Photo courtesy of United Van Lines
Connecticut politicians and real estate agents spend much of last year hailing news of well-heeled New York City denizens decamping for Fairfield County as a result of the pandemic as a sign the state was headed for a renaissance.
United Van Lines, one of the nation’s largest moving companies, begged to differ in a new report published yesterday. The company’s 44th annual National Migration Study ranked the state as experiencing the second-biggest exodus of residents in 2020 among all 50.
Sixty-three percent of the interstate moves the company facilitated to or from Connecticut from March to October 2020 were to other states, the company said. That put the state after New York and Illinois (tied at 67 percent of moves) and just ahead of California (59 percent of moves). The company conducted 1,867 total moves into or out of Connecticut.
Fairfield County, Greater New Haven and Greater Hartford all ranked in the top 25 metro areas for outbound traffic. Only 31 percent of United moves in Fairfield County were into the area, compared to 37 percent in Greater Hartford and 38 percent in Greater new Haven.
The overall national trend was of a migration to America’s western and southern states, the company said, showing this decades-long pattern was not significantly disrupted by COVID-19. However, by tracking reasons for moving, the study showed COVID-19 had accelerated Baby Boomer retirements, Michael A. Stoll, economist and professor in the Department of Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles said in a statement, helping accelerate broader moving trends.
In Connecticut, 31.28 percent of United’s outbound moves were driven by a retirement, among other factors. A job partly or fully motivated 30.26 percent of moves, with 21.54 percent involving family concerns and the lifestyle concerns being a factor in the same percentage. Health concerns were involved in only 8.61 percent of moves.
The majority of outbound movers among United’s Connecticut moves – almost 61 percent – were over age 55, with that demographic nearly evenly split between ages 55 to 64 and ages 65 and up. They also skewed wealthy, with 48.51 percent earning more than $150,000 and another 25.37 percent earing between $100,000 and $149,999.
Among the limited number of inbound movers, Connecticut’s draw was chiefly a job (34.55 percent of moves) and family (38.18 percent of moves), with lifestyle influencing a mere 10.91 percent of moves and health concerns influencing 10 percent. Retirement influenced only 6.36 percent of moves.
Despite United’s data, anecdotal evidence from Realtors in Fairfield County and sales statistics shows high-end properties in the area have benefitted from renewed demand after some years of softness.
