Just watched this fascinating and well-done story by CNBC on "What’s Driving California’s Mass Exodus?" Now, I live and invest in California, so I'm definitely not a California hater. However, I'm also no California fanboy. I'm actually pretty open-minded and enjoy listening to something like this to perhaps get a different perspective. There are certainly benefits to investing in California. Like I said, I do it and I do quite well by doing so. However, there's also no arguing there are downsides to doing business here. We have the #1 highest state income tax in the entire country! It's also very business unfriendly here. According to a CNBC study (mentioned in the story), we are ranked DEAD LAST in the country when it comes to the cost of doing business. This is probably the reason we've actually been seeing a net migration LOSS of residents in this state to other states. Not to mention the thousands of companies that have left (or are leaving) the state, including big name companies like Hewlett Packard (moving to Houston), Oracle (moving to Austin), and Tesla (Elon and the next Gigafactory will be in Austin). (Anyone see a theme there with Texas?) Anyway, not trying to convince anyone of anything. Except perhaps our state legislators better wake up if they want to stop this mass exodus. Unfortunately, I'm not sure they get it yet. At least the laws that continue to be proposed and passed in this state don't seem to signal (to me) that they do. Thoughts?

No surprises here at all. Even more a 🤔, is the fact that CA voters vote the same way each election cycle. SMH

I think claiming political ideology as the reason people are leaving California is intellectually lazy because the situation is much more complex than that. I don't think people are moving from SF to Austin so they can carry guns in public places. As a former CA resident myself, I can speak to some of this.When you look at CA, there are multiple areas/cultures you can look at (Northern, Southern, Central Valley, etc.)...it's almost like states within a state. It's no secret that CA is expense to live just about anywhere. Because SO MANY people have moved to CA over the last several decades housing prices have always been high due to high demand. Couple that with high paying tech and venture capital in SF it's nearly impossible to save up for a house in a nice area unless your company IPOs. The cost of living is just higher, it has been like that for a long time but people are questioning whether the quality of life is worth the high cost of living. Enter COVID-19. More and more jobs have the ability to work remote. A big reason people move to CA is for job opportunities and now when you're working from home indefinitely, it makes sharing a 4-bedroom apartment in the city much less desirable than moving to somewhere with land and a lower cost of living. Yes, income taxes are higher in CA but there are also WAY MORE people in CA than any other state, so the state needs a lot of revenue. That said, property taxes are relatively low/capped if I'm not mistaken. In order for companies to retain labor they have needed to pay more so their employees can afford to live there. This is why you are seeing companies diversify their workforce to lower-cost areas, like Texas.When I moved out of CA 3 years ago (for a job opportunity in NC), I remember reading articles about the "mass California Exodus". California is the most populous state so when people move out, it's considered an exodus by the other 49 states' standard. Do I think California will be a ghost town in a few years? Absolutely not, there are still great job opportunities, phenomenal weather, geography, etc. California's not going anywhere, that is until there's an earthquake that breaks it off so it can chill with Hawaii. Just my two cents.

It is being caused by peoples imagination. Funny how this has been a story for 25 years yet California's population has grown by 10 million since this became a popular narrative.

Thoughts: • Highest top income tax rate does not imply highest actual median income tax paid. The rich pay a lot of income tax. There are many that pay just a few percent. • For the last decade only one state (Texas) had a larger population increase than CA. • IMO the crowds of CA are the #1 issue. I happily wave good bye to everyone that leaves. Housing shortages in coastal cities. Crowds everywhere. Try going to the local snow in San Diego. Ditto for a good season of desert flowers. Top permits for trails, campsites, etc. are difficult to obtain. I hope the state legislature does little to prevent a exodus. Coast CA is over crowded. Why would we not want less people? Housing crisis diminishes. I could get permits for my favorite trails or campsites. I can go to the snow without being in hours long traffic jam. • There was a recent article that 5 cities accounted for 90% of all US high tech job growth between 2005 to 2017. 3 of the 5 cities were CA cities. • It should not be cheap to live in the best climate areas. I am not intending to imply that CA is perfect. I believe in free market and that regulations should not be to control price but should be for protection and safety. I do not believe we should let anyone who wants to come into the country. If we do let them in, there should be something that discourages them from going to areas that are too crowded. Especially if they are then going to whine about the costs. If you choose to live in coastal CA, do not whine about the costs. You are choosing to live where too many people (even more than already do live here) would choose to live if the costs were not so high. The high costs are one of the few items that is preventing even higher populations. By letting everyone in to paradise, there is no paradise.

If everyone is leaving California then why do the SD and LA markets continue to be so tight? I live in SD and the market is crazy, I just don't understand. Seems to be alot of people are still here buying homes.

Recurring threats of nationwide rent control, cities that require owners to pay utilities for tenants, and overly broad eviction moratoriums are definitely turn-offs.

There are a whole lot of opinions in this thread, many of which lacking facts. Certainly we are all entitled to our opinions, but it would do the BP membership more justice with facts outweighing opinions on these topics. "Mass exodus" is a media term for the fact that CA had a net domestic migration loss in 2020 higher than all other 49 states. NY was second on that list! The population actually did lose in 2020 and stayed flat in 2019, years prior having gains. These gains come from births and international migration. LA is a melting pot for this. The media spins the news to create drama to create profits. Here in SO Cal this week, we had "winter storm warnings" all over the news. Ask anyone from any northern state and they would laugh their azz off at such a news story. This is all fact. The CA population continues to vote in absurd propositions written by absurd politicians and our legislatures don't seem to have a clue about finances. You can mock the big businesses that have left (many already mentioned in this thread) and say happy trails but the $15 per hour low wages one poster was claiming is NOT the story to that. When Elon left, he took a ton of income to CA away from CA. TX incentivized him to come. Why? They did some accounting and it made sense. CA does the opposite. They continue to make it the most costly state to run a business, they make building homes the most costly with silly rules, regulations and time wasting bureaucracies. They institute "affordable housing" initiatives and at the same time, initiate new laws that make the cost to build more. These are the issues that we face here in CA and unfortunately, they are all born from those seeking office, power, and keeping their office. One poster mentioned that the exodus was made up. That is certainly not true, just look at the facts. However, another asked why are housing prices continuing to climb. That is because despite the net migration loss (which -200k of 39+M people is a small percentage), the politicians have done literally nothing to feed the inventory for housing as CA has the highest demand and lowest inventory of housing and it has been that way for over two decades. With the population growth over the past 3 decades, the housing inventory has not kept up. The ONE and only thing I can find that helped (or will help slightly) is the new ADU laws past in CA. But let's face the facts, even with that great new law, it will not put a significant dent in the supply/demand imbalance. When I build a new home here, I am required to install rain harvesting tanks (or rain planters) based on the square footage of the roof. They require the tanks themselves, a pad to set them on, downspouts from gutters to connect into the tank and then drainage for overflow of the tanks out to the street. So in other words, the politicians great idea to "conserve water" for our drought was this, yet any new house I and others build also comes with auto sprinklers and they are often purchased by well to do millennials or 50+ year olds who wouldn't consider attaching a hose to the tanks to hand water what is already automatically watered by the sprinkler systems. So ultimately, we builders spend thousands of extra wasted dollars so the water from the roof now routes direct to the street curb instead of within the yard (if the downspouts were not connected to rain tanks). Both a waste of money and a waste of water. So much for affordable housing. Anyways, enough of my rant on the politics here in CA, the moral of this post is to look at the facts, not just opinions. Mass exodus is just a media term, look at net migration/population/incomes/home prices/home inventory levels/etc. These facts will answer your questions. No, CA is not going to become a ghost town, on the contrary, it will continue to rise in population, however, the quality and level of the incomes of CA will continue to be hampered by the politicians so long as Californian's continue to elect these same politicians. It is a sad but true fact and yet I am not letting any of these idiots kick me out of my State. I will just find a way, just as I find a way to shift my business to adapt to market changes.

@Tushar P. I bought my home in a very expensive zip code in SF Bay Area in 2009 from a gent who was leaving the country because he thought the US and CA were finished and the future was abroad specifically in Asia. This was in the depth of the financial crisis and He was predicting a “mass exodus” from CA to other states and from US to other countries. He was so confident that it was a disaster that over the next few years it looked like he was right until he was not. Today the home is worth 3X the value he sold it to me at. The gent finally came back to the Bay Area in 2015 only to realize he had fallen behind. Prices had shot you up and the economy was booming and he was unable to buy what he used to own. That’s how this area rolls. It comes back like a coiled spring only to disappoint those who left and reward those who stayed.

I moved here in 2013 and am leaving this summer. After my divorce 5 years ago, I sold my house and I've been stuck renting. As a single mom, there isn't affordable housing in my area within the boundaries of my kids' school-- and I make 6-figures, have a senior-level position and master's degree. I found the only way I can become a homeowner again is to relocate. I work remotely, so I can still make my California salary, pay fewer taxes, and find a decent home. Which will also allow me to invest. Reasons for leaving: high taxes, no affordable housing, my son is a D-1 scholar potential and he hasn't had a single sports season since last spring. Fire season isn't great to deal with either.

What’s Driving California’s Mass Exodus?

Sam Lewis

Real Estate Agent · Baltimore, MD · Member since 2018 · 285 posts · 228 votes

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There's two types of mentalities in the world. Victim and stoic

What’s Driving California’s Mass Exodus?

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