This Small Houston Suburb Named A National Top Growth City In 2020

The city of Conroe, Texas, saw some of the highest rates of inbound do-it-yourself movers in the U.S. during 2020, according to a U-Haul analysis of its truck customer data.

Conroe, which lies 40 miles north of Houston and has a population of about 90,000 people, was ranked 24th on the annual list. People coming to Conroe in one-way U-Haul trucks increased 17% during the past year, while departures rose less than 13% from 2019.

Overall, arrivals accounted for 51.5% of all one-way U-Haul traffic in Conroe during 2020. The city was not among the top 25 growth cities for 2019, but the Spring/The Woodlands market, immediately to the south of Conroe, ranked 14th a year ago.

The findings support an earlier Apartment List report that indicated more people are looking to move into the Houston area than to leave it.

The only other Texas city to make U-Haul’s new top 25 is Tyler, a city of about 109,000 people east of Dallas that came in at 10th place. People coming to Tyler increased by 21% in 2020, while departures rose by just 9%, U-Haul data showed. Arrivals accounted for 53% of all one-way traffic.

Growth cities are calculated by the net gain of one-way U-Haul trucks entering a city versus leaving that city in a calendar year. Migration trends data is compiled from more than 2 million one-way U-Haul truck customer transactions that occur annually.

Florida dominated the list of top destinations. North Port in Sarasota County, Florida, took the top spot on the list for 2020. Arrivals of one-way U-Haul trucks into North Port jumped 40%, while departures rose just 13% compared to the city’s 2019 numbers. Arrivals accounted for 62.3% of all one-way U-Haul traffic into the North Port area.

Kissimmee, Florida, ranked second, while Port St. Lucie, Florida, ranked third. A total of 13 growth cities in the top 25 are in the Southeast, with five in Florida. 

Additional U.S. growth cities with substantial spikes in customer arrivals include Knoxville, Tennessee (23%), Asheville, North Carolina (28%), and Charleston, South Carolina (40%).

U-Haul migration trends do not correlate directly to population or economic growth, but the growth data can offer a snapshot of how well cities and states are attracting and maintaining residents.