New studies find increased outbound migration from Connecticut and New York
A trio of recently published data reports by leading moving companies has detailed a greater level of outbound migration than incoming arrivals for Connecticut and New York.
United Van Lines”™ 46th annual National Movers Study cited New York as the third highest state for outbound migration, with 61.9% of the company”™s moving trucks taking residents out of the Empire State and only 38.1% bringing new residents. Most of the outbound migration was attributed to retirement relocation (31.2%) while the inbound migration was mostly fueled by family (38.8%) and jobs (35.3%).
In comparison, United Van Lines reported that 55.9% of its moving trucks were taking Connecticut residents out of the state while 44.1% was based on people moving into the state. Not unlike New York, retirement was the main factor for leaving (36.6%) while family (37%) and jobs (32%) attracted most of the new arrivals.
United Van Lines reported New Jersey had the highest level of outbound moving (67%) for the fifth consecutive year while Vermont had the highest percentage of inbound migration (77%) for the second consecutive year.
In another survey, U-Haul ranked Connecticut in 28th place for growth states and New York ranked 46th; last year, they were respectively ranked as 18th and 45th. But whereas United Van Lines named Vermont and New Jersey for the highest and lowest inbound migration, U-Haul pegged Texas and California at the two ends of the moving spectrum.
And yet another data analysis, this time from North American Moving Services, found New York with a 59% outbound migration and a 41% inbound traffic, while Connecticut saw 53% moving activity leaving the state and 47% arriving. For this survey, South Carolina led the states for inbound migration and Illinois saw the most departures by residents to other markets.
While the three data reports came to different conclusion regarding which states are gaining and which are losing the most residents, all of them determined that Connecticut and New York saw more people moving out than moving in during 2022. However, local real estate brokers questioned those findings, noting that they”™ve seen no evidence in their work to support a population decline.
Craig Oshrin, a broker with RE/MAX Heritage in Westport ”” who once owned a moving company ”” does not see a new wave of home sellers in Fairfield County who are looking to move out of state.
“I”™m seeing a market freeze, meaning there”™s a lack of inventory all the way around,” he said. “But I”™m also seeing sellers getting nervous because those pandemic prices that they could get before are done. If you look at absorption rate and months of inventory, we”™re still sitting around three months ”” so it”™s a very unbalanced market.”
Debbie Doern, senior vice president of sales for Houlihan Lawrence, also covers Fairfield County along with Westchester and the Hudson Valley, and she stated she had not seen anything unusual in local migration patterns.
“There”™s the normal amount of retirees who are moving, and during Covid there were people who could work remote and might go somewhere else,” she said. “But I”™m not seeing it as a trend in our housing.”
Doern acknowledged the region experienced an influx of new residents at the peak of the pandemic, including people from New York City who moved to their suburban second homes on a permanent basis and others who bought property with the plan to either work remotely or commute into Manhattan on a twice- or thrice-week basis. But she added those patterns have slowed with the evaporation of the pandemic and today “in all of our markets it is usually somewhere in the 60% to 65% range of buyers moving up and down from the same area.”