Mountain Migration
Relocating is consistently rated as one of the most stressful experiences in life. Nevertheless, the coronavirus has made an impact on motivating people to move. More than 1 in 10 Americans have moved during the pandemic according to a new survey from Zillow, touted as the most-visited real estate website in the country. Among those recent movers, three-quarters say they moved for positive reasons, such as living in an area of which they've always dreamed.
"Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is a necessity."
― John Muir
Moving companies like North American Moving Services, Hire A Helper, and United Van Lines track our moving patterns each year and publish their findings. A key takeaway from the North American report is that Idaho State continues to rank at or near the top in the nation for inbound moves.
According to the study by Hire A Helper, COVID-19 has been a significant impetuous for relocation decisions. Their data show in July of 2020, 15% of movers cited the pandemic as the reason for their relocation. By December of last year, that number had increased to 25%.
As employers scrambled to remain operational, within some industries the pandemic increased the possibility that more employees could continue working remotely and live anywhere. Around the country, urban-dwelling workers have realized their work will be able to be performed from afar even when the pandemic is in our rearview mirror. Living and working in remote communities from which a daily commute didn’t make sense pre-2020, now are more feasible when a once-a-week drive is considered.
Eily Cummings, director of corporate communications at United Van Lines, states. “As more people experience job and lifestyle changes amid the pandemic like remote working, we’re seeing they have more flexibility in where they can live – many choosing to move from urban to more rural areas.”
Twenty-six years ago, at Labor Day Weekend my husband and I were married in the upper meadows of the Boulder Mountains. We didn’t own a home in the Wood River Valley then. When each anniversary of our wedding cycled around, we would plan a trip to Sun Valley enveloping the end of August and early days of September. The days that followed our sixth wedding anniversary prompted our personal decision to move and make a new life. We arrived back at our Washington State home on the evening of September 10, 2001. We awoke the following morning to the reality of the terrorist attacks against the United States and the heartache worldwide. 9/11 turned out to be our mountain migration motivation. We changed our formerly fixed mindset that convinced us we needed an urban community to sustain our careers. Sun Valley has been our home since 2002.
Naturalist John Muir elevated nature over civilization. Within his twelve books and hundreds of published articles, he preferred the simplest of English, and his writing style was always concise.
“The mountains are calling, and I must go." ― John Muir
DISCLOSURE: Mountain Migration. Suzanne Hazlett, MBA, CIMA®, CFP®, is a Certified Investment Management Analyst® and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNERTM. HAZLETT WEALTH MANAGEMENT, LLC is independent of Raymond James and is not a registered broker/dealer. Investment advisory services are offered through Raymond James Financial Services Advisors, Inc. Securities offered through Raymond James Financial Services, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. 675 Sun Valley Road Ketchum, Idaho, 208.726.0605. HazlettWealthManagement.com
