Title

Moves in and out of Florida about the same in 2008

Trying to make sense of the real estate market? Trying to figure out which states are attractive moving destinations, and which ones aren’t? There are all kinds of statistics out there, but one set of numbers that caught my eye came from a rather unexpected source — United Van Lines.

United has been keeping track of where its customers are moving to — and from — for the past 32 years. And they claim that their annual survey has always turned out to be very close to the mark.
Florida has just about always had a reputation for being a major move magnet. The thing you always used to hear was that Florida attracted about 1,000 new residents every single week. But that may not be true anymore, at least according to United Van lines figures.
United says that just about as many people moved OUT of Florida last year as moved IN from other states.
Some of the other stats from United were sort of surprising. For example, the Mid-Atlantic and Western regions were very popular destinations.
The District of Columbia was the country’s top destination, with 62.1 percent of moves being inbound rather than outbound. All of the mid-Atlantic states showed high inbound migrations.
Most of the states in New England and the rest of the Northeast showed high levels of outbound migration.
Oregon has had 21 consecutive years of high-inbound migration, and had another such year in 2008. Nevada’s inbound migration remained high once again, for the 23rd consecutive year.
While inbound and outbound moves in Florida were almost the same, most other Southern states recorded more inbound than outbound moves.
States in the Great Lakes area have shown high levels of outbound migration for many years, and that continued in 2008. More than 67 percent of moves involving Michigan were outbound, and outbound moves from Indiana totaled 57 percent.
Outbound moves from New York were more than 55 percent, and from Illinois totaled more than 57 percent.
Other “balanced” states — states with the same number of inbound and outbound moves, like Florida — included Minnesota, Kansas, Iowa, Washington and West Virginia.
United Van Lines is the country’s biggest household goods mover. The company’s 2008 migration survey was based on 198,962 moves.

Tags: FloridaUnited Van Lines, moving, population