Equity exodus slows as lack of trucks hits moving firms.

Though it hardly' rises to the level of difficulty of those East Berliners who had to vault a wall and dodge bullets to get out of town, consider the quandary' of L.A.'s "equity refugees."

Sitting atop a housing market that has seen the median-priced L.A. County home increase in value by more than 77 percent since December 2001, many homeowners are cashing out and moving oil. The cashing out part has been relatively easy: moving on is another matter.

Moving companies serving Los Angeles are experiencing the busiest season in recent memory, a crush exacerbated by a shortage of trucks caused by more outward migration and fewer drivers.

The result is that folks who a year ago would have waited a week to get a mover come and collect their belongings are now waiting as long as a month, and in some cases paying a premium.

"People call and want to move next week," said Doug Hill, president of the California Moving and Storage Association, "'It's just not going to happen. They don't have the trucks."

Though more people are still coining to California than are leaving, the difference is diminishing, said Jack Kyser, chief economist at the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp.

And while hard numbers are not available for the Los Angeles area, it seems, anecdotally, that more trucks are leaving town than arriving.

"Los Angeles used to traditionally be an inbound city," said Chris Fries, a Beverly Hills agent for Allied Van Lines Inc. "But now everybody's moving out and nobody s moving in."

The destinations, moving trucks executives said, are places such as Nevada and Arizona.

Homeowners, flush with cash, are generally unaware of the lack of moving capacity and unpleasantly surprised when they call to make their getaways, said Dennis Doody, president of Blue Chip Moving in Hawthorne.

"People wait for escrows to close and then they call movers," said Doody, whose company is an agent for Mayflower Transit LLC. "As soon as you enter escrow you should go out and get an estimate."

Jill Kroening of Andy's Transfer, an Allied agent in Glendale, said the wait for a load date is more than three times as long as it used to be.

"In other years, it took five to 10 days. This year it takes about 30 days to get a shipment loaded," she said.

Customers who want to move to the Pacific Northwest have an even longer wait--until the end of August--Kroening said.

Calling for an estimate at the last minute could mean more than waiting. It adds to moving expenses, and also increases the risk of damage to household items.

When a national mover can't accommodate a customer's deadline, it generally offers "pick up and hold" service, taking the possessions and storing them until room opens up on a truck.

That extra move, said Kroening, adds a layer of risk. "There's more exposure to mishandling when that happens."

Through it all, moving company officials said they have found people willing to foot the higher bills, and they said they are seeing an increase in people willing to pay 10 percent more to move during peak times at the beginning and end of the month.

"It's never been this busy in 15 years," said Doody.

Like airlines, movers were hit hard by the slow economy of the past few years. As a result, many of the independent truckers who contract out to national moving companies were forced to either sell their rigs or move over into freight hauling.

"They got out and that really created a problem with capacity," Kroening said.

The last time the Los Angeles area saw people leaving the city in such numbers was in the early '90s, when L.A. was racked by the recession, then the riots, then the earthquake.

"This is a supply and demand situation. The population is growing but we're not building enough to accommodate it," he said.

Rather than running from a bad economy, today's Angelenos are moving to places such as Phoenix and Denver as "equity refugees," afraid they'll miss the top of the housing market, holding on to their homes too long and missing the big money.

And yet, said Kyser, those who do manage to get a truck to take them away are likely to one day find their way back.

"People go elsewhere and they understand Los Angeles has warts, but it has its advantages."