California's skyrocketing housing costs, taxes prompt exodus of residents • Hacker News Board

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

#231

Post by lsaferite » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 5:43 PM UTC

aphextron wrote: post #34

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.

Ok, but a 50% salary bump doesn't help as much if you also get a 4x (or more) house cost bump.

Before: 100k / 12k ($1k/month) = 88k After: 150k / 48k ($4k/month) = 102k

Sure, you say to yourself that you ended up with an extra 14k, but then you need to still factor in the rest of your increased costs. And you should probably recalculate everything as an hourly equivalent since you'll likely add 2 or more hours to your daily commute in exchange for keeping that house cost bump at a mere 4x.

The numbers shift based on where you are and how much you make. The point is that a large number of people don't properly factor in all the actual and implicit cost and quality of life changes.

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

#232

Post by TDL » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 5:45 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #171

TDL wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are other accounts/instruments that can replace public pensions. The reality is that politicians over promise on pensions and create unsustainable obligations for future generations.

They could just use defined contribution then there's no future liability.

Agreed

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

#233

Post by TheCoelacanth » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 5:47 PM UTC

wbsun wrote: post #35

People are considering killing Prop 13, which will make more residents leave.

Getting rid of Prop 13 would likely cause house prices to plummet, which would offset some of that.

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

#234

Post by lsaferite » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 5:48 PM UTC

kylestlb wrote: post #23

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?

I have worked at two separate companies where they differ, typically 10-13% delta from what I remember...

Which makes the remote position much higher paid basically.

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

#235

Post by overcast » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 5:50 PM UTC

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #155

overcast wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's interesting to hear these experiences from people that live there. Because there is certainly a romanticized version of it we see on the East Coast. Living in upstate New York, we have tons of wilderness areas, and relatively cheap living conditions. The grind out in California, just to say you live there, sounds scary.

Love that you're from upstate NY and your name is "overcast." I'm making do in Ithaca just fine. More restaurants per person than New York City, a rush hour that only lasts 10 minutes on 5 roads, and a bunch of really nice people for a place this cold and gray make Ithaca the most good enough place in the world for me. As far as big cities go, you take the great with the terrible.

Ithaca area is beautiful, I'm frequently in the Finger Lakes for hikes. Just did fifteen miles a few weekends ago at Treman and Watkins Glen. It's only a bit more than an hour from Rochester where I am, which has similar traffic, albeit the rush hour lasts a bit longer. But the food and drink scene here in the last five years here has exploded. There's been more than a few places open from ex-NYC restaurateurs.

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

#236

Post by sjg007 » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 5:51 PM UTC

jonathankoren wrote: post #137

yequalsx wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the question is why don't all workers have pensions? As I understand it most 401(k) plans have high expense ratios, rely on people actively participating and generally leave workers with an underfunded retirement. I prefer a system much like the French. Leaving it up to an individual to plan 40 years into the future does not seem like a sensible social policy.

Pensions used to be common until the 1980s. I found this report from the St Louis Fed talking about the transition. https://www.stlouisfed.org/publications/central-banker/summe...

Wall Street wanted in on the action which is why we got the 401k.

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

#237

Post by overcast » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 5:51 PM UTC

antimatter wrote: post #170

overcast wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is denying the beauty, and adventures that await in California, that's why people live there. The issue here is what the original article is all about. When it becomes a grind just to live there, you can't even enjoy what makes it so awesome to be there.

This. I've lived in Los Angeles almost my whole life. I visited the beach maybe once in the last 5 years. Why? Because to do so, you have to be willing to sit in at least 1-1.5 hours of traffic. When you get there, at least 30 min to find parking. There are simply too many people in CA at this point to enjoy anything it offers. Leaving the house for me means waiting (in traffic, lines, for parking, etc).

I know, I was just in Santa Monica visiting a friend for a week, before I headed off to the mountains. I feel sorry for what she has to put up with daily.

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

#238

Post by mikestew » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 5:54 PM UTC

I'll read the article later, but this sounds like a replay of about twenty years ago. Articles in the WSJ, NYT, et. al., about how CA's high housing prices and taxation are causing an exodus to such places as Las Vegas (and we see how that turned out). I was too young to have paid attention at the time, but I wouldn't be surprised to go back to the archives to the 70s, where one might find the same articles.

I know, this time it's different $BECAUSE_REASONS. No, it's not. Some individuals and companies will leave, but CA will continue to be crowded in some areas, heavily taxed, and costly, just like it's always been.

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

#239

Post by collyw » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 6:05 PM UTC

npsimons wrote: post #224

arethuza wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What geological features of the Bay Area do you regard as a plus point? NB Not being snarky - I live in Edinburgh which is overflowing with geological features [hence arguably being the birthplace of geology as a science] and I love that factor but the main geological feature of the Bay Area would appear to be a major disadvantage rather than a feature?

> What geological features of the Bay Area do you regard as a plus point? I believe they may be talking about the Sierra Nevada range, with mountaineering matched only by places in the Andes, Himalayas or Alps. Yosemite is the climbing capital of the world and the birthplace of modern rock climbing. Sure, it's not right in the Bay area, but you can easily drive to a trail head within a half day or less. Little known…

Half a days drive is a lot. In Edinburgh there are decent outdoor sports half an hour away.

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

#240

Post by dadkins » Thu, Jun 23, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

khuey wrote: post #216

dmode wrote: post #145

So, "exodus" is used to define a mere outflow of 60K residents ? That is less than 0.05%. Also, this article makes no sense. If California was losing people for the last 22 years, how come it's population went from 29 million in 1990 to 40 million in 2016 ? I hate how none of these "exodus" articles are data centric and explain these two discrepancies. Is the population growth then due to birth rate ? or due to immig…

It's immigration. California has had negative net domestic migration for a while. Population growth in the state is driven by immigration.

Don't forget natural growth, i.e. birth.

According to census estimates, California had a natural population increase of 1,332,394 (births - deaths) from April 2010 -- August 2015. In that same period it had a net immigration of 568,884 people, consisting of +834,999 international and -266,115 domestic.

On the other hand, when you look at the San Francisco bay area metropolitan region, you'll see that there's no domestic exodus and a net immigration of 274,598 people over the last five years.

[http://factfinder.census.gov/bkmk/table/1.0/en/PEP/2015/PEPT...]

So, yeah, with a little over ~90,000 new people per year in the region, the picture looks very different than the one the article was trying to paint.