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jdhn | 3 years ago

Not surprising. If you can work remotely and are fed up with local/state/both parts of California government, why not move to the Tahoe/Reno area and enjoy zero income tax, lower sales tax, and potentially cheaper housing prices and the corresponding lower property taxes? I last lived in Northern Nevada in 2016 and the stream of California "refugees" was always a constant topic.

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cromwellian|3 years ago

The primary reason why people leave CA is housing prices not "fed up with CA govt", that's a story that the right wing likes to tell, but it basically comes down to the fact that housing is unaffordable. CA ranks #11 in taxes (there's like 7-8 red states ahead of it https://wallethub.com/edu/best-worst-states-to-be-a-taxpayer...) for average households. People like to wax on about the top 13.3% rate, but very few people pay that, while at the same time, property taxes are atypically low.

The main reason comes down to this: Median home price in CA is >$700,000, 2x-3x the rest of the nation (except Hawaii). Now there are government reasons why housing construction is lower, but there's also reasons why demand is so high: people have flocked to CA during economic booms. During the 90s dot-com boom, a 2-bedroom apartment in the Bay Are went from $1200 to $3400. After the 2000 dot-com crash, it dropped back down. Then, after 2009, prices climbed again.

You have a large number of white collar professionals wanting to be in the area (yes, despite the 'California exodus' story that keeps getting told, CA still is a net brain drain on the rest of the nation for professionals according to government stats https://www.jec.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/republicans/2019...), and you have existing home owners voting NIMBY to make it harder to accommodate them, the result is prices spiking.