The California forest fires
will add to California’s downward population trend. See article below: Californians fed up with
housing costs and taxes are fleeing state in big numbers. By Jeff Daniels,
3/19/18, CNBC.
More
Californians are moving from the Golden State, particularly lower-income
residents, although even middle-class residents are saying goodbye. The trend
is a symptom of the state's
housing crunch and, for some, high taxes. Census Bureau data show California
lost just over 138,000 people to domestic migration in the 12 months
ended in July 2017.
Lower-cost
states such as Arizona, Texas and Nevada are popular destinations for
relocating Californians.
Californians may still love the beautiful
weather and beaches, but more and more they are fed up with the high housing
costs and taxes and deciding to flee to lower-cost states such as Nevada, Arizona and Texas.
"There's
nowhere in the United States that you can find better weather than here,"
said Dave Senser, who lives on a fixed income near San Luis Obispo, California,
and now plans to move to Las Vegas. "Rents here are crazy, if you can find
a place, and they're going to tax us to death. That's what it feels like. At
least in Nevada they don't have a state income tax. And every little bit helps."
Senser,
65, who previously lived in the east San Francisco Bay region, said housing
costs and gas prices are "significantly lower in Las Vegas. The government
in the state of California isn't helping people like myself. That's why people
are running out of this state now."
Housing problem - Based on the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey data, "lower income Californians
are the ones who are leaving, not higher income," said Christopher
Thornberg, founding partner of research and consulting firm Beacon Economics in
Los Angeles.
He
said housing is the chief reason people are leaving California, pointing out
there are frequently bidding wars for what limited inventory of
homes is available.
A USC
Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll of
Californians last fall found that the high cost of living, including housing,
was the most important issue facing the state. It also found more than half of
Californians wanted to repeal the state's new gas tax, which raised fees by 40 percent.
"The
rate at which California has been losing people to other states has accelerated
in the past couple of years, in part because of rising housing costs,"
said Jed Kolko, chief economist with employment website Indeed.com.
Outbound migration - He
said the latest Census Bureau data, from July 2016 to July 2017, show
"more people moved out of California to other states than moved in from
other states. In other words, California lost people due to domestic
migration."
During
that 12-month period, California saw a net loss of just over 138,000 people,
while Texas had a net increase of more than 79,000 people. Arizona gained more
than 63,000 residents, and Nevada gained more than 38,000.
"You
can literally have a lot of buying power for the dollar in Southern Nevada
versus Southern California," said Christopher Bishop, president of the
Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. "So it has been a major trend
over the year, year and a half, and we're seeing it increase."
Bishop
said some people who work for Silicon Valley companies are even working
remotely from home in Las Vegas to avoid the higher housing costs in
California. But he added, "Most of the people are here because of our
growing job market and industries in Las Vegas — and it's not all about casinos
anymore."
Data
from United Van Lines show some of the most popular moving destinations for
Californians from 2015 to 2017 were Texas, Arizona, Oregon, Washington and
Colorado. Other experts also said Nevada remains a top destination.
Regardless,
some people still want to move to California but are finding it tough to do so
because of the high cost of housing.
Trying to return - Michelle Lynn Ostroff, who left
the Los Angeles area in 2013, now lives outside Cleveland, Ohio, with her
daughter and wants to return to California to be closer to her friends and
family. But she's been discouraged from returning so far due to monthly rental
prices.
"I'm
finding it very hard to make that happen, as finding a place that's affordable
is tough," said Ostroff. The L.A. area "is definitely more than two
times the amount of rent that I pay."
Indeed, California has five of the top 10 most expensive rental markets nationwide, according to industry
tracker Zumper.
San
Francisco ranks as the nation's most expensive rental market, followed by New
York, according to Zumper's top 10 list. San Jose comes in third place, and Los
Angeles in sixth place. Oakland and San Diego also made the top 10.
"For
a lot of people, renting is the only option they have because it's tough to
afford a house here," said Steve Feldman, a Keller Williams real estate
agent in the L.A./San Fernando Valley region.
Expensive rents - The median monthly rent for a
one-bedroom apartment in the Los Angeles area is $2,249, and in San Francisco
it's almost $3,400, according to Zumper. The median rent for a
two-bedroom apartment in the Los Angeles area is
$3,200 and in San Francisco about $4,500. By comparison, the median rent for a
one-bedroom in Las Vegas is $925 and in Phoenix $945, and for a two-bedroom in
Las Vegas $1,122 and in Phoenix $1,137.
"High
housing costs are a challenge for employers, who need to offer workers enough
so they can afford to live here," said Kolko. "Despite this,
California is still hiring, and job growth was strong over the past year."
California's $550,990 median price
statewide for an
existing single-family home compares with the national median price of $247,800, according to the National Association
of Realtors and its state association.
"People
who have owned their house for quite a while can cash out with quite a nice bit
of money in their hands,' said Feldman. "They can go to another state and
buy a house for a fraction of what they have here and tuck away a lot of money and retire, work or bring their cost of living and
overhead down."
Middle class leaving - Internal Revenue Service data would appear to show that the
middle-class and middle-age residents are the ones leaving, according to Joel
Kotkin, a presidential fellow in Urban Futures at Chapman University in Orange,
California. "We
know the actual net migration out of California has been growing," said
Kotkin.
Furthermore,
Kotkin believes the outmigration from California may start to rise among
higher-income people, given that the GOP's federal tax overhaul will result in
certain California taxpayers losing from the
state and local tax deduction cap.
"They are the ones who will tend to have the high property taxes and rely
on writing it off," he said. California
is often criticized as one of the highest-taxed states in the nation.
Last
year, Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed a 12-cent-per-gallon increase in the
state's excise tax on gasoline, bringing the tax to 41.7 cents per gallon, or a
40 percent jump. Drivers in California already pay the highest average for gasoline after Hawaii.
'Highest taxes in USA' - Even
Republican California Rep. Devin Nunes took a swipe at his state last week in a
tweet, calling it out for the "highest taxes in USA that make it hard for
people to afford to live there."
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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