California's skyrocketing housing costs, taxes prompt exodus of residents

There's some sort of Stockholm syndrome prevalent among too many Bay Area residents that compels them to accept the lower quality of life. I lived there for several years until recently, and it was a surreal experience to hear others discuss the sacrifices they were making just to have a roof over their family's head, to provide a half-decent education for their children. And these were well-payed folks at the brand-name companies! Those that took a tech job straight out of college and had never lived anywhere else seemed the worst affected. Not enough realized that they deserved more then they were getting back from the Bay Area.

I spent most of my childhood in California. Real estate is and always has been the number one industry in the state. The majority of my childhood friends' wealth seems to derive from houses their families bought in the early 80s or earlier. Prices have benefited from a stable of one trick ponies - fixed low property taxes (prop 13), massive population growth (net domestic migration is now negative), job growth from the tech sector, the cultural shift to assortive mating of dual income white collar professionals, and the drop to near zero interest rates. I thought for sure that prices had hit the mathematically inevitable plateau - and then came tens of billions in foreign capital fleeing China. Is there another unpredictable one trick pony waiting in the wings? At some point it seems like prices would have to hit a ceiling reflecting the fact that all future appreciation and demand has been pulled forward, at which time the great financial machine grinds down to a much slower pace, if not a halt. It will be interesting to watch and see what happens.

Heh, funny to read this on the day my moving van arrives to get my things outta here! It&#x27;s a little sad, but we simply got fed up with the standard of living here. And, the Bay Area just feels mismanaged.<p>Getting around is a royal pain. After living in Vienna, I was amazed at people who thought Bart was great. Really? I found it dirty, slow, and crazy expensive.<p>Of course everything is just crazy expensive. A beer garden opened up nearby, with a few nice tables and some decent beers. 2 beers will cost you about $16. It&#x27;s like the entire economy is about paying rent. I remember going to heuriger in Vienna and grabbing a bottle of totally decent wine for about 8 EUR.<p>I&#x27;m not sure 64k people out of 38 million counts as an exodus, though. There&#x27;s a whole lot of immigration going on.

We&#x27;ve lost most of our friends now, and the roots we were putting down over the last 7 years are eroding a bit. For the record our household income fluctuates between 300 and 400k and we live in a microhouse (500sqft) in Berkeley. Expanding is a difficult proposition.<p>Its an interesting set of factors that lets me buy a Ferrari far easier than a house. First lifestyle money, then tech money, now foreign investment.<p>And there are a lot of subtle changes neighboorhood to neighboorhood. Mission was once the most expensive in SF, now Berkeley is surpassing even them. Hayes Valley becomes hip, and Precedio Heights becomes more affordable because of the lack of public transit.<p>For the most part i&#x27;ve surmised that the city is full of smaller town transplants who graduate and think their 120k offer is the greatest opportunity of their lives. They shortly find out it barely gets them a toilet with two roommates and end up leaving for Seattle, Portland, etc while staying with their company. This cycle repeats over and over<p>Meanwhile, this engine extends the SFBay problem to the B and C cities -- leaving fewer places to run to.

So, &quot;exodus&quot; is used to define a mere outflow of 60K residents ? That is less than 0.05%. Also, this article makes no sense. If California was losing people for the last 22 years, how come it&#x27;s population went from 29 million in 1990 to 40 million in 2016 ? I hate how none of these &quot;exodus&quot; articles are data centric and explain these two discrepancies. Is the population growth then due to birth rate ? or due to immigration ? Also, interestingly the same article notes that job growth in Bay Area has been at it&#x27;s highest point ever

One of the local public radio stations had a show this week about how well San Francisco is doing budget-wise. Apparently, the San Francisco budget in the last decade has been growing much faster than the local economy, and it&#x27;s been all going towards paying pension obligations, assistance to homeless and low-income people etc. Talk about killing the golden goose.

The work environment is really great and I&#x27;m glad I can quickly drive out into the countryside, but the overall environment is pretty terrible: there&#x27;s inadequate investment in infrastructure leading to crummy roads, crummy schools, essentially no public transport, slow internet (in Palo Alto of all places), and the like. Taxes need to go up a lot and the whole NIMBY thing has to go.<p>California used to be a progressive place and we are still living off that investment. But like any extractive economy we are unsustainably mining the investments of the late 1940s to the early 1970s.<p>I must say I really enjoy tech so the Valley is the only place for me to work. It was fun living in SF but the companies up there aren&#x27;t tech focused to the same degree.

Nobody lives there anymore, it&#x27;s too crowded.

As someone who enjoys being outdoors, I love CA and the Bay Area especially. The weather is great year round, and there is so much spectacular and wildly different areas to see within a relatively short drive, it&#x27;s amazing.<p>But the cost of living is completely insane. It doesn&#x27;t help that I moved from one of the cheapest places to live (Gainesville, FL), but my salary just about tripled when I made the move, and it&#x27;s still a struggle. My $650&#x2F;mo mortgage for a 1200 square foot house that seemed expensive and kinda small at the time is replaced by a $3k&#x2F;mo rent for 930 square feet. Then state income taxes take a huge chunk where FL had none, yet FL&#x27;s sales tax is the same or lower...<p>CA is roundly better than FL in just about every other way so it&#x27;s worth paying a premium for now to be out here but it&#x27;s pretty clear that it&#x27;s not sustainable long term. I&#x27;m also happy to be paying much higher taxes if the money is being used responsibily but it is incredibly frustrating to see the government continually make no progress on solving the affordability and traffic problems of the area.

Anyone else alarmed that a <i>doctor</i> was leaving because the rent was too high?<p>A doctor is one of the jobs that is expected to pay top dollar in American society.<p>If a doctor can&#x27;t make it in the Bay Area, who&#x27;s going to cut your hair, serve your beer, or mow your lawn?<p>If wages don&#x27;t rise in line with skyrocketing living costs, then the only alternative is a permenantly impoverished underclass.<p>People of the Bay Area: are you ok with that?

All control of Bay Area housing should be put into the hands of a single &quot;housing czar&quot; with absolute authority to rezone. Usually democratic methods are preferable, but in this case it&#x27;s clear they&#x27;ve failed in an absolute sense, and a new approach is needed.

I&#x27;m fine here. I have a job in tech and I&#x27;ll be able to put down roots and buy a home, Etc.<p>However by virtue of living here I basically force all of my children to do the same or move away. it&#x27;s simply too hard to live here unless you&#x27;re working in tech.

I have literally never heard anyone cite California taxes as having any contribution on them leaving. The <i>only</i> people I&#x27;ve heard mention &#x27;high California taxes&#x27; are people who are explicitly trying to solicit Californians to move to wherever they are (&#x27;come to Texas! We have way lower taxes than you!&#x27;).

I don&#x27;t know if reading this makes me feel better, as in, at least everyone else around me is getting fucked. Or if I&#x27;ll soon feel worse for having accepted an offer to stay, even after 2 shitty years. I didn&#x27;t harbor any fantasies of owning in New York but at least it was more fun and cheaper by far than Menlo Park

Come to Boise, Idaho (USA). We need high tech people. Excellent quality of life, low commutes.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tsheets.com&#x2F;living-in-boise&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tsheets.com&#x2F;living-in-boise&#x2F;</a><p>(I don&#x27;t work at T-Sheets but they have a great page on living in Boise.)<p>Also in Boise: Micron, HP&#x27;s laser printer division.

These people who sold their Bay Area homes and moved somewhere else to pay cash for a house seem to gloss over the fact that they were able to do this because they struggled in the Bay Area for so many years and became real estate wealthy. They won&#x27;t see this kind of real estate wealth growth in their new communities.

My wife and I spent a year in the Bay Area (San Mateo), and there was a lot to love. Great weather, awesome farmers markets, plenty of work, etc.<p>But holly cow was it expensive! My rent was around $2000&#x2F;month. I had a co-worker living in SF proper who&#x27;s apartment was $4500&#x2F;month. And that was 4-5 years ago, it&#x27;s probably gone up by now.<p>After a year, we moved back to Ohio - I now have a good-sized house on nearly an acre of land, and my 15-year mortgage is just over $1000&#x2F;month.<p>The difference is going into my retirement savings: I&#x27;m on track to have enough to retire at around age 45.

This is happening almost everywhere, but at a less frightening pace than CA. And we are told continually by the chattering class and politicians that skyrocketing real estate prices - asset inflation - is a good thing. Since forever a stable residential real estate market was the goal and people understood its value. Now we&#x27;re all gamblers, meaning losers. When the hedge funds and REIT&#x27;s stop speculating in residential real estate and pull out, there will be a deafening crash.

I live in the Bay Area. I have been able to make it work for me and love it here, though I do understand some of the reasons why others may not. Cost probably tops that list. But, the complaints about traffic should not be focused on California. In my experience most of the cities I have to travel to (Seattle, Phoenix, Atlanta) have much worse traffic issues. My colleagues in those cities spend 5-10 extra hours driving during the week compared to what my coworkers and I spend.

I just visited some friends in southern California and the possibility of me moving out there came up in conversation. So, I used a cost of living calculator to figure how much more I would need to make to be at the same level... 60% more. Definitely not going to happen.

Just wait until enough democratic voters are imported to overturn Proposition 13 (caps property taxes at roughly what they were when you bought the house, and requires 2&#x2F;3 vote in the legislature for tax increases).<p>California is trying so hard to go full Venezuela, and the only buffer they have are the three or so major industries that are doing well (agriculture, entertainment, and tech). If there&#x27;s a contraction in those sectors, expect a death spiral.

Anyone happen to know what is the definition of &quot;middle class&quot; for the Bay Area? Given the higher incomes amd cost of living, I have to assume the range is higher than most other regions.

Then they move to another state, and drive up the housing markets, and vote for all the same stuff that made California untenable, and wonder why the natives are hostile.

I went the opposite route as most. I was remote for 3 years from Texas and then moved to the Bay Area for work. And I have a family of four.<p>Key aspects that make it work for me are the following:<p>* Accept a long commute to a more family-friendly community with good schools.<p>* Live near BART and use it everyday.<p>* Work in the city, not the South Bay.<p>* Make sure you have two strong professional incomes.<p>* Pay for good quality child care and&#x2F;or after school care.<p>* Pay the high housing costs and accept that you will redirect a good portion of your investments towards housing here. And it won&#x27;t be as nice.<p>All in all its been worth it for me. I am working with extremely smart, driven people who I am learning a ton from. I don&#x27;t have to hide my political views, and everyone has been open and accepting. It has been very easy for us to make great friends in a short time.

I&#x27;ll read the article later, but this sounds like a replay of about twenty years ago. Articles in the WSJ, NYT, et. al., about how CA&#x27;s high housing prices and taxation are causing an exodus to such places as Las Vegas (and we see how that turned out). I was too young to have paid attention at the time, but I wouldn&#x27;t be surprised to go back to the archives to the 70s, where one might find the same articles.<p>I know, this time it&#x27;s different $BECAUSE_REASONS. No, it&#x27;s not. Some individuals and companies will leave, but CA will continue to be crowded in some areas, heavily taxed, and costly, just like it&#x27;s always been.

NB: net _domestic_ migration. Population still increasing.

I left NYC for the Bay Area two years ago and just moved back.<p>A lot of it was for personal and career reasons, a lot wasn&#x27;t. At a certain point I couldn&#x27;t justify paying oodles for a dark 1BR in Mountain View when that same money could get a better apartment in the West Village.

No interest to move to the Bay area. You could work literally anywhere else and live like a millionaire on their salaries but by the time you&#x27;ve paid for a house and car there you might as well live in a VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER.

It also seems like there&#x27;s no push from the buy side, in CA we&#x27;re all sheep. likely b&#x2F;c there is no community so the rent-taking can wratchet up all day long.<p>I think if people en masse began to reject extortion rent we could have a situation. This never seems to happen but it would be a spectacle: thousands of 160k&#x2F;yr workers decide to camp in tents until rents subside, all camped out in the streets in a section of Sf.

Atleast california state or San Francisco city don&#x27;t yet claim a cut of your intellectual property. After all you use their land and infrastructure. Also, the state and city governments don&#x27;t yet have their own firehouse of data collection into your communication.<p>I wonder if some enterprising landlord will put in a clause into the lease to own your intellectual property and communications while in your residence. Would people sign the lease for a 20% rent discount ?

When people saying housing costs are out of control in California, really they mean the bay area. Every other part of the state is no worse than anywhere else.

It&#x27;s unfortunate, California is such a beautiful place. But it&#x27;s turning into somewhere to visit, and not live. See you soon Sierra&#x27;s!

Is the salary of remote employees working for Bay Area companies the same as for local employees, or do they differ based on cost of living?

Hoo boy, these articles make the rounds every couple days.<p>People live in the Bay Area because of: professional opportunities, culture, weather, and social network. If you value those things more than high cost of living then you stay -- you either have the privilege of money or the tolerance of being financially stretched and not have all the nice things.

Could there be a brain drain here? I see these people as being the smart ones - those who realize they&#x27;re in a losing financial situation, and have the motivation to do something about it, even though in the short term it&#x27;s painful for them (leaving friends &amp; uprooting their family).

The bay area is just awful, do not move here^Wthere!

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People are considering killing Prop 13, which will make more residents leave.

Reading the comment section of that article is quite a bizarre experience

Seattle is tempting as a SF resident but I think Seattle tech scene is much more risk-adverse (i.e. AMZN, MSFT employees) and not as entrepreneurially minded as in SF.

even with good salaries, I would move away from California at the first chance I get.

California today is the United States in a decade or two: its dysfunctions are the product of decades of poor policy decisions (often, the poor decision was to <i>have</i> a policy in the first place) by voters and their elected officials alike.<p>A huge problem is that people move from California to other states in order to escape Californian problems, but once they get to their new state they miss a few things about California, and agitate to make their new state more Californian in those few aspects. Multiply that across all the Californian emmigrants in a state, and suddenly that state has California-style problems again.<p>The only solution I can see is to amend the Constitution (specifically, the Fourteenth Amendment) to provide that people who move to a state must be naturalised into it rather than immediately gain citizenship. Perhaps a decade-long waiting period would give folks time to acculturate. An advantage of this would be that Californians who have escaped to other states would still be voting in California, even as they are acculturating to a saner state government system: in effect, California would get wiser voters for free.<p>You can substitute &#x27;New Jersey&#x27;, &#x27;Massachusetts&#x27; or &#x27;New York&#x27; for &#x27;California&#x27; above and get much the same effect.