National Mover Rate Inches Up; NY to Florida Most Popular Migration

December 11, 2012

This article is included in these additional categories:

Local & Directories / Small Biz | Youth & Gen X

The US “mover rate” – which measures the percentage of Americans aged 1 and older who lived at a different residence this year than last – edged up to 12% this year, from a record low of 11.6% last year, according to new figures released by the US Census Bureau. The rate has been steadily trending downwards since it was first tracked more than a half-century ago – in 1948, the mover rate was 20.2%.

As with years past, the majority of the moves this year were local: about 23.5 million of the 36.5 million people aged 1 and older who moved (or 64.4%) stayed in the same county. Even those who moved to a different county managed to stay fairly local. Among the 11.8 million “intercounty movers,” 40.2% moved less than 50 miles away.

New York to Florida Most Popular Move

Still, more than 5 million people moved out of state over the past year. The most common state-to-state moves were from:

  • New York to Florida (59,288 movers);
  • California to Texas (58,992);
  • California to Arizona (49,635);
  • Florida to Georgia (42,666); and
  • New Jersey to New York (41,450).

Some states appeared to swap residents. For example, while almost 59,000 moved from California to Texas, about 37 thousand moved from Texas to California. Similarly, an almost equal number moved from New Jersey to New York (41,450) as did from New York to New Jersey (40,815). Finally, while the Florida to Georgia move was popular (42,666), the Georgia to Florida move was almost as well-traveled (38,658).

20-29-Year-Olds Most Likely to Have Moved

The Census Bureau breaks down the data into 5-year age brackets, with the results clearly showing that the 20-24 and 25-29 age groups were the most likely to move residence. More than 5 million young adults from each group moved between last year and this year: 20-24-year-olds represented an outsized 14.7% of all movers, and 25-29-year-olds an additional 14%. Taken together, these 2 age groups comprised almost 30% of all movers.

These movers should prove particularly attractive targets for marketers. A recent Epsilon study of 999 respondents compared the brand loyalty of those who had moved within the prior 9 months (“movers”) to those who had not (“non-movers”), finding that on average, across 4 household categories, the former group was twice as likely as the latter to say they had changed a provider or brand. Similarly, a separate study from Zillow found movers (who had moved in the past 12 months or were in the process of moving) to be 372% more likely than non-movers to switch baby product brands, 115% more likely to switch dishwashing detergent brands, and 85% more likely to switch household cleaning product brands. Zillow also found that roughly 1 in 5 movers spend $10,000 or more on products and services on account of their move, and that movers spend an average of 7 months making moving-related purchases, split almost equally on both sides of their move (3.2 months before; 3.8 months after).

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