Can some guys with experience help me understand the FL outbound market?

Ok, let me preface this a bit. I used to drive Reefer trucks and of course, I know the typical FL issue. It pays well going in but pays very bad going out for general freight. I opted to step out with my own numbers a bit over a year ago. I had the option to either buy a used Semi and run under someone else or set up my own MC and run a hotshot set up. I opted for the hotshot set up and considering the whole trade war and covid I've managed to survive and I'm still going.

My question is I'm based here in FL and run interstate. I tend to not go past NM/CO nor into the NE usually PA, OH, is as far as I go that way. Most of the time I've been running regional runs FL, AL, MS, LA, TX,OK, AR, TN, NC, SC is usually the areas I run in.

I started out as hotshot freight and limped through the trade war and just as things were coming back with freight COVId hit and decimated the freight. Due to that, I started hauling cars during this whole COVId thing cars have been off the map until recently. My trailer is a low boy flat deck that can carry 2 cars but I was getting $700 a car out of CFL to go to LA. or $800 to 900 a car to go to TX, OK or AR. I'd usually go from those destinations into NC,SC or TN then back to FL. Sometimes I'd do it reversed to the Carolinas first but usually paid better to run west 1st then back east. I'd usually do a 5-6 day loop and pull in $3,5-4k just hauling 2 expedited cars in that region.

Anyway, I'm curious if anyone can tell me why the rates were so good out of FL the last 6 - 8 months but as of recently have died.

My standard search was 100 mile radius of ORL with a destination, SC, NC, TN, GA, AL, MS, LA, TX, OK, AR with a min price of $400 and min per mile .70 and I was getting 200+ hits on that search for months..

Today that same search shows 2 cars.. If I drop it to min $300/.60/mile it's only 8 cars.

My question is what caused the rates to be so high outbound from FL the last 6-8 months and why did they suddenly fall off the face of the earth? Is it a summer thing with FL? Because I remember last year when I was mostly doing freight cars were really bad then too. Was there some oddity that spiked the rates out of FL?

 

So is that something that happens each year is is it due to the Covid situation?

 

You know what's screwed is while the rate was high the last few months I was actually having problems getting back into FL at a decent rate.