Small cities in region score big in net migration survey

April 8th, 2021

The story of people fleeing New York in droves, often to Florida, is entering plane landed safely territory: not much breaking news there.

But a new report from online moving marketplace HireAHelper reveals some of Florida’s smaller metro areas are beating out the big cities, like Tampa and Miami, for the most moved-to place title.  To wit: Venice, Sarasota, Cape Coral and Punta Gorda all made the top 10 destinations of 75,000 moves booked over the past year through HireAHelper. Counting St. Augustine, Florida had five of the top 10 on the list.

Other moving data pieces from the survey include:

• One fourth of the moving parties in 2020 did so due to the pandemic;

• Around 35% of COVID-19 forced moves were out of financial hardship;

• Nearly one-third of those who moved because of COVID-19 did so to look after family;

• An average move was 13.7 miles farther in 2020 than the year before;

• The average square footage of a move was 282 square feet smaller in 2020 than 2019.