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The people who are moving away are doing so because they can't participate in the housing market in the first place. I don't see how people who can't buy houses and are leaving the area will drive down housing costs.

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It will for rentals, if supply is static but demand decreases prices will go down.

Not necessarily. If landlords would rather keep their property on the market in the hopes of getting a higher rent price than lower the price then the price will remain static. There'll just be more un-let, empty properties. In the UK this happens a lot because property tax (council tax as it's known here) is discounted on an empty property, so there isn't much incentive to fill the property at a lower price.

The economics of the property market are weird.

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