10 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Moving

There are few things that change a life more than moving. Most people embark on a moving journey more than once in their lives, but most give very little thought to the hows and whys of the moving industry. Here are 10 things you probably never knew:

1. When most people think of moving, they think of a truck, but did you know that the first moving van wasn’t even a van? It was a covered horse drawn carriage. Goods were transported across country on rail. As the combustable engine became more common during the turn of the 20th Century, moving companies used two-cylinder, two axle trucks with air cooled engines.

2. The storage industry is rumored to have started in England, when bankers stored items for their clients, but self-storage is an all-American idea – and fairly recent. It started in Texas in the mid-1960s. It spread quickly from there.

3. Americans are very mobile. Approximately 15% of the population (or 37 million people) moves in any given year.

4. Not surprisingly, young people (ages 18-29) are the most mobile.

5. About 2/3rds of people move within the same county. Of the 1/3 of people moving to different counties, about 40% move less than 50 miles.

6. 57% of Americans have not ventured to live outside their home state. 37% have never left their hometown.

7. The most common moves are:

  • New York to Florida: 59,288 people
  • California to Texas: 58,992
  • California to Arizona: 49,635
  • Florida to Georgia: 42,666
  • New Jersey to New York: 41,450
  • New York to New Jersey: 40,815
  • California to Nevada: 40,114
  • Georgia to Florida: 38,658
  • California to Washington: 38,421
  • Texas to California: 37,087

8. The most popular reason for moving is for a job.

9. A whopping 38% of people don’t call their current place of residence “home.”

10. People are leaving cities and moving to the suburbs. Between 2005 and 2010, urban areas lost 4.4 million people while suburban areas gained 8.8 million people.