For years, Florida and Texas have been the two loudest names in America’s relocation conversation, and housing analyst Nicholas Gerli says a fresh U-Haul migration update suggests that pattern didn’t suddenly end in 2025.
In a new breakdown on Reventure Consulting, Gerli points to U-Haul’s one-way rental rankings – data that tracks where people are renting trucks to move into – and says the headline is familiar: Texas ranks No. 1 and Florida No. 2 again, with a broader top 10 that’s packed with Sun Belt growth states.
But the more interesting point in his report is not the list itself; it’s the contradiction sitting right beside it, because many of these “top inbound” markets are also the same places where home prices and rents have started sliding.
So the question Gerli keeps coming back to is simple: if U-Haul still shows big inbound movement into Texas and Florida, why are so many of these markets still correcting, and what does that mean for housing in 2026?
The U-Haul Rankings Still Put Texas And Florida On Top
Gerli frames the new U-Haul release as a reality check for anyone who assumed the pandemic-era migration story is “over.” He says U-Haul’s updated 2025 movement figures still place Texas first and Florida second, and he notes that coverage he cites from Fox Business is pushing the idea that “blue state to red state” migration is still happening.
In his telling, the U-Haul data is capturing where people are choosing to relocate using one-way rentals, and it still points heavily toward the South and Southeast.
He lists U-Haul’s top 10 states for one-way inbound moves as: Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Washington, Arizona, Idaho, Alabama, and Georgia.
Then he tightens the lens further to the top inbound metro areas he cites from the same dataset: Dallas, Houston, Austin, Charlotte, Phoenix, Nashville, Charleston, Raleigh, Atlanta, and McAllen, Texas.
If you only look at those lists, it’s easy to jump to the same conclusion many realtors and local boosters have leaned on for years: “People are still moving here, so demand will stay strong.”
Gerli doesn’t deny migration matters. In fact, he says it still matters a lot, because where people move is where they rent apartments, buy homes, and compete for limited inventory.
But he also warns that the U-Haul story can be “true” and still fail to protect prices.
The Housing Market Is Correcting In The Same Places People Are Moving To
The heart of his argument is that the U-Haul list reads like a map of recent housing cool-downs, not a list of unstoppable boom states.
He points out that home values have been declining in multiple Sun Belt markets, including Texas and Florida, and he adds that rentals are sliding in many of the same places too.
That creates what he calls a confusing “what gives?” moment: if these are the top destinations, why are values dropping?
To answer that, he says you have to separate “direction” from “volume.”
A state can still be a net magnet compared to others, but the total number of people moving may be far smaller than it was when prices were exploding, especially in 2021 and 2022.
That difference – still positive migration, but much less of it – can be enough to flip a hot market into a correction if inventory rises and affordability strains demand.
This is where his framing gets sharper: the migration story didn’t necessarily reverse everywhere, but the “firehose” slowed down, and the housing market is reacting to the slower flow, not the old narrative.
The Missing Context: Movement Is Down, Even If The Rankings Look The Same
Gerli’s most direct critique is that rankings can hide a slowdown.
He says U-Haul keeps showing Texas and Florida near the top year after year, but that hasn’t stopped corrections – because the key isn’t only “where people are moving,” it’s “how many” are moving compared to the peak years.
He cites a Bank of America consumer checkpoint figure saying metro-to-metro and state-to-state migration is down about 30% from 2022, which he uses as proof that overall mobility has cooled even if the destination pattern still looks similar.
Then he puts more numbers to it using the Reventure App’s migration data, which he says is based on domestic migration data down to the county level.
In his telling, Florida’s domestic migration is down about 80% from where it was three years ago, and Texas is down about 70% over the same timeframe.
That’s the piece he says U-Haul isn’t showing you when you only look at who ranks first, second, and third.
It’s a pretty important distinction, because housing markets don’t price off the leaderboard; they price off marginal buyers, inventory, and the intensity of demand.
My own reaction is that this is one of those topics where people argue past each other because they’re using different yardsticks. One side sees “Texas #1, Florida #2” and assumes it means 2021 again, while the other side sees price drops and concludes the migration story is dead, when the more realistic version might be: the direction is similar, but the volume isn’t even close.
Florida And Texas: Still Popular, Still Falling In Many Places
Gerli spends a lot of time stressing that even “popular” markets can get hammered if they’re oversupplied, overpriced, or hit by rising costs like insurance.
He rattles off specific examples of price declines he says are already visible:
In Florida, he says some areas are down close to 20% over the last three years, with Cape Coral down around 15%, parts near St. Petersburg down around 15%, and even Miami starting to slip.
In Texas, he describes a “stiff correction,” with Austin down around 23%, Dallas down roughly 5–10% depending on where you look, San Antonio down over 10%, and Houston starting to go down as well.
His point isn’t that no one is moving to these places. It’s that migration alone hasn’t been strong enough to keep prices elevated when the rest of the market mechanics turned against them.
And that’s the part a lot of buyers miss, especially those who treat inbound demand like a protective shield.
If enough sellers list, if inventory rises, if mortgage rates stay high, and if affordability breaks, prices can fall even in places people still want to live.
A Detour That Explains The Bigger Point: Why Inventory And Costs Matter More Than Headlines
Midway through his video, Gerli shifts to where he’s filming: New Orleans, Louisiana, specifically a neighborhood he identifies as Ferret, near Uptown, south of Claiborne.
At first it seems like a travel-blog detour, but he uses it to make a housing-market point that ties back to Florida and Texas: what matters isn’t the narrative; what matters is pricing, inventory, and carrying costs.
He describes seeing a four-bedroom, three-bath home listed at $399,000 after what he says was a $199,000 price cut, and he emphasizes that the listing is below its price from 2017, which he calls “below pre-pandemic pricing.”
He points to other examples nearby: a renovated flip, a new build, and prices he says would be dramatically higher in places like Nashville if the same homes were transplanted into hotter markets.
Then he highlights what he believes is the major drag on New Orleans housing: insurance and flood insurance costs, which he says can push all-in monthly payments higher even when sale prices look “cheap.”
He also pushes back on the city’s reputation by arguing that crime has been declining, and he claims the Reventure App shows New Orleans as 12% undervalued, calling it one of the most undervalued markets in the country after a multi-year correction.
Whether someone agrees with his “undervalued” label or not, the broader lesson is solid: markets don’t move on vibes alone.
They move on affordability, risk, costs, inventory, and the willingness of buyers to step in at current prices.
So, Does U-Haul’s Migration Data Mean Housing Demand Will Rebound In 2026?
Gerli’s answer is cautious.
He acknowledges the U-Haul report is “interesting,” and he doesn’t dismiss migration as irrelevant. But he says the evidence so far suggests U-Haul rankings are not enough to call a rebound in the Sun Belt, because Texas and Florida have been near the top of the list for years and still rolled into corrections anyway.
In other words: the U-Haul leaderboard can tell you where people are moving more than other places, but it may not tell you whether demand is strong enough to lift prices – especially when the absolute number of movers is down sharply versus peak years.
He also makes a point that California can be on the opposite end of the U-Haul list and still see prices fall too, arguing that corrections are not limited to one “type” of state.
What he wants viewers to focus on instead is the local supply-and-demand picture: inventory levels, vacancy conditions, rent direction, and real-time price trend lines, which he argues will be more useful for anyone trying to decide whether to buy, wait, or negotiate.
My own take is that this is where housing coverage often gets lazy in a predictable way. People love a single number or a single list because it feels like certainty, but housing is a layered market where “more people moved in than moved out” can still coexist with “prices are falling,” especially if the move-in wave is smaller than before and new supply hits at the wrong time.
Florida and Texas can still be magnets and still be in a correction, and that’s not a contradiction – it’s just what happens when demand cools faster than the myth does.
What Buyers And Investors Should Watch Next
The practical conclusion Gerli is pushing is not “don’t move to Florida or Texas,” and it’s not “everything is crashing forever.”
It’s that you shouldn’t treat migration headlines as a substitute for market data, especially going into 2026 when affordability and inventory appear to be doing more of the heavy lifting than reputation.
If migration is still positive but slower, the question becomes whether that slower demand is enough to absorb rising listings without more price cuts.
And if it isn’t, the more likely outcome is what he keeps hinting at: more opportunities for buyers to negotiate, more pressure on overleveraged sellers, and more divergence between neighborhoods, even inside the same metro.
That’s the part worth remembering.
People can keep flocking to Florida and Texas in a general sense, and those states can still produce plenty of pockets where the housing market feels like it “flipped,” because in real estate, momentum breaks quietly first – and the headlines usually show up later.
Gary’s love for adventure and preparedness stems from his background as a former Army medic. Having served in remote locations around the world, he knows the importance of being ready for any situation, whether in the wilderness or urban environments. Gary’s practical medical expertise blends with his passion for outdoor survival, making him an expert in both emergency medical care and rugged, off-the-grid living. He writes to equip readers with the skills needed to stay safe and resilient in any scenario.
