People are leaving the Big Apple at record rates….
Big cities are losing their allure….
And some their economies ….
Blame it on the virus…..
The city IS downsizing….
The call of the suburbs has been heard….
While the moving industry is fractured among numerous small business owners, and official statistics are tough to come by, one thing is clear: From professionals who are downsizing following a job loss, to students moving back in with their parents, to families fleeing the city for the suburbs, New Yorkers are changing their addresses in droves.
According to FlatRate Moving, the number of moves it has done has increased more than 46 percent between March 15 and August 15, compared with the same period last year. The number of those moving outside of New York City is up 50 percent — including a nearly 232 percent increase to Dutchess County and 116 percent increase to Ulster County in the Hudson Valley.
“It felt like move-out day on a college campus,” said Bobby DelGreco, who recently vacated his apartment in Stuyvesant Town after nine years and is now living in a long-term Airbnb in Los Angeles. “All the doors were propped open, and there were moving trucks and furniture everywhere.”
Matt Jahn, who owns the Brooklyn-based Metropolis Moving, said he has been inundated with customer requests. It’s more demand than he can handle. “We are turning people away because we just don’t have the capacity,” he said. “Normally, in a given summer, we spend a bunch on advertising. But we cut it this year because we couldn’t afford it. And we have still had amazing demand.”
It certainly didn’t start out this way…..