United Van Lines and Atlas Van Lines, two of the country’s largest moving companies, recently released state-to-state migration pattern studies showing which states had the most inbound and outbound moves involving their customers. Both studies showed a common theme and one that shouldn’t be surprising to current Idaho residents: Idaho was the #1 state with the highest percentage of inbound moves.
The United Van Lines study showed “Idaho saw the highest percentage of Inbound migration among states experiencing more than 250 moves with United Van Lines: 67.4%.” Two-thirds of the moves involving Idaho, were people relocating to the state. Additionally, the study looked at the ages and reasons for people moving to the Gem State. 72% of the people moving to Idaho were over the age of 55. Nearly 36% cited moving here for retirement reasons. About 21% of those surveyed said they were moving to Idaho for lifestyle reasons. And roughly 27% of the people moving in cited a new job as their primary reason for relocating. Interestingly, nearly 44% of people moving out of Idaho cited a new job as their reason for leaving. The United report also showed not a lot of people were moving out of state from Idaho.
The Atlas study showed that 62.3% of its moves involving Idaho were inbound.
While both reports agreed on the number one state for inbound migration, they did have some disagreement over the other top “moving in” and “moving out” states. United’s report indicates Idaho, Oregon and Arizona are the top three “moving in” states with New Jersey, Illinois, and New York being the top “moving out” states. Atlas, on the other hand, had Idaho, Washington, and North Carolina as its top “moving in” states and New York, West Virginia, and South Dakota as its top “moving out” states.
Since both companies have different amounts of customers, the fact that both had the highest percentage of inbound moves to the Gem State is quite telling. Furthermore, the results illustrate that Idaho is an exceptionally popular destination, and will continue to be one for at least the next year.
Atlas Van Lines 2019 Migration Patterns Study
United Van Lines National Movers Study
