WHO IS MOVING WHERE (AND WHY)

A recent Forbes article shared data from a national van line on which states were seeing the most movement in and out and why. After reading the 53-page synopsis, I was a bit perplexed. Having had an office in New England for 34 years and an office in Florida for 27 years, I felt the data used for this article was a bit misleading.

One of the most misleading stats was that Vermont has the greatest inbound movement of any state I the US. A quick search showed results that were different. In fact, in 2019, another research group pegged Vermont as one of the states with the highest percentage of residents leaving. How it recovered from this five-year trend to become the nation’s top inbound state in just two years is perplexing.

Another curious stat in this lengthy report is that neither Florida nor Texas was ranked in the top fifteen inbound states. Another quick search shows that Florida averages an increase in population (all inbound moves) of 919 per day! Texas is also averaging 1,000 new people per day.

With strong ties in the New England/New York homeowner markets and in the upper Midwest states of Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Michigan, we are very familiar with the movement trends. Our company has been tracking data for each move in and out of each state we service and the trend is definitely that Northeast and Midwest residents are moving out to warmer, friendlier and less busy states.

The William C Huff White Glove Moving and Storage Company has been tracking interstate and intrastate (moves out of and within the state) data for more than 27 years. The data for New Hampshire shows a 48% movement out of state while the data for Florida shows only a 4% movement out of state.

The primary reasons for movement out of New England tend to be for retirement and/or health reasons, while the primary reason for movement out of Florida is for octogenarians wanting to spend time with family in their later years. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that more than 10,000 people retire every day and a higher percent of these retirees live in the Midwest and the Northeast.