[webmaven]

> I feel there’s a caveat to this. If this happens in MANGA companies what’s to stop smaller cities from raising the cost of living higher than most of the locals due to having a small amount of high wages/large city types moving in.

If it's a small number of folks, there won't be much impact on anything that doesn't actually have a constrained supply.

For example real estate prices won't be affected much unless the new folks are bidding against each other for the same properties. Without a steady stream of folks coming in, a few sellers immediately getting their asking price will only bump estimated values of the surrounding homes for a while. To get a more permanent RE price bump everyone would have to move into the same neighborhood to get their kids into the same school, or to get the same view, or they all want riverfront property which is in short supply, or something similar.

About the only scenario I can plausibly construct for a real cost increase that actually affects locals (from a small number of well heeled folks moving in) is if all the newcomers move in at the same time and renovate or build their homes simultaneously, then the local cost of construction labor will go up temporarily.