Moving is expensive.
There are many factors that can play a role in the costs associated with running a moving company such as U-Haul.
Let’s discuss some of the reasons U-Haul truck rentals are so expensive.
Why Is U-Haul So Expensive? (Top 10 Reasons)
U-Haul is the go-to moving truck rental company, and they have been for at least as long as I can remember.
Every time someone says they are moving to a new house, you can bet your bottom dollar that a U-Haul truck is going to be involved.
Let’s try to put our finger on the reason.
Right now, people are moving more than they usually do, but that’s just one reason.
In point of fact, there are many reasons U-Haul can command higher prices.
1. It Depends On Your A & B Locations
The U-Haul corporation has locations in almost every town and city in the United States.
In theory, that should make it easier for them to send and receive their own rental trucks coming from any location in the country.
Because they have such massive infrastructure, they can more or less ask any price they want.
However, your price will increase if you are coming from a location where higher prices are sustainable.
In other words, they can charge what people will pay, and there are at least a couple of factors to consider.
If people are desperate to get out of an area, U-Haul can charge more.
If people are more affluent, again, U-Haul can charge more.
At the moment of this writing, many thousands of people are moving from California to Texas.
At the same time, many New Yorkers and other east coast denizens are flocking to Florida.
The reasons for this are many and interesting, and we will get into them over the course of this article.
For now, suffice to say that political pressure, regulations, and high taxes are all driving people to seek better conditions.
At this point in history, New York and California are both affluent areas, and demand for moving trucks is very high in both locations.
That’s a double whammy in terms of demand. U-Haul knows these people want to move out of those areas very badly, and they know they can afford to pay higher prices.
This is nothing new for the U-Haul company.
Prices have never been static for their rental moving trucks.
Neither have the prices of things like gas and insurance ever been static.
2. Demand Is Through The Roof
At the time this is being written, it is the middle of the month of June.
That is peak moving time.
People tend to get active in the summertime.
Crime rates go up, impulse buying goes up, and so do home sales and purchases.
In fact, the Microsoft News Network released an article this week warning people to watch out for scammers looking to exploit people in search of cheaper moving truck rental services.
In a few cases, people have paid for services that didn’t exist, and in a handful of instances, people actually loaded their belongings onto trucks that were driven away by thieves.
Demand is extraordinarily high for the reasons discussed above, but it’s also high because this is the time of year when college students start packing up and moving into dormitories and student housing.
In researching the topic, it became clear that local news stations all across the country are reporting on the fact that moving companies like U-Haul are doing a heck of a lot of business right now.
One study shows that the major moving companies aren’t the only ones raking in the dough.
Storage rental facilities are also making a killing at this time.
It stands to reason that these related services would see a rise in rates at the same time since they are very much interconnected.
The bad news is that the projections on the “self-storage” show that the prices of these and related services are projected to continue to rise for the remainder of the decade.
In fact, the Data Bridge research shows that storage service prices can be expected to double by the year 2027.
You can be sure that moving truck rental services will follow in lockstep.
3. The Cost of Living is High
With all of the unrest over the last couple of years, and especially the previous 18 months, there is but one predictable result: a higher cost of living.
People are feeling the pinch at the gas pump, the grocery store, in their utility bills, and in just about every other area of life.
The reasons for this are many and varied, but they can be boiled down to the fact that when things are chaotic, it becomes more difficult and more expensive to get anything done.
One area where the cost of living can be most meaningfully measured is food prices.
People all across the nation are complaining that food prices are on an upward trend and have been for at least a year.
What’s more, an increasing number of people are buying emergency rations and long-term storage food.
The reasons for this are complex, but it strikes fear into the hearts of food manufacturers and retailers, and they raise their prices.
It’s important to understand that with higher food prices, the cost of everything else will also rise.
Because everyone has to eat, higher food prices mean higher costs across the board as service providers, workers, and manufacturers raise their prices as they struggle to keep up.
4. Gas Prices Are Soaring
Gas prices have been on the rise since the start of the year, and it doesn’t look like it’s going to stop any time soon.
At the moment, gas prices are at their highest point in three years.
Gas prices will go up and down from time to time.
However, this is really a cost that is out of our hands and truly out of the hands of U-Haul.
If you are moving across town, chances are the price of gas will not impact your U-Haul pricing all that much.
However, if you are moving across state lines, the pricing is going to be greatly impacted.
One of the things you can do is try and watch the time of year when you need your U-Haul.
If you are moving during the summer months, the price of gas is typically a bit higher.
For those moving during the colder months, you may get a better deal on the gas prices.
Of course, in the end, you can’t let the price of gas ultimately impact your decision to rent a U-Haul, but it is one of the things that makes them more expensive.
When you rent a U-Haul for the day, week, or several weeks, you are the one who is responsible for all of the gas that is put into the vehicle.
5. Lingering Effects Of The Pandemic
The fear and the restrictions over the Coronavirus pandemic are backing off, and they are expected to continue to back off.
One of the major impacts of the pandemic was the importance of home.
People decided that it was very important to have a home base where they felt comfortable and secure.
With the combination of the low mortgage rates and the desire to have a stable and safe home base, the real estate market went crazy.
With all of the moving and transferring from one state to another, people realized that the cheapest way to do this was on their own.
Of course, in order to move on your own, you are going to need a moving truck.
A rental from U-Haul is the perfect solution in this situation as it will get you from point A to point B for much less money than a traditional mover.
Of course, this increase in the action in the real estate market has made a significant impact on the number of trucks that U-Haul is renting out.
They can barely keep up with the demand because of this strength in the market.
What happens when a company can’t keep up with the demand?
They simply start raising the prices.
With the mortgage rates staying low, this increase in the number of people purchasing homes will likely continue for quite some time.
6. Marketing And Branding
U-Haul is not new to the world of personal transport.
This is a company that has been in the industry for many years, and they know their business well.
U-Haul is well aware of the fact that people have a choice when it comes to truck rental companies.
Therefore, these companies are very determined to market and grab as many customers as they can.
One of the issues we notice with marketing is that it will end up costing the consumer in the end.
You may think the latest U-Haul commercials are entertaining or funny, but when you decide to rent the U-Haul, you will end up paying for this.
The money that U-Haul spends to obtain you as a customer will need to be recuperated somewhere.
Chances are it will be in the price you pay to rent your U-Haul.
Marketing costs are not going to go down anytime soon.
With all the potential business out there to grab, the company is going to continue to work towards bringing in as much business as it possibly can.
For U-Haul, when trucks are sitting in the lot, there is still money to be made.
7. The Recent Forest Fires Aren’t Helping
Just this morning, NBC Los Angeles reported that 700 acres are burning in the San Bernardino forest.
Sadly, with widespread fires, people almost always end up needing to relocate to new homes.
This drives up the cost of moving in at least two ways.
For a start, it drives demand up.
Second, it eliminates some of the most direct travel routes.
This means that the cost of renting, using, and insuring a U-Haul truck is going to be higher for those who live in these areas, as well as for those whose travel routes would usually take them through these areas.
In the summertime, there is always a spike in the number of forest fires in California and all around the southwest.
It’s a heavily forested part of the continent, and it also tends to get dangerously dry this time of year.
Forest fires in climates of this kind are normal during the warmer months, but the presence of campers, automobiles, and humans in general always drives up the chance of woodland fires.
Another side effect of forest fires is reduced air quality.
Automobiles need oxygen in order to burn fuel.
With more smoke and soot in the air, carburetors are struggling to function.
This means lower fuel efficiency and higher fuel consumption.
It also means that U-Haul trucks will need more maintenance at the end of the season.
U-Haul will undoubtedly raise its prices to offset the anticipated expense.
8. Insurance Prices Are Up
The latest Consumer Price Index indicates that automobile insurance rates went up by nearly 17% in May after a 6.5% increase in April.
Rates went down during the pandemic because people were traveling less, but also because people could not afford as much insurance as they normally would buy.
The increases of the last couple of months come with raised hopes about the end of the lockdowns as more people are expected to hit the roads.
Insurance companies always raise rates at the start of summer, but this year, they are trying to recover some of what they have lost, as is everyone else.
When you rent a U-Haul truck, you must either pay for insurance upfront, or you will reimburse the company for their insurance costs when you pay the bill.
Regardless of how the particular office you rent from does business, U-Haul is not interested in paying any premiums that they can get you to pay for, and since insurance rates are up, so are U-Haul rental rates.
9. People Are Migrating in Droves
Just as higher food rates trigger a generally higher cost of living, increased migration rates have a compounding effect.
When people move, others follow.
After all, Americans are both tribalistic and nomadic.
You can probably see the effects in your own social circles.
When a number of people relocate to a specific area, people who don’t want to lose touch with them tend to follow.
The migration trends mentioned above are not the only ones going on at the moment.
It so happens that people are moving out of big cities and heading for rural areas.
North Carolina is another spot that’s bringing in a lot of transplants.
This is going on at a smaller scale in spots all over the country, and U-Haul is not going to let this opportunity pass them by.
10. There Aren’t A Lot Of Options (That People Know About)
There are alternatives to U-Haul, but not many, and no other truck rental company can be found in every town, village, and province across the country.
U-Haul has successfully kept a boot on the neck of any potential competition with their sheer ubiquity.
Most of the time, when people move, they just reflexively think of U-Haul and U-Haul alone.
You can bet that the nation’s most prevalent moving truck rental company knows this, and they aren’t about to release their chokehold on the moving truck rental market any time soon.
Finally, U-Haul Is Pricey Because They Can Get Away With It
Of course, all of the factors mentioned above contribute to today’s high U-Haul rental prices, but it’s important to keep in mind the fact that U-Haul can always change their prices for reasons that are unique to their industry.
We’ve covered those reasons above, but the one reason that remains unaddressed is the fact that their massive diversity of locations gives them some extra leeway for price gouging.
This is something that has become less of a problem with the rise of the Internet, but it is still in effect.
Historically, moving companies like U-Haul could charge high prices in one area and cheaper prices in another simply because the market will bear it.
Before the Internet, however, it was difficult for people to see what prices were in other locations.
Today, they maintain pricing dominance as they have been able to keep the competition from gaining much of a foothold.
At the end of the day, U-Haul’s prices are high because they are the only game in town.
If you want to look for an alternative, your best bet might be your friend with a truck.
If you have access to a truck, using it will certainly be cheaper than renting from U-Haul, and it might just be the only viable alternative in your area.
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Why Is Lamb So Expensive? (Top 10 Reasons)
