The MS Coast is growing. Meet the demographic group driving population shifts

The retirees playing their usual pickleball games at the Lobouy Senior Center seemed like longtime friends on the court.

But their backgrounds tell a different story: Many are newcomers from Louisiana and California, Oregon and Illinois.

“You immediately feel welcome,” Eileen Manning, from Chicago, said as balls bounced back and forth on the courts behind her. “I just like the kindness.”

The pickleball group at this rural senior center in Harrison County is one sign of a striking shift unfolding across the Mississippi Coast. The number of residents who are 65 and older is rising faster than any other age group in the region and driving more population growth than any demographic across the three coastal counties. Many are also migrating here.

The age group’s population on the Coast has grown by about 11,000 people in the last few years, according to estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau. They are empty-nesters and wanderers, RVers and boat owners, and some say they are avoiding the increasing cost of crowded Florida.

They are being lured by Mississippi’s promise of cheap retirement in some of the last affordable beach towns in the country.

The ranks of seniors keep swelling. Real estate agents say they are selling more retirement houses and second-homes that become full-time residences. Attendance is rising at all seven of Harrison County’s senior centers, which are open to residents 60 and over. Jeff Clark, the executive director of Harrison County Senior Services, said demand for transportation has increased so much in the last year that the program has gotten two new buses.

Leaders also say some newcomers from the Mississippi Delta and other parts of the state are retiring on the Coast, where healthcare systems are better. Others are seizing the new opportunities of remote work to spend their last professional years near the water, logging on from home offices, before they retire.

“I have people calling me at age 55,” Clark said. “There’s a huge interest.”

Retirees drive MS Coast’s population growth

The Coast is growing even as most other places in Mississippi shrink. Newcomers from other states are helping drive growth across the coastal counties, and Census data shows they most often arrive from Louisiana, Texas and Alabama. Thousands also move here from other parts of Mississippi.

Some discover the region when they pass through on road trips or as they wander in RVs and campers around the country. Others fall in love when they motor past by boat.

The Coast “just makes me happy,” said Pam Pickering, a retired schoolteacher from Laurel, who grew up visiting the region. She and her husband flew their plane to Gulf Shores one day and saw a picture of a house on a bulletin board.

They moved to Diamondhead in 2020. Since then, others from Laurel have followed them. Her sister’s family is about to move there from Birmingham, too.

The Coast’s sprawling golf courses and slow pace have always drawn some retirees, including those who served at local U.S. Navy and Air Force bases and return for access to veterans services.

But real estate agents and local leaders say growth since the COVID-19 pandemic has been surging as more retirees move in.

Retirees say the draw is simple. The state does not tax retirement income. Gas and groceries are cheap, even compared to Louisiana. And the price of Mississippi’s waterfront property is no burden to many newcomers from wealthier areas.

“There’s nowhere that the prices compare to ours,” said Danny Lee, CEO of the Gulf Coast Association of Realtors.

The average sale price keeps rising as more buyers move in.

“For a long time it felt like we were a secret that people just passed by,” Lee said. “That has definitely changed.”

Out-of-state newcomers, other demographics increase

Jane Whitney, who also lives in Diamondhead, arrived four years ago from rural Franklinton, Louisiana. She was tired of traffic on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain and wanted more to do than tend to her and her husband’s land.

Whitney still works as a nurse a few days a week at a hospital in Louisiana and has also become a part-owner of Hank’s Golf Cars in Diamondhead, where she has served customers from Texas and the Midwest. She and her husband plan to retire here.

“The draw was that you could just hop on the interstate, and you could be in downtown Bay St. Louis for lunch and that evening be in Biloxi at a baseball game,” she said. “There’s always so much going on.”

Retirees are not the only growing demographic. The Coast’s share of wealthy households is also increasing. And modest growth is evident among Black and Hispanic populations in Harrison and Jackson counties, according to Census estimates.

But retirees are driving the growth. The population of residents who are 65 and older in Harrison County, for example, grew by nearly 20 percent between 2019 and 2024.

The shift is clear even at the Lobouy Senior Center, where the parking lot off a rolling two-lane road was full one recent weekday. Some of the pickleball players inside were snowbirds. Their teammates kept joking about getting them to move to the Coast for good.

“It’s very social,” said Beth Arnold, another pickleball player who moved to Harrison County from southern California. “We’ve made good friends.”

One of the group’s newest members just arrived for the first time from Pennsylvania. She drove south in a camper and is staying for a few months in Waveland.

“This is the first time I’ve ever been to a beach not crowded with people,” Diane Day said a few minutes before she grabbed a paddle, stepped onto a court and introduced herself.

“It’s wonderful,” she said.