Steerpike

There's a general perception out there that people are leaving California in droves. Based on everything I'm seeing (as a resident) in terms of real-estate sales and housing starts, it seems inconceivable that there is a net loss of people.

I just read this post - Moving from UK to LA - should we go for it? in which it was said: "...Why are twice as many native born Californians fleeing the place as incoming replacement population? When my cousin moved from California to Florida last year, She had to fly to Dallas Texas to rent a moving truck and drive it to Southern California. There are almost none available to rent."

Maybe 'native born' Californians are leaving, but 'others' are certainly coming in to replace them, and whoever they are, they have money - lots of money. As a resident of the Bay Area, I can tell you that house prices are soaring, and apartment/condo buildings are being constructed at an amazing rate; it seems like every former gas station or parking lot is now a medium-rise building selling million-dollar units. As an example, there's a new 'master planned' community being developed in 'the boonies' with over 4,000 houses - Tracy Hills — Integral . Basically, every available piece of land is being developed (and snapped up by eager buyers). So how can there be a net loss of people?

We bought a small 2-BR condo in 2018 for $750k, and we could sell it tomorrow for over $1m. We are looking at slightly larger units in the area, but everything we look at is getting over-bid by $200k or so. That does not sound like a place where people are running away from, so - where are all these people coming from, that are fleeing the state? Are there any good studies about who's leaving and who's arriving?

robin1234

Does the state publish income tax data each year, to compare number of taxpayers year on year? Or what about car registrations?

tht

There is news reporting on it:

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-sta...us?context=amp


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/04/u...e=articleShare

https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/...ne-trend-covid


Excess deaths due to CV19 and lower international immigration due to CV19…

Jack_Russells4ever

I cannot speak for all the Californian's leaving but my Cousin was born and raised in Temecula California and She and her Husband left due to the ever increasing crime rate, the property tax values being raised due to the ever increasing property prices, The Liberal government of the state and their handouts to non citizens at the expense of Californians through the states income tax. My Cousin bought the house they lived in in 1984 for 119,000 and they sold it for 1.1 million USD. Why are prices going so high? In California investors are buying every property they can get their hands on at more than the asking price which is driving the natives out of the state. Many of those investors are large corporations like Blackrock. The LA Metro area is even more diverse than London but Caucasians are soon going to be a minority in Southern California. And on another note than trend is also happening in Portland Oregon and the Seattle Washington area and the Denver Colorado area of skyrocketing property values are driving out the native born residents.

kimilseung

Sounds like you and your cousin fear the great-replacment, like the guy in Buffalo.

Jack_Russells4ever

Nope, I don't fear anything or anyone except Our Creator.

robin1234

I think skyrocketing property values is a relatively humane method of driving out native born residents, compared to other methods employed in US history.

Steerpike

Thanks for the links. 2nd one is paywalled for me, and the third article looks to be identical (same wording!) as the first - I wonder who copied who? I guess the explanations make sense - "With an estimated 39,185,605 residents, California is still the U.S.'s most populous state ... But after years of strong growth ... the state's population is now roughly back to where it was in 2016 after declining by 117,552 people this year."

So, 117,552 / 39,185,605 = 0.3% - a small decline but definitely not growth.

The article goes on to say: "California's population growth had been slowing even before the pandemic as baby boomers' aged, younger generations were having fewer children and more people were moving to other states. But the state's natural growth — more births than deaths — and its robust international immigration had been more than enough to offset those losses.

State officials pointed specifically to losses in international immigration. California gained 43,300 residents from other countries in 2021. But that was well below the annual average of 140,000 that was common before the pandemic"

So the state's growth has been sustained by international immigration, which makes sense - I am one of them.

The reason I enjoy living in the Bay Area is precisely because it is not full of typical 'Americans'. San Francisco has been majority Asian for as long as I can remember, which suits me fine - we have some of the very best Asian food (Thai, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, etc) and my girlfriend is also an Asian immigrant, and she feels very comfortable here.

So it's true that people are leaving the state, but the perception that they are jumping from a sinking ship is rather odd; they simply can't afford to stay. The skyrocketing real-estate prices would not be happening if the state were 'undesirable'.

tht

it’s probably because they all take the information from something like this…

https://dof.ca.gov/wp-content/upload...essRelease.pdf

markonline1

They certainly aren’t leaving Monterey. Housing market is crazy here. Houses are snapped up as soon as they go up for sale. We bought ours in in August 2020 for $670k. Zillow currently has it at 1.025m, and that’s without the top to bottom improvements we’ve done. I’ve no doubt people are leaving due to stuff like taxes (when we looked at possibly moving to Austin, property tax was much higher so they always get you one way or another), but I don’t believe in the mass exodus like you read in some outlets. Personally, I can’t think of any other state I would chose over California.

robin1234

Big picture - maybe number of people per housing unit just gradually, inexorably goes down and down, over the decades. So more and more housing is needed for the same number of people.

My wife grew up in a coop in The Bronx, NYC. The flats are fairly small, two bedroom, one bathroom. In the fifties and sixties, virtually every flat had a nuclear family of three or four people in it (children shared a very small bedroom.) That same coop, now all occupied by a couple or a single person. That’s just one example.

Steerpike

This article aligns with what you are saying, I believe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Califo...using_shortage
"California ranked 49th among the states of the U.S. in terms of housing units per resident" "Experts say that California needs to double its current rate of housing production (85,000 units per year) to keep up with expected population growth and prevent prices from further increasing, and needs to quadruple the current rate of housing production over the next seven years in order for prices and rents to decline."

So if there is such a shortage, where are these people currently residing? Of course we have a big homeless problem in CA, but that's not going to account for all of it. I guess people are staying at home when they'd prefer to move out, or participating in 'house share' situations begrudgingly.

The article above also says "From 2012 to 2017 statewide, for every five new residents, one new housing unit was constructed." - that's quite amazing.

robin1234

Yeah exactly. The US used to be like Germany, or Central Europe in general - a high proportion of people lived in cramped conditions in city apartment buildings. In England, the development of expansive suburbs, garden cities etc., started in the late nineteenth century and was very well developed by the 1930s. In the USA, the same thing didn’t really get going till after WWII. I know when I first visited America, early 1970s, I was amazed what cramped, tiny apartments all my wife’s family lived in - and thought was completely normal. (I was a child of the pre-war, expansive London suburbs.) I think the US, including California, has to some extent caught up with the UK in this regard. This is what we see in the inexorable residential development all over the US.

Hiro11

Housing prices in California are going up because demand exceeds supply.

The population of California is going down.

A thought: both of these things can be true at the same time.

Also, I'm with Steerpike: **** those "typical Americans". You know, the typical ones.

OldJuddian

And then, years later, it will be like Japan with their ghost villages. Eventually the relentless building of new homes with decreasing population hits a pivot point and suddenly we have too many houses.