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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

#271

Post by zeveb »

dmode wrote: post #147
zeveb wrote: post #125

California today is the United States in a decade or two: its dysfunctions are the product of decades of poor policy decisions (often, the poor decision was to have a policy in the first place) by voters and their elected officials alike. A huge problem is that people move from California to other states in order to escape Californian problems, but once they get to their new state they miss a few things about Califor…

This makes no sense. Because people who move to California also move from other states.

> This makes no sense. Because people who move to California also move from other states.

But California (like Texas) is large enough that a uniform sampling of Americans from other states injected into California is like adding a drop of water to the ocean.

The Californian exodus to smaller states, OTOH, is more like dumping a #10 can of ketchup into a hot tub.

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

#272

Post by zeveb »

rconti wrote: post #209
zeveb wrote: post #125

California today is the United States in a decade or two: its dysfunctions are the product of decades of poor policy decisions (often, the poor decision was to have a policy in the first place) by voters and their elected officials alike. A huge problem is that people move from California to other states in order to escape Californian problems, but once they get to their new state they miss a few things about Califor…

You appear to be blaming Californians on what are probably natural tendencies of the people already living there.

> You appear to be blaming Californians on what are probably natural tendencies of the people already living there.

Well, part of the problem is that on a lot of issues folks are relatively balanced: all it takes is a few to sway an election one way or the other.

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

#273

Post by ArkyBeagle »

shawndumas wrote: post #44
sideband wrote: post #33

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-…

Having lived in Long Island, NY and Boca Raton, FL I gotta say... I don't think I could leave the Bay Area. The weather, the geological features, the schools, the meetups, the job opportunities... all factors. But the biggest is that the people are truly interested in intellectual matters in a way that was not extant in the other places I've lived. My son is a programmer and nobody had a clue what he was talking abou…

Perhaps it's a character defect, but I consider "the life of the mind" to be more about books than something involving other people directly, face to face.

The philosopher kings of SiVa are as much the Medici as they are intellectuals.

"All mankind's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room." - Blaise Pascal.

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

#274

Post by lsaferite »

kylestlb wrote: post #270
lsaferite wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which makes the remote position much higher paid basically.

Yeah, cost of living in the bay area is likely much more than 10-13% of other places.

I live in FL currently. Just the income tax jump alone is about 9%.

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

#275

Post by sphinx65 »

huherto wrote: post #154
sphinx65 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they were promises made a long, long time ago, when interest rates were high enough to support the idea of pensions and retirement?

Excuse my ignorance. How are interest rates and pensions connected?

Pensions don't make any money with interest rates as low as they are. They need to be around 8% or so for pensions to be viable. Currently pension funds are doing the same unwise speculative investments everyone else is making because nothing else pays enough. As go pensions so goes retirement in general. Pensions were perfectly viable until the reign of Greenspan.

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

#276

Post by ArkyBeagle »

shawndumas wrote: post #70
mc32 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jobs and day trips yes. Schools, no. Public schools are among the worst funded and least achieving. Good schools, go to Mass (with also good day trips, but harsh winters).

South FL has some truly awful schools; that was my comparison.

This is mid-Fla, but when we moved from a good school system in a Dallas suburb to Brevard County, my daughter went from top 20% of her class to top 5%. This was unplanned but it set the table for her to have a full ride undergrad scholarship leading to a graduate program with also an assistantship.

After leaving school ( she stopped at a Master's ) she left anything related to academia behind but she's still roughly able to exploit the degree as a credential .

But South Fl is a completely different thing. I once declined a job offer there simply because more than half of the rental property on offer appeared to be phone-drop scams.

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

#277

Post by sphinx65 »

cylinder wrote: post #193
sphinx65 wrote: post #46

This is happening almost everywhere, but at a less frightening pace than CA. And we are told continually by the chattering class and politicians that skyrocketing real estate prices - asset inflation - is a good thing. Since forever a stable residential real estate market was the goal and people understood its value. Now we're all gamblers, meaning losers. When the hedge funds and REIT's stop speculating in residenti…

Hedge funds and REITs are not involved in single family residential in the Bay Area, and even as a whole they are small players. Most REIT assets by far are in commercial / multifamily property.

They're huge players in single family rentals. Blackstone (a hedge fund) is the largest owner of single family rentals in the USA. And they really don't care about cash flow that much, they are trying to inflate the price of the asset, hence all the "cash over asking" sales. Which means they will dump it when they can't keep causing the prices to rise.

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

#278

Post by ArkyBeagle »

netcan wrote: post #48
sideband wrote: post #33

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-…

It's not just SF. It's big cities around the world. They are drawing in more people than ever. Most have housing/transport issues that present as high cost of living. People still keep pouring in and successful cities stand out in terms of household income. Even as the internet makes geography less relevant, the competition for living in cities keeps growing.

I suspect you have to examine the premise that the internet makes geography less relevant. That's okay; I live in the middle of the country (something about which I am quite stubborn ) and a significant fraction of my recent job opportunities were based on somebody moving to Cali. Follow that yellow brick road.

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

#279

Post by ArkyBeagle »

api wrote: post #92
netcan wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just SF. It's big cities around the world. They are drawing in more people than ever. Most have housing/transport issues that present as high cost of living. People still keep pouring in and successful cities stand out in terms of household income. Even as the internet makes geography less relevant, the competition for living in cities keeps growing.

I've seen the "alpha cities" phenomenon explode since 2000. Where you live has become a proxy for your competence, importance, etc. I'm not convinced it's not the Internet. Google "FOMO" for a possible mechanism. The Internet makes it easy for large cities, by sheer social mass, to send out a louder cultural signal and convince everyone else they are missing something by not being there. Talk to a young midwesterner…

I had a feller from HP trying to get me to relocate to SiVa in the 1980s. I dunno. I calculated that land price made Texas better, and it was for quite a while.

"If you aren't in SF or NYC you are nobody..." Whew. Okay then.

"Wealth stratification" is, IMO, largely an artifact of 1) increasingly abstract wealth and 2) low interest rates. This is oh so very much because of the tax code and because of Fed policy.

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