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Where are people moving to in the United States? Which cities are they leaving? Which locations are popular these days? A great way to answer these questions is to look at U-Haul. While many people hire movers, a lot of people still use U-Haul to move from one location to another.
To figure out where people are going, you can simply look at U-Haul’s statistics and their pricing model. For instance, it is more expensive to rent a truck in cities that have a low inventory of trucks. In cities with more trucks, it is less expensive to rent one.
If we look at San Francisco, we see that it costs 35% more to rent a U-Haul truck there because there aren’t many trucks available. There aren’t as many trucks available because there aren’t as many people dropping off trucks in San Francisco at the end of their move. Therefore, we can determine that there are fewer people moving to San Francisco.
"Cities with higher inventory tend to have more people moving there."
On the other hand, in the Northwest, it is less expensive to rent trucks in cities like Seattle and Portland. That’s because more people are moving there and dropping off trucks, so there is higher inventory at those U-Haul locations. The same is happening in the Southwest in cities like Phoenix, Austin, and Dallas.
Last year, Concord, Calif. had the largest inbound truck drop-off in the United States. These patterns tell us that people are moving to the outskirts of large cities and, in general, more people are moving south.
It’s always interesting to see where people are moving and where they are coming from. If you have any questions, give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you!
