ask someone at UHaul how much does it cost to rent one-way from Calif to anywhere in the midwest? Then ask someone in that midwest city how much does it cost to rent one-way to Calif? Bet you find it is 4 times higher to leave Calif because nobody is moving to Calif to return the empty trailers. Calif land of opportunity exists only for the immigrant arriving with not much on their back or via an airplane from Asia. Same think is true about their companies the big ones are leaving for other places with less regulation and lower taxes. One bonus they find -- better schools, Calif is 47th.
I beg to point out another fact on this "one way rental" stuff. We left CA last fall. Couldn't get a one-way RV out of the state. Know why? SMOG II regulations. SMOG II regulations ensure that every single truck, rv, u-haul, etc., NATIONWIDE can pass "SMOG II" regulations. Too darned expensive and problematic for most businesses.
When my mothers Alzheimers got really bad, I decided to move her out of California, and take her back up to Washington state to live with me and my family, so I could care for her...this was in 1990..Dad had died in 1989.
We rented a Ryder...the biggest they have, as mom had a whole house full of furniture and her collections from 45 years of her and dad being married...
At that time, 1990, it cost me about 1500 dollars to rent that Ryder...but they told me, if I was going the opposite direction, from Washington State, to California, I could probably have gotten the same size Ryder for free...they would be willing to forego the rental fee, just to get the truck back into the state of California...
On the other hand, I have tons of relatives who live in California, love it there, and will never move...they live in Petaluma, Ukiah, Redwood Valley, and Willits...the cost of housing in Petaluma is ridiculous, as it is considered a suburb of San Francisco..one of my cousins lives in Petaluma, was born there, and will die there..but the pice of housing there is absurd......the further north you go, the prices of the homes seems to go down...a cousin living in Willits, has a lovely house on 9 acres, and what he paid really was not out of line...
Uhaul wanted $1700 to move from Van Nuys to Salt Lake City. I went to Budget and it was half the price.