So few days of good weather. Maybe worth it to some, but a bigger house was not worth it to me at all. We moved back in 6 months.
So many people want to live in California which causes more issues
We moved to Austin-adjacent and downsized on the house. We put away about 100$k from the sale of our previous house, and used the rest for downpayment, netting us a <$1000 mortgage payment per month. During the periods of heat or cold, we now just peace out and travel, because we have ample cash to do so and still manage to put away for retirement. Currently chilling in Miami till middle of next week.
The rest of the time, weather is nice, plenty of good food, plenty of things to do.
that's nice but is it a good long term solution? i presume you don't have any kids. i wonder how this approach would work once you have kids and they start school. or maybe you do have kids but they are much older and moved out or no plans for kids idk.
Edit: Not sure why this take would upset anyone. I didn’t say it was necessarily good or bad to live in California. All I said is that the average price of a home seems to dictate that people enjoy living there more than many other states.
Although my perspective is tempered with what I experienced around the gulf, in Mississippi and Florida. The humidity there is so bad I literally don't think it's fit for human settlement.
That easternmost part of the state is the "piney woods" and it's lovely compared to the concrete island that is Dallas. The forests have a mitigating effect on heat.
The south is cheaper for a reason, and CA is expensive for a reason. You get what you pay for. Red State governance is truly abysmal, the climate is terrible, and there is precious little BLM land to explore.
If enough people leave CA to reduce the price (or enough people move to the south to raise the price here) I'd gladly move to the west coast.
I'm a Texas native. The temps in Texas are nothing like what California gets.
On the other hand, the rockhounding is far, FAR better out here in Cali. But you aren't doing that in the summer. You could do that in Texas in the summer out in the Llano uplift region.
That's why I tell disbelieving Californians that we have better weather in Texas than they do: When we have nice days, we appreciate it, whereas when they do, they don't even notice .... :-)
(Source: Spent several years in California long ago.)
That must have been expensive!
You had to eat the second six months of a year lease on a house, maybe lost your deposit, too; plus you paid to move an entire family from California to Texas; then paid again to move from Texas to California. Then had to find another place to live in California and pay another deposit there.
Having helped a friend move from California to Texas recently, it sounds like at least a $40,000 mistake.
Probably cost 4K, not 40K.
It’s not just being indoors more but also being uncomfortable indoors. Boo
I feel like most of the people that leave for Texas will end up feeling the same.
Which US state doesn't have problems with bugs though? I know none hold a candle to Australia but it seems like each has its own unique problem with bugs.
The entire western coast of the US (cali to Washington) has far less bugs than the east or Midwest. I assumed it was the drier climate but Seattle area doesn’t have a lot of bugs either.
After moving west, I found in identical weather conditions, the west is better to be outside because it will have less bugs.
Texas is no Australia when it comes to dangerous critters, but of all the American states, it's in the top 2, and gives Florida a run for its money.
Low temperatures? Heating.
High humidity? Dehumidifiers.
Low humidity? Humidifiers.
Particulate matter? Air filters.
Bugs? Pest control. Bug screens. Traps. Mosquito treatments.
High energy use? Solar.
Lack of density? Sign me up. More privacy, less noise, lower crime rate, and fewer problems in general. No rude people constantly in a hurry.
The stuff there are no solutions for: hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and natural disasters in general. Except for insurance, that is.
The situation has been dire for some time, but all they do are small incremental steps towards building more housing, it's nowhere close to what's necessary. Unfortunately, the NIMBY, anti-housing sentiment is very strong.
Builder’s remedy is already being applied against NIMBY communities like Santa Monica and Redondo beach, no take backs.
It takes time to build the homes and see the impact but it’s hard to say that they’re not moving strongly in the right direction.
Sure they’re doing it 20-30 years later than they should have but they’re certainly not sitting on their hands right now.
Newsome knows he needs to show that he really addressed the massive headline problem that everyone hears about California before he can have a serious crack at the presidency, or else he’s never going to overcome the “California bad because mismanaged by Democrats”
Have you seen the particulars of that law that upzoned the state? It's actually extremely weak:
"* Benefits homeowners NOT institutional investors. Recent amendments require a local agency to impose an owner occupancy requirement as a condition of a homeowner receiving a ministerial lot split. This bill also prohibits the development of small subdivisions and prohibits ministerial lot splits on adjacent parcels by the same individual to prevent investor speculation. In fact, allowing for more neighborhood scale housing in California’s communities actually curbs the market power of institutional investors. SB 9 prevents profiteers from evicting or displacing tenants by excluding properties where a tenant has resided in the past three years."
Translation: will be used only sparingly, because it's illegal to do it with a standard case of a corporation replacing existing housing with more housing. How many owner occupiers are interested in this and can afford this kind of redevelopment?
"Respects local control. Homeowners must comply with local zoning requirements when developing a duplex (height, floor area ratios, lot coverage etc.) as long as they do not physically preclude a lot split or duplex. This bill also allows locals to require a percolation test for any duplex proposed to be on septic tanks."
Translation: still lets local NIMBYs restrict density.
"It takes time to build the homes and see the impact but it’s hard to say that they’re not moving strongly in the right direction."
It's the right direction yes, but as you say, it's the kind of thing that should've been the response to the much weaker housing crisis of 20-30 years ago, not the much more serious one now.
California needs to dramatically cut back on its land use restrictions and figure out how to streamline everything. Even a typical (nominally uncontroversial) single-family home can take years and hundreds of thousands of dollars to entitle before anybody even breaks ground. It's madness.
Unfortunately, it's simply not in the culture of the people of the state to want to pursue cost-efficiency or reductions in bureaucracy.
The rural county I live in has open jobs, but a sizeable chunk of the work force is either seasonal (logging, etc) then coast on unemployment for the off season or don't actually want to work. Those that do, are flaky as all get go. (My partner and I own a small business in the county).
What does this have to do with housing? Covid and growth of a near by metro area (about an hour away) have pushed people to buying up what was previously cheap (yet affordable) housing. Small cabins that would be going for ~75k or a bit more 7 years ago are pushing over $200k now. The local community college as well as natural disasters further puts pressure on the housing situation. How about building more? Well, insuring housing when large fires have come through? Hard to come by. Building costs have also gone through the roof.
Housing is needed in this particular county (and surrounding) but isn't being built.
Where does housing for 3.5 million get built?
California is not great. It hasnt been great for a long time. It's hostile to anyone who is not the elite while also mascarading as a progressive paradise. The problem with people leaving is they export the same politics that got California to it's position as a working class hostile state. In the most common states, Oregon, Nevada, and Texas Californians are looked at with great disdain. It tells you something, at least, when even a left-leaning state like Oregon doesn't want you.
Living in California is expensive, in more ways than just housing. Not everyone can afford it. Just like not everyone can afford a new BMW. In my corner of the state, people who increasingly cannot afford to live here are noisy. I mostly don't engage because I'm aware that I will simply receive vitriol and anger for sharing my views. But quietly, I'm ok with it. They can move if they want to. I love it here and having fewer people on the fringes of society as neighbors isn't really the worst outcome to me.
Edit: and this why I don't engage. I'm out. Merry Christmas everyone.
[0] I say "naive accounting," because it's not so great if you ever need to buy a new lawnmower, sofa, or iPhone or if you hope your kids will someday be able to. And it's not so great for your city in the long run if making ordinary products illegal results in drastically lower levels of productivity, etc, etc.
Your logic isn’t unsound, but it will increasingly come across as unreasonable because not everyone in the workforce has the option of finding employment and accommodation elsewhere.
Imagine property values start plunging, people can't leave, they just start abandoning houses, soon you get vast swathes of abandoned houses which lead to increased crime and urban decay.
Decades from now people will shake their heads and talk about the golden days of California and the problems with the silicon belt.
As a San Francisco area homeowner and a BMW owner, I believe every human deserves a roof over their head.
Edit: Please don't discuss the things I've said. My BMW is the victim! Merry Christmas.
"Increasing price of cars during pandemic not an issue for people who already have cars."
Yes, people are upset that the government pushes policies that hurt people, and that make no sense generationally (intentionally targeting rising property values is just a generational ponzi scheme).
If your stance is apathy or even pleasure upon seeing the suffering caused by bad policy, it's no wonder you're being downvoted.
I say this as a California native who left for a litany of reasons, last of them being the politics.
Frankly, I blame the venture capitalists. They have turned what was once a vibrant region I loved into a soulless husk of itself though money. Our local politics have become unbearaable. Anything that would slightly impact a VC donor is immediately shot down.
Careful, I have said the same and many assumed it meant I'm far right. The extent of my conservative beliefs are wanting very small government, being anti-war, and wanting a balanced budget. I'm pretty egalitarian otherwise but I don't think that's enough to appease those who invest their lives in identity politics.
> The Public Policy Institute of California reported that between 2015 and 2021, 413,000 adults cited housing as a primary reason they moved out of state; a majority of those leaving were middle- or low-income people. The institute’s state survey found that 64% of adults in California say housing affordability is “a big problem” where they live. The out-migration may be partly attributable to work-from-home policies instituted during the pandemic
Please comment on the article, not your personal biases.
Also, Do smart people really think the nation’s richest collection of businesses owners, VCs and executives are a bunch of lefties?
Arnold was (with Steve Poizner as Insurance Commissioner) one of the last two Republicans to win in California statewide 16 years ago. Its been 25 years since Republicans held a majority in either House of the legislature, in the past 21 years, 17 years have had Democratic trifectas (control of the Governor’s office and both houses of the Legislature). Its been 26 years since the Republicans had control of either house of the legislature. Voter registration in California is 46.77% D, 23.93% R, 6.08 Other Party, 23.23% Independent.
It is... not competitive.
You mean a portion of the 1% ?
The median home sold from Marin County to Santa Clara County is $1M+.
That's the same land mass as from Times Square to the Maryland border.
https://twitter.com/nextdoorsv/status/1440035534693232640
California is NIMBYism at its worst: the far left opposes more housing, the far right opposes more housing, and the center is sick of traffic from more housing.
It's the banality of evil.
It's not that homeowners are conspiring to create unaffordable housing, it's just that they all just care about the benefit to themselves of rising home prices and maintaining the comfortable exclusivity of their neighborhoods. Everyone hopes someone else is fixing the problem.
Collectively, each city wants some other city to build more affordable housing. It's not a political issue. It's the haves vs. the have nots, just as it's always been.
The only solution is to have the state organize a plan that forces many cities in the bay area to build denser housing is some of their prime locations -- I'm thinking like way Palo Alto's downtown and Caltrain station area is surrounded by single-family suburban houses. Some of which are on huge lots! Any areas surrounding public transit corridors like that should be immediately built up into multi-story housing complexes.
Who are the people moving out? Primarily those without money or assets to stay. People who tend to skew younger.
So you drive out the younger, start a feedback loop where more young people leave, inverting the population pyramid. This is accelerated by the lower birthrate.
Congrats, you now live in a place where young people are overwhelmed by grey pressure and the only realistic alternatives are decreasing quality of services, or siphoning wealth to push for more services. The latter solution nullifies most benefits stubborn NIMBYs amassed for themselves a few decades before they got old.
Aka "congratulations, you played yourself".
Personally, I do not know a single person whose NIMBY is motivated by this.
What do you mean by this? Who is the "far left" and what are they opposing exactly?
Not true at all. The far left objects to gentrification, where the supply of housing nominally increases but prices continue to go higher. Short-term rentals and properties being kept vacant for land speculation are two factors. The far left hates landlords and property speculators, for more or less the same reasons Adam Smith did.
But in all seriousness. The ROI on California taxes has to be one of the worst deals in the country. I can’t think of another state (maybe NY) that does so little with so much.
I see this same resistance when it comes to building non-single family homes, and Texans are instead thinking more lanes + more sprawl is going to solve the influx of people. Then they lament pricing and make claim that long time Texans have more of a right to live here than new people. I'm sorry but for a capitalist and freedom loving state, it sure is echoing some of the exact same things that helped California's demise.
If you have a shrinking/fleeing population you can see what ends up happening by looking at the rust belt.
If people are fleeing a state that often means that the problems are so bad people are willing to overhaul their entire lives to get away from it. This indicates problems have gotten very bad and now you have fewer resources to address them than before.
Basically when you state population is shrinking it indicates it has the largest challenges it's faced with the continually fewer and fewer resources to address them. At that point it requires a legendary genius and heroic effort to overcome the problems occuring.
But much of the outflow is quite easily explained by the Covid shift to remote work allowing everyone in the Bay Area to take their high salary savings and buy houses wherever they fantasized about living.
You can’t really directly compare to previous migrations because those all involved making a career-impacting change. This one required merely overcoming the activation energy of a house move. So the signal about the “cost of staying put” is much weaker than in the past.
This is not to claim that Silicon Valley / SFBA doesn’t have problems, just that the analogy to Detroit probably doesn’t work without significant caveats.
Another reason why property tax is a more stable funding source -- unlike income, you can't take it with you. There is a whole list of reforms that California needs to undertake to recognize the new reality it's in, and shifting itself to being funded primarily by property taxes is one of the biggest necessary changes. The second biggest change is significantly scaling back spending and decreasing its vast administrative bureaucracies.
But the article says "a majority" of those leaving were middle- or low-income people.
Ending Prop 13 would not cause "significantly scaling back spending and decreasing its vast administrative bureaucracies." Instead it would have the opposite effect. All other taxes would stay the same, but now they'd have this additional source of money.
People in California seem to believe that other parts of the country with lower taxes are hell on earth, they aren't. When I moved to San Francisco, I had many conversations with people denigrating my home state of Florida. In retrospect I can see this for what it was, a coping mechanism for having to live in such a terrible place and pay an absurd amount of money for the privilege of doing so.
The reason California has seen such economic success can be attributed to proximity to the fastest growing economies and largest manufacturing hubs in the past 30 years and a little luck. If you really need to live on the west coast, Washington state is a much better option.
Yea, California is overpriced and has many problems, but if one saves here enough then moving anywhere with plenty of savings is very comfortable in the future. There’s nothing wrong with willing to live in other places but there’s a good reason people move to California.
Additionally, I think companies and investors are catching on. If I give a company $100 million I don't want $10 million to go to avoidable state income taxes and another $20 million to go into landlord pockets via inflated rent prices (commercial and residential), I want it to go into the business.
Some years ago I had to deal with California income tax for various reasons. I think at that time you had to earn over 50K to hit 9% marginal. In my state you hit that at about 16K. And this is after deductions where California had a ton more. I believe one needed an income of over 100K before the amount they paid in taxes exceeded that of my state.
Jersey city has massively ramped up development and is filling demand generated by families who want to move out of their NYC shoebox. The entire NJ-PATH route has been expanding rapidly the last decade or so.
Actually, 8/10 of NY state's biggest cities (barring Syracuse, Rochester) are within a commute distance from neighboring states/countries. Although the bottom 9 combined, add up to 10% of NYC's population. So they don't really matter.
So a CA thing
States with most negative change rate: California (-0.9%), Illinois (-0.8%), Louisiana (-0.8%), West Virginia (-0.6%), Hawaii (-0.5%)
Five most positive change rate: South Dakota (1.5%), Texas (1.6%), South Carolina (1.7%), Idaho (1.8%), Florida (1.9%)
Interestingly three states did not have enough change to register: Kansas, Michigan and Vermont.
Also, that’s not the title I’m seeing when I click the link, it’s — California’s population shrinks for third straight year as high costs stress households — which is a lot less editorial.
How does the home price growth rates compare between CA and the states Californians move to?
https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2022/comm/perc...
I would agree that it is not particularly notable; a lot of the headlines are “look at the big numerator and ignore the big denominator, because narrative agenda”.
But not enough people do want it fixed because they are trapped with their real estate investment which they can’t adored to have decrease in value.
There's already a mountain of private capital ready and consumer demand that the moment laws let them build they will, regardless of gov $ investment.
I have my eye on Chicago. There’s always something going on, it’s very multicultural, and housing is extremely affordable.
You're right about that part
Making western nevada and much of the mojave habitable would go a long way. Artificial rivers and lakes, importing sand and desalination (at scale to develop more sustainable water systems not on its own) and bullet trains would be ideal. The money and tech is there just not the collective will.
Places like Parhump NV, Bishop CA and Reno,NV have huge potentia as population centers.
It's so nice there from the mojave to the eastern sierra range and tahoe. Bullet train connecting these areas to PNW and coastal CA plus more water is needed. Why wouldn't you live the towns I mentioned above if LA and SF are 1-2 hours away at most and Seattle is half a day away at most even from LA?
Cali is not very dense, most of it is suburban sprawl. The bay would be much more livable if it was 5x as dense.
To solve housing for millions, there simply is no realistic way anytime in the next few decades in coastal CA that is both profitable, can get past local law and scales enough to actually solve any problem and of course a ton of money would need to be available all while risking bad decisions by anti-development parties.
It's simply easier to build where there is a small number of people and wide undeveloped land.
The federal agency released these new numbers Thursday showing a third consecutive year of decline.
In 2020, California’s population contracted for the first time in state history, a drop that contributed to the state losing a seat in the House of Representatives.
The law and order situation in the cities is also poor, and open drug use has turned LA, SF and Oakland into urban hellscapes that are an eyesore.
The entire country is in a phase of migration to the south. Westward migration continues but the main trend is migration to the South which is relatively unencumbered by wacko environmental regulation prone to abuse and a lower tolerance toward crime. Also has a better water situation I suppose and overall courteous and friendly people also.
I mean, it sounds like you're throwing a lot at the wall but I can't piece together a narrative other than you think California sucks?
I don't know a lot about California politics, but maybe housing crisis is just a symptom of something more?
"Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
If you want to say what you think is important about an article, that's fine, but do it by adding a comment to the thread. Then your view will be on a level playing field with everyone else's: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
How much is net decline by excess deaths? Probably a low 20k-30k figure (based on AU excess mortality. Web says 28k), but perhaps CA population had excess older demographic Sunbird type people and they relocated?
It would also cut across all classes. I wonder how much is work forced translocation, by the company more than the individual. If Boeing (bad example I know given its Seattle not Los Vegas, so ignore the out of state issue please) stopped an entire line but jobs open up on the east coast for other production lines then internal relocate is cheaper than hire local sometimes.
The Californian economy is huge. Is it maybe moving to fintech and IPR with labour cost out of state?
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
> Otherwise please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize.
https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/2022/comm/perc...
I moved back at the beginning of 2022 though, primarily because SF had reopened enough. I suspect that there are many people like me, although I also suspect that this change is not going to reverse any time soon.
Furthermore, California rural areas will be even more severely, disproportionately UNDER-represented.
I think we're at a major inflection point in society and need to make some MASSIVE intentional changes to how we live
(Btw, that is altogether way too long to wait.)
I tried to bootstrap the rent/mortgage trade off discussion to some older gen-Zers and millennials at work recently. Couldn’t get far at all until I got talked over about the financial superiority of owning. Frustrating times.
