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Ra large number of residents have left California in recent years, But in 2020, the growth of remote working, the lure of cheaper housing and an unprecedented summer of wildfires have accelerated the trend. As a result, the moving business in the San Francisco Bay Area is booming, but the boom has come with its own issues.
Moving trucks are hard to find, prices to get out of the bay are sky-high, and the market supply – with high upfront costs and because movers are required to obtain state licenses – has been slow. to react.
The shortage has created openings for an underground moving economy with crooks taking advantage of California’s desperate escapees, left with no easy options.
Moving companies across the bay said they had been booked months in advance over the summer. This continued throughout the fall – typical years the industry lulls after kids start school. A spokesperson for the Gentle Giant moving company said they made three times as many moves out of San Francisco in September 2020 than a year earlier.
Even at U-Haul stores – the rental truck retailer with the largest fleet in the United States – trucks are scarce. With so many trucks leaving the Bay Area, the exodus has left an imbalance of returning vehicles. The shortage has driven up prices for trucks for one-way trips out of town.
“Two households leave California for each of them,” says Mark Perry, professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan who has been studying the migration market in the United States for several years. “U-Haul is fixing it based on the imbalance they see and there is now a shortage of trucks in San Francisco.”
U-Haul regularly changes truck prices, but Perry has noted the trend over time. Checking online recently, he noted that trucks going from Phoenix to San Francisco cost just $ 311, but the other way around it cost $ 2,500 – about eight times that. He checked cities for other top destinations for Californians, including Texas, Washington and Nevada, and found that all outgoing fares were exponentially higher than incoming fares.
Strong demand and high prices have created perfect market conditions for the operation. The crooks take it.
“There are hostage cases where a mover will take possession of the goods after agreeing a price with the consumer, and then they won’t return them unless the consumer pays well over the agreed price,” says Yeaphana La Marr, acting head of the California Bureau of Household Goods and Services, which regulates the moving industry. “Some just take the business and they are never seen again by the people who signed a contract for a move.”
The agency is also trying to crack down on new movers entering the booming market without a license or state insurance required. Legitimate movers complete an application, pass a test, undergo a background check, and set up a $ 500 application fee to obtain a license, and they must prove they have the resources and coverage to operate.
“Unlicensed activity is a major problem in the household moving industry and it causes a lot of harm to consumers,” says La Marr. It’s an accident-prone industry and customers could be in a bind if they unknowingly hire a mover who doesn’t have liability or workers’ compensation insurance.
The moving underground economy is hard to follow, but La Marr says the office is conducting investigations based on advice from the public or other agencies, including local law enforcement. The office has seen a 74% increase in consumer complaints about movers since last year. “We don’t know if Covid is a contributor or if there are other factors, such as better knowledge of the office,” she adds, explaining that her agency has not taken over the administration of the regulations of moving industry than in 2018.
When an unauthorized mover is arrested, the state will work with them to obtain a permit, but some violators face citations, fines and, in some cases, jail time.
“For the most flagrant offenders, we would make a [district attorney] removal and that would be judged criminally, ”La Marr says, adding that offenders can be charged up to $ 10,000 per move. “The penalties are really high. It is therefore shocking to see the scale of the underground economy. “
Movers without a permit also make it harder for legitimate movers, who now have to compete with low bids from less experienced workers and more flexible deadlines.
“It’s a job. This is a difficult work. To do it again and again and to do it well, it takes a high degree of skill and physical ability, ”says Steve Weitekamp, who heads the California Moving and Storage Association. While this has been a good year for business, he says his members have struggled to navigate, especially with limited abilities.
Moving companies struggled to keep up. A spokesperson for Gentle Giant said several movers took voluntary leave due to family responsibilities and fears of catching the virus when the Covid-19 crisis hit, squeezing already depleted resources..
“We’re essential front-line workers and we’re placed in different environments every day, so it’s high risk,” says La Marr. “Because of Covid, due to the high demand, we are not able to handle everyone when they want.” He was frustrated to see customers flocking to fast service and low prices rather than relying on trusted suppliers. It can come at a high cost.
“It’s a weird scenario where you take everything you own, give it to someone you’ve never met before and they close the doors of the truck and leave,” he says. “You just hope they come to the new residence.”
Chris Mayer, vice president of Macy’s Movers, a family-owned business that has operated in the Bay Area for more than 100 years, says he tries to walk potential clients through the steps legitimate movers take, to show them why an unbelievably low quote could end up costing more in the end. He said this year he saw a lot more stress.
“It’s horrible. Customers call us crying,” he says. “They’re scared. There are movers who did not show up. There are movers who do not call them back. They can’t even find U-Haul trucks. I have never seen a major panic like this in my life.
But his calendar has been booked for weeks. People who haven’t planned in advance or who have been trapped have to wait. “Consumers just need to be aware,” he says. “[Offenders] know they got them where they want them because people are desperate to move tomorrow.
Mayer, who has spent his life in California, says he understands why people go there. While business is still booming in what is typically a dead-year time of the year, he sees no sign that departures are slowing down. “It’s supposed to calm down, but it’s still crazy there,” he says.
People who lift and carry goods for a living also face obstacles alongside opportunities. Angelo Tavare, a 50-year-old Bay Area mover who has been in and out of the company for the past 30 years, says for the first time in his career that he has had to take on four consecutive jobs a day – even when the environmental conditions are far from ideal.
He worked during the early days of the pandemic when little was known about the transmission of the virus, when the smoke from wildfires was so thick it obscured the sun, when the air quality was unsafe, and during the heat waves that were pushing local temperatures into triple digits. .
“It was killing me,” he says, adding that when the air quality is bad, things go slower. “You feel it, you really do.”
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