TELL CITY — Brian Acosta bought a modest two-bedroom house he had never seen in person in a small southern Indiana town he had never heard of until he spotted it online in November.
This spring, he finally stepped inside his home for what he hopes will be a long and adventurous stay.
The 27-year-old computer programming and automation specialist had grown tired of drifting from state to state — from New Mexico to Washington to Georgia — and wanted somewhere he could finally settle down.
He had a checklist. Forests for hiking. Water for recreation. A small-town feel. Affordability.
He initially planned to move to Maine. Then, while searching online, he stumbled onto a website for a company called MakeMyMove and found a listing for Perry County’s Tell City, an Indiana town of about 7,500 people along the Ohio River.
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“It looked like a much better option for me,” said Acosta, who was beginning to fear that the lengthy and costly heating season in Maine might be more than he could bear.
The website advertised incentives for remote workers willing to relocate to some smaller communities seeking to reverse population loss. Perry County offered cash incentives, three months of free internet and community perks aimed at helping newcomers put down roots. A local real estate agent even agreed to show him potential homes through video calls.
“It was really nice to see that they had a program where the community wanted to bring people over,” Acosta said. “That felt like a better invitation than just moving somewhere random.”
Luring new residents
Acosta’s 400-mile move from suburban Atlanta is one example of a much larger effort across Indiana to attract new residents.
From river towns in southern Indiana to fast-growing suburbs north of Indianapolis, dozens of communities are now paying people to move there — betting that remote workers, skilled professionals and young families can help stabilize populations, fill workforce gaps and inject new energy into local economies.
Washington Street on July 6, 2026, in Tell City, Ind. Credit: Macabe Brown for FPI News
The effort is being driven largely through the Indiana Economic Development Corp. and MakeMyMove, an Indianapolis-based company founded after its creators became alarmed by Indiana’s shrinking workforce, a phenomenon faced by much of the nation as baby boomers move into retirement.
Between 2000 and 2020, the size of Indiana’s working population between the prime ages of 25 and 54 fell by nearly 28,000 residents per decade, according to the Indiana Business Research Center.
A slight rebound is expected over the next few years. But between 2030 and 2050, only 18 counties, mostly in suburban metro areas, will continue to see gains in the prime worker age group. Rural Indiana is expected to see a decline of 10%.
“We set about really as a project in 2017 to try to reverse that trend,” said Evan Hock, MakeMyMove co-founder and chief operating officer.
The efforts originally focused on reconnecting former Hoosiers with employers back home. But since the pandemic accelerated remote work, the idea has evolved into something broader: helping communities recruit workers directly and fill gaps for employers.
“We discovered that remote workers were actually one of the most valuable talent pools there were,” Hock said.
To date, MakeMyMove has worked with more than 60 Indiana communities and regions and many more nationwide — including large cities such as Detroit and small towns like Salina, Kansas. Hock said the company recently surpassed 1,000 household relocations in Indiana alone — representing roughly 2,300 people.
The incentives vary by community.
In Perry County, movers can receive $7,000 in cash payments split over a year, along with free high-speed internet for three months, gym memberships, tickets to local events and smaller perks from local businesses.
In the growing Indianapolis suburb of Noblesville, the emphasis is more on filling skill gaps and promoting entrepreneurism. New residents can receive $5,000 cash for relocation, a one-year membership to a co-working space, a free chamber membership, golf passes and even coffee with the mayor.
In Angola in northeastern Indiana, eligible homebuyers can receive up to 5% of the purchase price of a home for a down payment, $5,000 cash for relocation and free memberships to the YMCA and a co-working space.
Some Indiana colleges also have gotten into the act. Indiana University earlier this year sent emails to alumni living out of state to make them aware of MakeMyMove incentives in Bloomington and other branch campus towns.
The programs are typically funded through partnerships between local economic development organizations and the Indiana Economic Development Corp. The current two-year state budget contains $2.5 million in matching funds for local communities that launch a talent recruitment effort.
Is it worth the investment?
For Perry County, the MakeMyMove program began with what Erin Emerson considered a relatively modest local gamble.
Emerson, president and CEO of the Perry County Development, said the county contributed $25,000 to launch its first MakeMyMove effort in 2024. That local investment was matched by the IEDC and then doubled by the Lilly Endowment, creating a $100,000 program.
“It made it be like, OK, this is a great return on investment. Why wouldn’t we do it?” Emerson said.
That first contract targeted eight movers. Success from that launch has prompted Perry County to renew its contract three times, drawing a total of 26 new households that account for 54 new residents.
The upward swing is a welcome change after years of stagnation.
Perry County lost 168 residents between 2010 and 2020. According to the U.S. Census, it actually added 219 residents from 2020 to 2025, reaching a population of 19,338.
Officials estimate that the new residents added through MakeMyMove alone account for an additional economic impact of $1 million a year.
Scenes from Tell City, Ind., on July 6, 2026. Credit: Macabe Brown for FPI News
At the statewide level, Hock said the company’s own modeling points to strong economic returns.
Every $100,000 in recruited income generates roughly $83,000 in incremental economic impact each year, according to a study for MakeMyMove by economist Drew Klacik of the Indiana University Public Policy Institute. That includes both direct tax revenue and indirect effects such as increased demand for groceries, services and local labor.
MakeMyMove has found that about 90% of its relocated residents are still in place after a year and 75% of movers remain after three years. Cash incentives help encourage people to stay by generally not paying out the full amount until after one year of residency.
Hock said the retention figures are consistent with the nation’s longest-running relocation programs. That includes Tulsa Remote, often viewed as one of the country’s benchmark relocation-incentive experiments.
A major review of that program’s economic impact found it generated about a 4-to-1 return on investment, concluding that remote workers brought outside wages into the local economy, boosted tax revenue, purchased homes and supported local businesses.
Hock said his company estimates its programs can amount to roughly a 10-to-1 downstream return.
But these programs can also create unintended costs for existing residents, another study found.
In places with limited housing supply, incoming workers can push up rents and home prices, making affordability worse for low-skilled workers, according to an analysis by economist Hoyoung Yoo, now an assistant professor at the University of Illinois.
She also found the economic case for incentives weakens when they are heavily taxpayer-funded because some of the gains can be offset by the public cost of subsidizing movers who may have relocated anyway or don’t stay long.
Noblesville Mayor Chris Jensen said he understands the concern but believes his city’s experience differs from the risks described in the Yoo study.
“I don’t think 115 new people moving to Noblesville is what’s inflating the cost of home prices,” Jensen said.
Instead, he pointed to a nationwide housing shortage and broader affordability pressures that predate relocation incentives. He also noted Noblesville has added thousands of housing units in recent years in an effort to keep supply moving with demand.
Jensen said those arrivals — accounting for roughly 280 total new residents when families are included — now generate an estimated $11 million in annual economic impact, while Noblesville has invested roughly $1 million in the program since 2022.
Making the move
Mallory Moreno, a former radio personality turned writer and editor, said the welcome package offered by Noblesville gave her the extra nudge she needed to take the leap.
She had been thinking about moving back to Indiana from Florida for a while and the incentives made it “a no-brainer.”
Moreno said she was especially drawn by the complimentary golf passes, free co-working space and the general walkability of downtown Noblesville.
But she said being closer to family was the biggest advantage.
Growing up near Kokomo, she had spent nearly a decade elsewhere building a career in communications.
Along the way, a longing to return home kept pulling at her, and her remote job ultimately gave her the flexibility to make the move.
She’s now closer to her parents who have also relocated to Hamilton County, to a brother in Fishers, another brother in Wabash and her 5-year-old niece.
Instead of buying a home, she rented an apartment in downtown Noblesville, drawn to its walkability, green space and mix of energy and comfort.
“It’s actually probably my favorite place I’ve ever lived,” she said. “It just feels like I’ll never be bored living around here.”
For Daniel and Michele Stratman, incentives also helped draw them to Tell City in 2024. But they also appreciate how their family has been able to integrate into the community, a Swiss-German enclave where many families have known each other for generations.
Evelyn, the oldest of their three daughters, was elected to the Tell City High School homecoming court two years in a row. (She graduated in May.)
Daniel was welcomed at the Perry County Sheriff’s Department as a reserve officer, allowing him to continue his public service after retiring from the U.S. Marine Corps in Quantico, Virginia. The couple also became involved in a local nonprofit supporting veterans and first responders and volunteered for the after-prom and other school activities.
Michele Stratman said the experiences differed from volunteering in a larger city because the impact felt more visible and appreciated.
“We’ve really met some wonderful, welcoming people here,” she said.
Local officials say affordability also has been a major draw for Perry County, where the median value of a home from 2020 to 2024 was $139,000, well below the national median of $332,700.
For Acosta, that was certainly a big attraction. He said he never would have been able to afford to buy a house where he lived in suburban Atlanta.
But he also loves his new community’s proximity to the Ohio River and the Hoosier National Forest, which boasts 204,000 acres of rolling hills filled with diverse hardwood trees and many caves, lakes, limestone sinkholes and sandstone cliffs.
He said he’s still settling into the life he imagined months ago while scrolling through relocation listings hundreds of miles away.
But he’s already met local hobbyists who share his interest in building new gadgets, gone on road trips with new friends and found quiet places to hike.
He’s also been able to keep his remote job with Inteleca, a Georgia-based provider of networking hardware and services to retire obsolete technology.
“I couldn’t have imagined it going more smoothly,” Acosta said.
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Greg Weaver is an FPI News freelance contributor. You can reach him at gregoryeweaver@gmail.com.
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