buyers – noted that most foreign nationals who eventually become homebuyers have already spent years in the U.S. building credit histories and stable employment records before seeking a mortgage.

Even if the $100,000 fee is ultimately eliminated, Konara said he doesn’t expect a meaningful surge in housing demand from newly arriving H-1B workers. Rather, broader labor-market conditions are weighing more heavily on the decisions of many highly skilled foreign professionals.

“The main thing is, especially on the software side, AI is taking a lot of jobs,” he said. “Even if they have a stable job, they are worried about their jobs here.”

Konara also noted that many H-1B professionals earn salaries high enough that the proposed fee alone would not necessarily deter relocation decisions.

Rather than the visa application fees themselves, Konara argued that policies that disrupt workers’ ability to remain in the country during the process might create even greater uncertainty for prospective homebuyers.

“The green card processing will affect a lot [of buyers],” Konara said. “That’s because the Trump administration has said people have to leave the country when they are processing their green cards. If that is implemented, I think that will affect a lot of people. They would have to leave their job and go back to their country and wait for the [processing] dates to be current.”