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California’s population shrinks for third straight year

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Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#131

Post by klardotsh »

xnx wrote: post #111
reaperducer wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Typically, you can break your lease with one month payment. And you don't lose your deposit. That's not how deposits work. Actually, it's how many of the leases I've had worked, and I've lived in dozens of states. Probably cost 4K, not 40K. It cost my friend $11,000 to move his one bedroom apartment from Southern California to Texas last year using Mayflower. And he was just one person, not a family. Moving an entire…

Wow. I haven't researched moving costs at all, but I'd probably buy all new stuff and still save money at those prices.

These numbers are from /dev/urandom or perhaps /dev/null, or maybe they hired white-glove movers and car transporters and flew first class to their destination or something. I moved Chicago to Seattle for like $2-3k all-in (counting plane tickets) in 2017, leaving only couches and beds behind (just wasn't worth bothering to move the cheap Ikea-grade stuff I had). Seattle-Vancouver in 2018 and, a year later, back, were each ~$1-2k all-in by U-Haul and elbow grease, discarding almost nothing either direction.

Moving isn't cheap, but on even relatively junior tech salaries, provided some savings or access to credit, it's truly not a life-altering event the way $40k would be.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#132

Post by foogazi »

natechols wrote: post #52
22289d wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a problem to me, that's the point. By saying I am a part of the problem, what you really mean is that my views are an obstacle to you getting what you want.

[flagged]

> There are an awful lot of suburbs in the Bay Area that would be massively improved in character by replacing a handful of mansions with refugee camps.

Not even refugees would want to live near refugee camps

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#133

Post by [deleted] »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #23
jeffbee wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also explains why Texas is growing the quickest. It turns out that population is basically the integral of new home starts. Who could have predicted this, except every YIMBY I know who has been screaming about this for 25+ years?

Texas also has a ton of NIMBYism. That's the same root sentiment for "Don't California my Texas" which says "You may be a resident, but you better not do something I don't like" -- same mentality. I see this same resistance when it comes to building non-single family homes, and Texans are instead thinking more lanes + more sprawl is going to solve the influx of people. Then they lament pricing and make claim that lon…

[deleted]

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#134

Post by Acrobatic_Road »

BeetleB wrote: post #92
friedman23 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think overall taxes are undercounted in California because the state taxes absolutely everything. California has the highest income tax and highest sales tax in the US. Throw in the grocery bag taxes, and all the other random taxes in that state you are just paying an absurd amount for nothing.

California has the highest income tax only if you earn a lot. For most earners it definitely is not the highest income tax state. Median household income is $84 K in California. The tax rate is only 6%. And in reality it's less due to having more deductions. Contrast with Oregon where the tax rate is almost 9% for anything over 10K. California ranks 9th for overall tax burden. And property tax is ridiculously low, al…

You need to factor in local taxes as well. California cities top the charts for sales tax. A lot of these overall tax burden rankings miss that!

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#135

Post by jmspring »

jeffbee wrote: post #12
TulliusCicero wrote: post #5

California is a great state in many ways, but it'd be a stretch to say it's even half assed a solution to its housing problem: they've quarter assed it at most. And it does someone no good for a state to be great in many ways if they can't afford to live there. The situation has been dire for some time, but all they do are small incremental steps towards building more housing, it's nowhere close to what's necessary.…

California has not even ¼-assed it. The governor stated in 2018 that we were short 3.5 million homes, which might be approximately correct or at least in the ballpark, and as a state we were going to build them by 2025. That pace should have been 2 million homes by now, but only about 350k units were actually built.

Where does one build 3.5 million houses? The housing needs to be where jobs / etc, are. It should also be where resources are. A good deal of the state has water issues regularly; additional part of the state can't keep the power on due to - heat waves, fires, over use, winds, cats farting.

The rural county I live in has open jobs, but a sizeable chunk of the work force is either seasonal (logging, etc) then coast on unemployment for the off season or don't actually want to work. Those that do, are flaky as all get go. (My partner and I own a small business in the county).

What does this have to do with housing? Covid and growth of a near by metro area (about an hour away) have pushed people to buying up what was previously cheap (yet affordable) housing. Small cabins that would be going for ~75k or a bit more 7 years ago are pushing over $200k now. The local community college as well as natural disasters further puts pressure on the housing situation. How about building more? Well, insuring housing when large fires have come through? Hard to come by. Building costs have also gone through the roof.

Housing is needed in this particular county (and surrounding) but isn't being built.

Where does housing for 3.5 million get built?

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#136

Post by runnerup »

wysewun wrote: post #43

Moved from the bay to Texas because of everything i heard. It was such a horrible experience. The heat, the bugs, the lack of density. So few days of good weather. Maybe worth it to some, but a bigger house was not worth it to me at all. We moved back in 6 months. So many people want to live in California which causes more issues

I like the heat here in TX. I moved from Michigan, where I also enjoyed the cold (but not the lack of sunlight, affinis Seattle). Saudi Arabia was a bit too hot for my taste, but Texas summers are very enjoyable to me. I may be an outlier, but I genuinely enjoy doing things outside in the Houston summers.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#137

Post by dragonwriter »

Acrobatic_Road wrote: post #134
BeetleB wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California has the highest income tax only if you earn a lot. For most earners it definitely is not the highest income tax state. Median household income is $84 K in California. The tax rate is only 6%. And in reality it's less due to having more deductions. Contrast with Oregon where the tax rate is almost 9% for anything over 10K. California ranks 9th for overall tax burden. And property tax is ridiculously low, al…

You need to factor in local taxes as well. California cities top the charts for sales tax. A lot of these overall tax burden rankings miss that!

> You need to factor in local taxes as well.

Sure, tax burden rankings usually aggregate state and local taxes.

> California cities top the charts for sales tax.

The maximum combined local sales tax rate in California is 3% (There's a 7.25% state rate, on which local district rates can be added to a maximum of 10.25%).

No California cities are in the top 50 for sales tax in the US. [0]

> A lot of these overall tax burden rankings miss that!

It is certainly possible that some might, and its always important to check the methodology, but of those with disclosed methodology, I can't recall encountering the problem.

[0] https://www.salestaxhandbook.com/highest-salestax-cities

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#138

Post by wslh »

lttlrck wrote: post #70
kneebonian wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a problem immediately but that's the thing when you are talking at scales like this it is a matter of decades not years to forecast issues. If the remote work hypothesis holds true that means the biggest advantage silicon valley had, a high concentration of engineers and founders is no longer there it's dispersed all across the country and the competitive advantage begins to evaporate at the same time VC mon…

hyperbole like "unlivable" needs to be expanded. The obvious California problems of expensive and homeless don't make it unlivable.

But, is it comfortable to live in the valley with so many homeless people around? What city is the best to live there now?

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#139

Post by dragonwriter »

jmspring wrote: post #135
jeffbee wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California has not even ¼-assed it. The governor stated in 2018 that we were short 3.5 million homes, which might be approximately correct or at least in the ballpark, and as a state we were going to build them by 2025. That pace should have been 2 million homes by now, but only about 350k units were actually built.

Where does one build 3.5 million houses? The housing needs to be where jobs / etc, are. It should also be where resources are. A good deal of the state has water issues regularly; additional part of the state can't keep the power on due to - heat waves, fires, over use, winds, cats farting. The rural county I live in has open jobs, but a sizeable chunk of the work force is either seasonal (logging, etc) then coast on…

> Where does one build 3.5 million houses?

One doesn't. One builds 3.5 million homes, mostly apartments.

Re: California’s population shrinks for third straight year

#140

Post by pram »

wysewun wrote: post #43

Moved from the bay to Texas because of everything i heard. It was such a horrible experience. The heat, the bugs, the lack of density. So few days of good weather. Maybe worth it to some, but a bigger house was not worth it to me at all. We moved back in 6 months. So many people want to live in California which causes more issues

Haha, did someone actually tell you the weather is fine? I was born in Texas and I've lived in Austin for 13 years and I've always thought the summers are unbearable.

Although my perspective is tempered with what I experienced around the gulf, in Mississippi and Florida. The humidity there is so bad I literally don't think it's fit for human settlement.

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