Ryan Serhant says the American city isn’t dying—wealth is ‘multiplying,’ and buyers are flocking to Ohio, Alabama, and the Carolinas

Real estate CEO Ryan Serhant identified Huntsville, Alabama; Central Ohio; and Charlotte as emerging wealth and housing markets, supported by affordability, migration, data-center activity, and job growth. Ohio homes cost roughly 30% less than coastal alternatives, while Intel has raised its planned Ohio chip-factory investment to $28 billion and AWS plans to invest more than $23 billion in the state through 2030. The outlook is constructive for Midwest and secondary-market real estate, though Serhant flagged New York's estimated loss of 12,000 residents last year and high housing costs as a warning sign.

Analysis

The investable read-through is not luxury housing demand but a potential reinforcement of the Midwest/Southeast labor-and-power-load corridor. MHO has meaningful exposure to Columbus, Charlotte and Huntsville-type entry-level/first move-up markets, where household formation benefits disproportionately if mortgage rates decline; its lower absolute home prices also reduce payment-to-income sensitivity versus coastal builders. The better second-order beneficiary may be AEP: incremental hyperscale and semiconductor load can drive a multi-year rate-base opportunity, though transmission and generation timing—not residential migration—will determine earnings conversion.

INTC should not be bought on local housing enthusiasm. The relevant mechanism is whether its Ohio buildout progresses from a capital commitment into equipment orders, hiring and contracted customer capacity; further schedule slippage would impair local multiplier effects and reinforce market skepticism around capital intensity and execution. AWS-related load growth can also tighten regional power availability, creating upside for regulated utilities but raising curtailment, interconnection-delay and power-cost risks for industrial users.

Over 1-3 months, lower Treasury yields and mortgage-rate relief are the primary catalyst for regional builders, not migration narratives. Over 6-18 months, sustained job creation could compress the valuation discount of exposed builders and regional banks, but a recession or data-center capex rationalization would reverse both the housing and utility-load assumptions. The consensus risk is that infrastructure bottlenecks make announced projects economically meaningful well before they are earnings-accretive; do not capitalize full load growth until utility filings show signed contracts, interconnection status and approved capex.

Key Decisions for Investors

• Watchlist MHO for a long entry on mortgage-rate-driven weakness rather than chase migration headlines; initiate only if order growth and community count remain positive at the next earnings print. Target a 6-12 month rerating versus coastal-exposed builders; exit if cancellation rates rise materially or FY guidance is cut.
• Prefer a 12-18 month long AEP / short ED pair in equal dollar amounts after confirming Ohio load forecasts and approved transmission capex in regulatory filings. The thesis is relative rate-base and customer-load growth; invalidate if AEP’s large-load contracts or regulatory cost recovery are delayed.
• Maintain INTC as an execution watch, not a direct real-estate trade. Upgrade only on independently verifiable milestones—construction timing, customer commitments and capex discipline—because another Ohio schedule revision would likely outweigh any favorable regional-demand narrative.
• Avoid broad residential REIT exposure based on this signal: secondary-market migration favors new construction and local utility infrastructure more directly than apartment landlords, while elevated financing costs remain a near-term valuation constraint.