College Hunks Moving

Every year, roughly 28 million Americans move to a new home, generating a U.S. moving services industry valued at over $21 billion, and yet most consumers approach that experience with genuine dread — the fear of damaged goods, unreliable crews, hidden fees, and the indignity of handing over their most prized possessions to strangers. College Hunks Moving emerged from exactly that consumer frustration, built on the conviction that junk removal and moving services could be professionaliz­ed, branded, and delivered with consistent quality at scale. The concept traces back to the summer of 2003, when co-founder Omar Soliman, then just 21 years old, borrowed his mother's cargo van to haul junk in the suburbs of Washington, D.C. — a side hustle that would eventually become one of the most recognizable names in the residential and commercial moving space. Soliman and his best friend since high school, Nick Friedman, formalized that idea into a business plan that won an entrepreneurship competition at the University of Miami, and the company officially launched operations in 2005. College HUNKS Hauling Junk and Moving began franchising in 2007, establishing itself as the first franchised moving and junk removal company in the United States — a pioneering distinction that gave it a structural head start over every competitor that followed. The company relocated its headquarters to Tampa, Florida in 2008, where it now operates with over 250 team members providing direct support to franchisees across the network. As of early 2026, there were 211 College Hunks Moving franchise locations across the United States, with additional units operating in Canada, and the brand has a documented presence in over 36 states with territory availability across all 50. The current leadership team includes co-founder Nick Friedman serving as Co-founder and Visionary, Omar Soliman as Co-founder, Roman Cowan as Brand President, and Marc Richard as Chief Operating Officer — a management structure that balances entrepreneurial DNA with operational discipline. This analysis is independent research, not marketing copy, and is designed to help serious franchise investors evaluate the College Hunks Moving franchise opportunity against real financial benchmarks, competitive context, and system-level data.

The industry in which College Hunks Moving operates is far larger and more durable than most investors initially assume. The U.S. moving services market alone exceeds $21 billion in annual revenue, and when combined with junk removal — a segment that has grown rapidly as e-commerce returns, household downsizing, and estate clearing have all accelerated — the total addressable market for a dual-service brand like College Hunks Moving expands considerably. The junk removal segment, once dominated entirely by independent operators, has attracted increasing franchise investment precisely because it is labor-intensive, locally executed, and resistant to digital disruption. Consumer demand for these services is driven by a confluence of secular forces: the aging of the Baby Boomer generation creating massive estate clearance and downsizing activity, a national housing turnover market that despite interest rate headwinds still processes millions of transactions annually, and a growing small business sector that requires commercial junk removal and office relocation services. The home services sector broadly has proven to be one of the most recession-resilient categories in franchising, a fact that became particularly visible during 2020 and 2021, when College Hunks Moving recorded a record 40 new franchisees joining the system in a single year and was positioned to open 50 new locations in 2021 alone. The competitive landscape remains fragmented at the local level, with thousands of independent movers and junk haulers operating without standardized pricing, trained crews, or recognizable branding — which is precisely the white space that a franchised system with national marketing infrastructure, a centralized call center, and uniform quality standards is built to capture. Secular tailwinds including increased consumer preference for app-based booking, real-time job tracking, and insured professional crews continue to shift market share away from unbranded independents and toward franchised systems with technology platforms. This dynamic makes the College Hunks Moving franchise opportunity particularly relevant to investors evaluating home services as a long-term category play rather than a short-term trade.

Evaluating the College Hunks Moving franchise cost requires working through several layers of data, as investment ranges have been reported across multiple disclosure periods and reflect the dual-service nature of the brand — franchisees operate both junk removal and moving lines from a single franchise agreement. The standard franchise fee is $75,000, which covers both business lines, though historical disclosures have cited ranges from $55,000 to $75,000 depending on the reporting period. Qualified veterans receive a $7,500 discount on the franchise fee, provided they maintain at least a 51 percent vested interest in the business — a meaningful incentive in a category that tends to attract service-minded entrepreneurs with military backgrounds. Conversion opportunities exist for established independent operators at a fee of $40,000 minus 10 percent of the previous year's gross sales, reducing the barrier to entry for owners looking to affiliate their existing business with a national brand. Additional territory expansion is priced at $35,000 per full zone or $15,000 per 100,000 population for fractional zones. The total initial investment to open a College Hunks Moving franchise has been reported across multiple ranges depending on timing and format: $250,000 to $350,000 as a commonly cited mid-range figure, $258,000 to $481,000 as of October 2025, and $250,000 to $480,500 as of March 2026, with that spread driven primarily by truck count, market size, and the degree of pre-opening marketing investment. The $250,000 to $480,500 range cited in the most recent disclosure periods covers trucks, equipment, uniforms, initial marketing, training, access to proprietary technology, and the national call center infrastructure. Ongoing fees total 10 percent of gross sales in combined royalty, brand development, and technology obligations: the royalty rate is 7 percent of gross sales paid monthly, the Brand Development Fee is 2 percent of gross sales, and the Technology Fee is 1 percent of gross sales. Franchisees are additionally required to spend on local marketing at the greater of $1,500 or 8 percent of gross sales for moving services, or $1,100 or 8 percent of gross sales for junk removal services. A $5,000 renewal fee applies at the end of the franchise term. Minimum liquid capital required to qualify is $75,000. Relative to the broader home services franchise category, where royalty rates of 5 to 9 percent are standard and total investment requirements for truck-based businesses commonly exceed $300,000, the College Hunks Moving franchise investment profile is consistent with industry norms while offering the scale advantages of one of the most established systems in the segment.

Daily operations for a College Hunks Moving franchisee are built around managing a crew-based, truck-deployed service model that requires strong people management, scheduling discipline, and customer experience execution. The franchisee's core responsibilities center on hiring, training, and retaining the team members — the "HUNKS" — who physically execute each job, managing job scheduling and dispatch, maintaining trucks and equipment, and executing local marketing activity to sustain lead volume. The staffing model is labor-intensive relative to asset-light franchise categories, but the national call center infrastructure handled centrally by the corporate support team removes a significant operational burden from the franchisee's daily workflow, allowing owner-operators to focus on local execution rather than inbound call management. The Tampa headquarters houses over 250 team members who provide ongoing support across operations, marketing, technology, and franchisee coaching — a support infrastructure that is substantial relative to a system of approximately 200 locations, suggesting meaningful per-franchisee resource allocation. Training programs are designed to prepare franchisees for both the junk removal and moving service lines, covering truck operations, crew management, customer experience standards, proprietary technology platforms, and local marketing execution. Territory structure is defined by population zones, with the option to hold multiple territories — a structure that incentivizes franchisee growth, as evidenced by the striking statistic that 70 percent of College Hunks Moving franchisees own multiple territories. That multi-territory ownership rate is one of the strongest signals of franchisee confidence and satisfaction in any franchise system, because it represents franchisees making a voluntary additional capital commitment to the same brand after experiencing its economics firsthand. The operating model is owner-operator oriented rather than absentee, particularly during the startup phase, though multi-unit operators who build sufficient organizational depth can transition to a more manager-led model over time.

Item 19 financial performance data is not disclosed in the current Franchise Disclosure Document for this College Hunks Moving franchise profile, which means prospective investors cannot rely on an FDD-sourced average revenue or profit margin figure for direct underwriting purposes. This is a meaningful gap in the due diligence picture, and any serious investor should request earnings representations directly from existing franchisees during the validation process — a step that is not only recommended but legally protected under FTC franchise disclosure rules. What public system-level data does reveal is instructive: the brand reported 54.7 percent expansion in the three years prior to February 2023 according to Entrepreneur, and the system experienced 337 percent systemwide growth over seven years through 2020 — growth trajectories that are difficult to sustain without unit-level economics that encourage franchisees to reinvest and expand. The fact that 70 percent of franchisees own multiple territories is among the most reliable indirect indicators of unit-level profitability available in the absence of Item 19 disclosure, because franchisees who are not generating meaningful returns do not voluntarily purchase additional zones at $35,000 each. Industry benchmarks for truck-based junk removal and moving businesses suggest that well-run single-territory operations in population-dense markets can generate annual revenues ranging from $500,000 to over $1 million, with operating margins in the 15 to 25 percent range before owner compensation, depending heavily on truck utilization rates, crew efficiency, and local marketing effectiveness. The dual-service model — offering both junk hauling and full moving services — is a meaningful revenue diversification advantage over single-service competitors, allowing franchisees to capture a broader share of the residential and commercial services wallet and to cross-sell between service lines on the same customer call. Payback periods in comparable truck-based home services franchises with similar investment profiles and revenue ranges typically fall in the three to five year window, though that figure is highly sensitive to market size, franchisee operational quality, and the speed at which the local brand builds awareness. The absence of Item 19 disclosure makes independent franchisee validation conversations, territory-specific market analysis, and review of the FDD Item 20 franchisee contact list essential components of pre-investment due diligence.

The growth trajectory of the College Hunks Moving franchise system is one of the most compelling data points in its investment profile. The brand has more than quadrupled its footprint over the preceding decade, more than doubled since 2010, and added 12 franchises in 2019, 15 in 2020, and 23 in 2021 — net new unit additions that compare favorably with the broader franchising universe, where most systems average single-digit annual additions in the sub-200-unit range. The 2020 figure of 40 new franchisees joining the system in a single year is particularly notable given that 2020 was a year of extraordinary economic disruption, suggesting that the brand's home services positioning and recession-resilience narrative resonated with investors who were looking for essential-services businesses. As of early 2026, the 211 domestic locations are geographically concentrated in Florida and Texas, each with 22 locations representing approximately 10.4 percent of the total system, with the top ten states collectively accounting for 55 percent of all locations — a distribution that reflects both population density logic and the ongoing opportunity to deepen penetration in underrepresented markets. The competitive moat that College Hunks Moving has constructed rests on several reinforcing pillars: first-mover advantage as the pioneer franchised moving and junk removal company in the United States; a national call center that centralizes customer acquisition and scheduling infrastructure in a way that independent operators cannot replicate; a dual-service model that expands the addressable revenue opportunity per territory; proprietary technology that connects job dispatch, customer communication, and franchisee performance tracking; and a brand identity that has built genuine consumer recognition over two decades. The brand's investment in marketing infrastructure, including the 2 percent Brand Development Fee that funds national advertising and brand awareness programs, creates a marketing scale advantage that accrues most directly to franchisees in markets with sufficient location density to generate network effects from national media spend. Leadership continuity — with both original co-founders still actively involved in brand strategy — provides a degree of vision consistency that is not universally present in franchise systems that have changed ownership or executive leadership multiple times.

The ideal College Hunks Moving franchise candidate is an entrepreneurially oriented owner-operator who brings strong people management skills, comfort with a labor-intensive service model, and the financial capacity to sustain the business through the initial ramp period as local brand awareness builds. Prior experience in logistics, moving, construction, property management, or other crew-based service businesses is directly applicable, though the training and support infrastructure is designed to bring first-time business owners up to operational competency as well. The multi-territory ownership rate of 70 percent suggests that the system's most successful operators tend to think in terms of territory clusters rather than single-unit ownership, and prospective franchisees who enter with a multi-unit growth mindset from the outset are likely better positioned to build the organizational depth that makes the model scalable. Geographic territory availability spans all 50 U.S. states, with particularly significant open territory in markets outside the top ten states that currently account for 55 percent of system locations. Florida and Texas represent the most mature markets in the system with 22 locations each, while the majority of U.S. states remain underpenetrated relative to their population size. Markets with high household mobility rates, strong small business density, and growing populations represent the highest-opportunity territories for new franchisees. The franchise agreement carries a renewal fee of $5,000. Transfer and resale options exist within the system, an important consideration for investors who are modeling their exit horizon alongside their entry economics. The timeline from signing a franchise agreement to opening day in a truck-based home services model typically ranges from 60 to 120 days depending on the speed of truck acquisition, hiring, and local licensing — a faster path to revenue than brick-and-mortar concepts that require construction and permitting cycles.

The College Hunks Moving franchise opportunity presents a multidimensional investment thesis that merits serious due diligence from investors evaluating the home services category. The brand's 18-year franchising history, 211-unit domestic footprint, documented 337 percent systemwide growth over seven years, and a franchisee base where 70 percent have voluntarily purchased multiple territories collectively signal a system with durable unit-level appeal. The dual-service revenue model — spanning both junk removal and residential and commercial moving — addresses a total addressable market that exceeds $21 billion in the U.S. alone, with secular tailwinds in aging demographics, housing mobility, and consumer preference for professionalized moving services continuing to drive demand. The $250,000 to $480,500 total investment range positions this as a mid-to-premium home services franchise investment, with ongoing fees totaling 10 percent of gross sales in combined royalty, brand development, and technology obligations — a cost structure that must be weighed against the national call center infrastructure, marketing scale, and technology platform that those fees fund. The absence of Item 19 financial performance disclosure in the current FDD is a meaningful data gap that elevates the importance of franchisee validation conversations and independent territory analysis in the pre-investment process. PeerSense provides exclusive due diligence data including SBA lending history, FPI score analysis, location maps with Google ratings, FDD financial data, and side-by-side comparison tools that allow investors to benchmark College Hunks Moving against alternative franchise opportunities in the home services category with the same analytical rigor applied here. With a PeerSense FPI Score of 63, rated Moderate, this franchise sits in a range that reflects an established system with meaningful growth documentation and a supportive franchisee base, while also reflecting the due diligence work that remains for investors who need to bridge the Item 19 disclosure gap with direct franchisee research and market-level financial modeling. Explore the complete College Hunks Moving franchise profile on PeerSense to access the full suite of independent franchise intelligence data.