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

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

#31

Post by adrenalinelol »

nugget wrote: post #28

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 t…

Negative interests rates... The Fed wants to stay relevant as a means of correction economic recessions and the rate is still pretty much ~0% atm.

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

#33

Post by sideband »

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.

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

#34

Post by aphextron »

TwiztidK wrote: post #9

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.

Meh, it's not impossible. My salary went up 50% when I moved here.

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

#36

Post by TDL »

shiftpgdn wrote: post #29
TDL wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being from Chicago I say it's a good thing to pay down the pension obligations. Pension obligations can cause a lot of problems in the future. Although I don't believe governments should be growing their budgets aggressively, squaring gov obligations is a good thing.

Why do government pensions even exist anymore? There is absolutely no reason for them and they need to go. The government can pay a reasonable salary if they wanted skilled workers.

I agree with you. I think pensions are a mistake in general, however, many municipalities, counties, and states are locked in to existing pensions schemes. I am for doing away with pensions in the future, but the existing obligations need to be funded appropriately.

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

#37

Post by FreakyT »

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

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

#38

Post by aphextron »

abduhl wrote: post #7
overcast wrote: post #2

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

I move around and travel a lot for work - I've lived in 4 states in the last 2 years (CO, WA, CA, TX) - and one of the universal things across all the midwest and west coast that I've found is that while most people like the weather/scenery in California EVERYONE hates people from California, except for the people in California. I've heard the saying "California would be great if it wasn't for the people" in literall…

Agreed. There's a very special mix of stupidity and arrogance you see in the kids that grew up here. "Swag/YOLO" culture is to blame IMO.

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

#40

Post by hibikir »

refrigerator wrote: post #21

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?

In my current SF employer, a very large percentage of senior engineers with kids just remote from other places.

The trick here is that companies that aren't paying top dollar in SF have a lot of trouble getting senior engineers, as the Netflixes and Facebooks of the world pay more and offer RSUs. However, the same salaries that are seen as a bit lacking in SF are good enough to attract top remote talent.

Therefore, the difference is not necessarily about lower salaries by cost of living, but lower salaries by company.

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