Texas named second-highest ‘growth state’ of 2020, U-Haul report says. Here’s why

The Lone Star State was a top destination for people relocating last year, according to a new report from U-Haul.

The moving company released its list of the the top growth states of 2020, and Texas nabbed the No. 2 spot.

Tennessee reigned supreme. Florida, Ohio and Arizona rounded out the top five.

Two Texas cities, Tyler and Conroe, also ranked among the top growth cities in 2020, landing in the 10th and 24 spots, respectively.

U-Haul determined its rankings by calculating the net gain of one-way U-Haul trucks entering the state versus leaving in 2020, the company said in a news release. U-Haul’s migration data is assembled using transaction information from its more than 2 million annual one-way truck rentals.

This isn’t the Lone Star State’s first year on the list. Texas had the highest net gain of incoming one-way U-Haul trucks in 2016, 2017 and 2018 before being unseated by Florida in 2019, the company said.

A report by moving consultation firm Move.org echoed U-Haul’s findings: Texas ranked second on its list of the top states people moved to in 2020 (Florida ranked first).

Move.org also ranked Texas third for states people were leaving most (California landed in the no. 1 spot).

Popular with tech companies

Texas has become a hot destination for tech companies and executives fleeing Silicon Valley. Last year, 35 companies left California for Austin — dubbed “Silicon Hills” — by November, according to Investopedia.

Additionally, Hewlett Packard Enterprise announced in December it would move its headquarters from San Jose, California, to a 440,000-square-foot campus in Houston, The Associated Press reported.

The same month, business software company Oracle announced a move from Redwood City, California, to Austin in an effort to give employees “more flexibility about where and how they work,” according to CNET.

Tesla and SpaceX chief executive Elon Musk also made headlines in December when he announced he had moved from California to Texas, due in part to the new Tesla factory near Austin, the Wall Street Journal reported. He’s also teased moving Tesla’s headquarters to Texas, but that has yet to come to fruition, according to CNN.

Other executives making the move include Dropbox CEO Drew Houston, who announced in November his plans to make Austin his permanent residence as well as Douglas Merritt, CEO of software company Splunk, according to Business Insider.

Austin has ‘great local flavor’

Experts say the San Francisco Bay Area’s expensive housing, high tax rates and strict regulations sent tech companies and executives looking for greener pastures, Investopedia reported. This along with the normalization of working from home during the coronavirus pandemic made it easier to justify leaving Silicon Valley, according to the outlet.

Laura Huffman, president and CEO of the Austin Chamber of Commerce, says Austin in particular catches companies’ eyes for its diverse and highly-educated population, CNN reported.

“I also would not underestimate the importance of quality of life,” Huffman told CNN. “There are a lot of things about this community — it’s got a great local flavor, a great music scene, it’s an outdoors city. That’s where people want to be. I think 2020 has taught us all that we have more choice when it comes to where we live.”

This story was originally published January 4, 2021 at 2:56 PM.