In a sour home sales market, more people are staying put.
Rentals of U-Haul trucks bound both in and out of Reno dipped sharply last year. Compared to the year before, 2007 rental records show 88 percent fewer families moved into town and 91 percent fewer families moved out.
The reason, says a U-Haul spokeswoman, is probably the real estate market. Since the downturn, Californians can no longer sell a home and move to Nevada with a big chunk of change.
And while rural towns posted lesser declines, the headcount of people on the move was also down in Ely, Elko, Fallon and Carson City.
"Overall, the number of household goods moves was down for the industry, in part due to the stagnant housing market," said Greg Hoover, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Atlas Van Lines.
The figures make sense, says Brian Bonnenfant, GIS program manager with Geographic Information Services at University of Nevada, Reno.
"When you can't sell a house in California, you can't move and buy one somewhere else. The housing market will affect a lot of things, migration among them," the UNR researcher says.
Still, the Californians keep coming even if the flow isn't as strong as it was a couple of years ago. They top the list of new Nevada residents, according to records kept by moving companies.
And Nevada continues to attract people, ranking third among the states when in-bound household shipments are compared with out-bound, according to Atlas Van Lines' 2007 Migration Patterns study,
Nevada ranked second for inbound residents, says a similar study by United Van Lines.
Only Elko breaks the pattern of drawing largely from California. Situated on Nevada's eastern border, it attracted most of its newcomers from Idaho, And it sent more of its outbound residents to Utah, says the U-haul report.
Among about 170 newcomers who used Atlas to move to Reno, Carson, Fernley and Fallon, 62 came from California, the company says.
Among United Van Line customers, newcomers to Washoe County included 114 from California, 33 from Texas, 32 from Florida, 25 from Arizona and 24 from Oregon, says United.
Among outbound Washoe County residents who relied on United, 69 went to California, 37 to Washington, 35 to Texas and 25 to Colorado,
Newcomers to Carson City, the company says, hailed from Florida, Ohio and Texas, while emigrants went to Texas and Missouri.
In Douglas County, immigration was far and away from California, distantly followed by Colorado, Arizona and Texas. Emigrants went to California, Utah and Missouri.
