From being ranked number 39 back in 2015 to holding the number one "Growth State" spot for three years straight since, Texas has managed to account for over 50 percent of U-Haul traffic.
According to data released by U-Haul, "Growth States" are calculated by the net-gain of one-way U-Haul trips during a calendar year. The migration trend of those using U-Hauls is composed of more than two million one-way U-Haul users sharing transactions that occurred annually.
Since 2017, Texas saw five percent more one-way U-Haul arrivals and six percent more one-way U-Haul departures. Despite that larger year-over-year amount of departures, Texas is once again the top state for do-it-yourself movers for the third year in a row.
While migration trends aren't exactly parallel to population or economic growth, the data provided by U-Haul is an effective scale of how well states and their cities are performing in attracting and maintaining residents. Texas cities that received notable net-gain in 2018 include New Braunfels, Round Rock, Irving, Arlington, Katy, Spring, Pharr and Brownsville. The growth in these cities reflects the major growth in Central Texas, the DFW area, the Houston area and South Texas.
U-Haul has the control over managing migrant trends thanks to its expansive network that covers all of the U.S. and 10 Canadian provinces. The geographical coverage from more than 20,000 U-Haul locations provides a comprehensive overview over where people are moving over any other company in the DIY moving industry.