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All aboard! Final destination: Florida!
According to U-Haul's annual, year-end Growth Index—which is based it’s customers' equipment rentals—found that overall Florida destinations dominated the growth list again in 2023, with the Palm Bay-Melbourne market netting the largest number of movers in one-way U-Haul equipment last year.
By the numbers, U-Haul's Growth Index found that Floridian cities took seven of the top-25 cities last year. This marks the seventh year in a row the Sunshine State has had the most cities represented. Florida had four markets among the top 25 in 2022, and a whopping 10 in 2021.
Ocala, Florida—the number one growth city in 2022—backslides one spot in the latest rankings. The Sarasota-Bradenton market ranks fourth just behind Charleston-North Charleston, North Carolina. Austin, Texas is the fifth-ranked growth city—the first of three top-10 Texas destinations along with the College Station-Bryan market and the Dallas metropolitan area.
In the Palm Bay-Melbourne market, 54.7% of all one-way U-Haul traffic was arriving compared to just 45.3% departing in 2023.
U-Haul calculates growth cities by each city's net gain (or loss) of one-way equipment from customer transactions in a calendar year. The U-Haul Growth Index is compiled from more than 2.5 million one-way U-Haul truck, trailer and U-Box moving container transactions that occur annually across the U.S. and Canada. Neighboring cities in U-Haul markets are often packaged together for migration trends purposes.
"Growth in the Palm Bay-Melbourne area has been increasing at an explosive rate," stated Cal Conner, U-Haul Company of Eastern Florida President. "The Space Coast has many companies investing in this region and creating jobs such as Embraer, SpaceX, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin and L3Harris Technologies. We have a low cost of living compared to many of the northern cities people have left. Add to that our fantastic year-round climate, and you can see why Palm Bay-Melbourne, Florida is such a desirable area to live."
Click here for the report from the source.
