Following an uptick in people moving into Connecticut during the pandemic years, Connecticut’s ranking based on the number of people moving into the state dropped fourteen places in U-Haul’s latest report on moving trends in 2023.

Connecticut is now 42^nd in the country for the number of people moving into the state, down from 28^th according to the same study last year. Connecticut and other Northeastern states, particularly New York and Massachusetts, are historically very low on the list of annual studies documenting migration patterns, but Connecticut had a marked turnaround during the pandemic and post-pandemic years.

“While one-way transactions in 2023 remained below the record-breaking levels we witnessed immediately following the pandemic, we continued to see many of the same geographical trends from U-Haul customers moving between states,” said John “J.T.” Taylor, U-Haul International president, in a press release.

Connecticut’s state-to-state migration trend reversed course in 2022, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau that showed Connecticut gained more than 80,000 people from other states and foreign countries, mostly from New York and Massachusetts.

The results of U-Haul’s study, which is based on one-way moves over the course of the year, show California with the largest outmigration numbers, followed by Massachusetts, Illinois and New Jersey, while Southeastern and Southwestern states show the largest number of inbound movers.

Texas, Florida and the Carolinas took the top four spots for people relocating in 2023, according to the study.

“Migration to states in the Southeast and Southwest is still very pronounced,” Taylor said. “Demand for one-way equipment out of certain markets in the Northeast, Midwest and West Coast mirrors what we have seen during recent moving cycles.”

The pronounced uptick in people relocating to Connecticut over the past two years has many clamoring for more housing options as Connecticut’s real estate prices remain stubbornly high despite increased interest rates that typically drive demand down.

According to the Real Estate website Zillow, Connecticut’s typical single-family home is valued at $381,620, as of November 2023, an increase of more than $100,000 since July of 2020, and 64 percent of home sales are over the listed price.

Arkansas, Wyoming and Vermont saw the biggest increases of people relocating to those states since U-Haul’s 2022 study, according to the report.

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