But you also have to consider that $500K here will buy a lot more house than in most places in Cal. //

No kidding, although I love to watch those home moving shows, and the Alaska ones always surprise me how much they are. Bet I could get beach front for $500k though, somewhere...You are always going to pay more where people actually want to live in big numbers. Still waiting to see all these disgruntled people leave here, without being replaced immediately by 1.5 people (-;


What about heating costs, that has to be pretty bad there. I hear my brothers sob stories from Vermont, I imagine you would be even worse??I Each area is going to have its pluses and minuses, I barley have to ever use heat or air conditioning here, so a super minimal electric and gas bill. But of course I have to pay more per sq ft than just about anywhere, and somehow I made nearly 18% equity last year on a brand new house I just bought. Of course the risks of it going down a lot are more in play too, but I think I have some runway until that gets to be a real possibility.

A $500,000 house in california gets you something in an armpit like Palmdale. //

Actually 250k will get you 6 bedrooms in Palmdale, 500k gets you Quartz hill.. In CA there is high and low just about everywhere, some really high. I just last year bought a brand new house in a brand new city in south Orange County, surrounded by 1 to 3 million dollar homes for $587k. It is not impossible to live in a nice area in a nice house(near the beaches), you just have to look harder and be willing to size down the sq ft.

Heating costs can be pretty bad depending on how big your house is and how it's built. Ours is 1300sf and well insulated; we use 500 gallons of fuel oil a year if we don't use the wood stove. But I once lived in a ramshackle house where we sometimes used 500 gallons in a month; that was a shock on a student budget!

Electricity is expensive - I pay net 27-28 cents/kWhr, partially due to a local utility that's been badly managed for decades.

//I just last year bought a brand new house in a brand new city in south Orange County, surrounded by 1 to 3 million dollar homes for $587k//


Sure, but it's worth over $700k by now I would imagine. We bought a house in south OC in 1999 for $380k, have long since paid it off and it's rented out for $4,500/mo (and it's worth about $1.1m). That's one benefit of many areas of CA, particularly in coastal areas, is the dramatic increase in value over time. We bought a home in Tucson in 2003 for $300k that is now worth about $400k. You'll be surprised how small that house will become when your kids are 12, 13ish.


Have you ever lived out of CA (as an adult)? We spend a lot of time in Tucson and will relocate in a year or so full-time, and the difference in cost in just about everything is palpable. We have vehicles registered there which we can renew for 2yrs at a time for less than one comparable car costs here. Gas is about $1 less per gallon. Insurance, other services are notably less. Hell, we pay more property tax on our friggin sailboat than on our Tucson house! (We also pay property tax on the slip space the boat floats in to LA County - I suppose it's cool we actually own some of the ocean?). Where I grew up in CA (small desert community) it's affordable re housing but far more difficult to earn a high income in those areas.


Income tax in CA for us is between 10%-13% (depending). And, FWIW, if it's a particularly great year, we pay 40% to the feds so net less than 50% of what we earned.


In CA, the top 1% of earners pay over 50% of the general tax fund. I believe (don't have time to research) that the top 3% pay about 75% of the general fund. At the same time, we have more homeless than anywhere in the country and it's growing at an alarming rate.


CA is becoming a state of extremes - wealth, poverty, costs, homelessness, pensions, traffic, beautiful weather/beaches, crime....

//Actually 250k will get you 6 bedrooms in Palmdale// - more like a 3+3 and 1700 sq ft.

You can live like a king for $500k in middle CA.

---

_________________________________
I'll be what I am
A solitary man

We spend a lot of time in Tucson and will relocate in a year or so full-time, and the difference in cost in just about everything is palpable.//


I love the desert and Tucson, hell I have a house in the highest of deserts, I believe you know it. And it is just about perfect for me, of course I would like all of AZ's financial benefits, but then it would have to be there.. (-; Yes it looks like the house I bought just a little over a year ago now has gone up to about 710k or so. Like you said, one of the benefits around here if you can get in, or got in anytime in the past 30 years. Made more on my house than I do working!! And thanks to prop 13 I will keep paying taxes on an under 600k house for quite sometime, even when it goes over a mil in about 3 or 4 years..


I applaud what you are doing, I just think a lot of people make too much on what it takes to live in CA. You did it for a very long time, raised you kids, so must have liked something quite powerful about it? It hasn't really changed that much from the old days, just got more crowded. I suppose if politics is very important to you, being republican is not really a + here(except for where you and I live and a few other spots here and there) But that doesn't bother me much at all really, dont plan my life around politics. Suppose if I lived in a gay hating, racist gun toting, knuckle dragging area where I was a very small minority I might think about leaving, but here you have every view and its pretty much tolerated, like most places I presume really.


Empty nesting I suppose comes with a whole new set of feelings and an itch to do something different. I lived like one for a very long time and now starting out like a 20 year old. Yes the house will get small in 7 or 8 years, but it will be worth 1.5 million+ by then and I can use my itch to go somewhere else cool. Hell, I would like to follow in Dorian Paskcowititz's shoes, get a big motorhome and live on the road for a few years, like you on your boat... (-;

Weren't you the one talking about a family living in a motor home / trailer and the parents kicked the kids out in the evenings to have...well...some intimate time? That story still makes me laugh!

I do find the political climate in CA ridiculous but doesn't affect my day to day life (other than the high taxes, but I can earn a lot being here). What I am really commenting on are the cost increases on just about everything, taxes included, and how that will affect my kids after college when they try to settle in OC. We somehow defy basic economics re supply and demand, buying power, etc in this state - given our consumption and populace and high income earners I would envision our overall day to day costs would decrease or atleast increase slower than elsewhere but our state govt cannot manage themselves and tax the crap out of everything and watch administrative costs (DMV, Utilities, etc) and consumables (gas, etc) increase and keep layering more and more tax. I'm no economist and I've been very, very lucky in my career but when I look around and feel the difference outside of CA, it's frustrating.

But I do love the weather, beaches, schools in OC. My kids had a helluva childhood, like yours will, and I wouldn't trade that for anything.

I assume that you mean tax load would decrease. An area that becomes wealthier and economically dynamic will generally have higher cost of living.


Please explain, the thread is pretty much about folks outside of CA not begin able to wrap their heads around why the economy can keep growing and attracting folks, which makes housing more expensive. What is so different in the "feel"?

If CA ran like a Swiss watch for all the extra you pay, that would be one thing. Unfortunately it's more like a Chinese replica that turns your wrist green.

For being perceived as so progressive, in many ways obsolete and backwards.

Having said all that, I'm digging in for the future and am purchasing a house on the central coast. My goal is to get my financial footprint down low enough where I can actually retire someday. I've looked around a lot and there is no place I'd rather live.

---

_________________________________
I'll be what I am
A solitary man

In a nutshell, it is one of the most concentrated brain centers in the world, which is a catalyst for capital and new businesses.

---

_________________________________
I'll be what I am
A solitary man

But how many families have just one car? If you have 3 cars, you're paying almost $2k versus that $1k in property tax. If you have two cars, you're still behind.

I've always thought that central coast had a kind of magical feel to it (and I use that word very little to describe places). Time is slower. Natural beauty is unreal. People are mostly not city people other than all the Silicon Valley retirees.

That said, I just got back from time on the Oregon central coast (Manzanita area), and it's very similar. Only it rains a shit ton more, so a little more rain-foresty. But otherwise a very similar feel. Also lots of CA retirees, though. At one point I thought I was in an Orange County coffee shop with all the wealthy plastic surgeried women. But get a house a bit away from town, and you'd seldom have to deal with them.

You guys are out of your mind. ;-)

---

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Because SF isn’t just a place, it is a symbol of everything the right hates.

Just like Alabama to the left.

All I know is that I won’t be booking any vacations to Alabama anytime soon ;). SF is awesome though.

---

===============
Proud member of the MSF (Maple Syrup Mafia)

Yes, there is been an enormous emotional and political investment in having conservative areas be economically more successful than liberal areas for several decades, and that has been going poorly. Of course, the deeper truth is that most blue areas reformed themselves long ago, and ended up being way less liberal than the latest "Antifa is coming" article would suggest.

No, its not a symbol of everything the right hates, its a symbol of failed leftist policies.

I don't care what it symbolizes. It just seems to be an economic virus that I don't want spreading east, when it comes to its housing market, is all. ;-)

---

"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

You mean economic dynamism and wealth is a failed leftist policy? Housing prices are primarily a function of supply and demand and zoning. Restrictive zoning ordinances exist everywhere, They haven't changed here much in decades (in fact, zoning rules have been slowly relaxing, and there are efforts to further roll them back). Why ignore elementary economic principles and fall back on a mindless mantra "its a symbol of failed leftist policies. " NIMBY-ism is very common all along the political spectrum, except for the far (socialist) left and (libertarian) right, and the far left is surprisingly weak in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. The results are merely more obvious in economically strong areas.

oldandslow wrote:

You mean economic dynamism and wealth is a failed leftist policy? Housing prices are primarily a function of supply and demand and zoning. Restrictive zoning ordinances exist everywhere, They haven't changed here much in decades (in fact, zoning rules have been slowly relaxing, and there are efforts to further roll them back). Why ignore elementary economic principles and fall back on a mindless mantra "its a symbol of failed leftist policies. " NIMBY-ism is very common all along the political spectrum, except for the far (socialist) left and (libertarian) right, and the far left is surprisingly weak in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area. The results are merely more obvious in economically strong areas.

Leftist policy is harming the economic dynamism of the Valley. Jobs are being lost to other cities due to policy. I see it all around me in Seattle, with Google, Apple and Facebook all increasing their footprint here. Not only that, many startups are avoiding the bay area. The valley is unique, your mindless mantra of "restrictive zoning ordinances exist everywhere" shows you lack a clear understanding of the level of restrictions in place. Its like saying Boise and LA both have traffic issues. There is no law of supply and demand in the valley because of policies to increase demand and artificially suppress supply that is unique to the bay area. Office buildings are being built without housing to support the new jobs. Nowhere in the country comes close to the restrictive policies and I have mine and you can fuck-off mindset of the bay area.

Its so idiotic you can't build by BART stations.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/05/20000-new-homes-by-bart-stations-a-new-california-zoning-bill-aims-to-speed-building/


https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/03/03/sb-827/


This take is not far from the truth. Bay area housing policy are like Trump's wall:


https://www.eastbayexpress.com/oakland/youre-not-a-progressive-if-youre-also-a-nimby/Content?oid=13674523

Yeah.
Screw that!!
I would hate it:
If my house were worth 1.8 Million dollars.
If there were 100s of thousands of high paying jobs in the area.
If it always somewhere between 60-85 degrees.
If there were hundreds of beautiful parks, beeches, forest and mountains to visit.
Screw that!

Well, some folks here think that we could use a little less "economic dynamism" ;). That mantra has been stated for decades, such that it is surprising that anyone here (or in Seattle) iremainsat all! Same complaints could be levied against number of cities, but saying it flies in the face of nistory. BTW, Alert, restrictive zoning ISN'T a leftist policy. It is a policy fully embraced by both sides, with detractors on the extremes. You see it everywhere, it is merely more obvious where economic growth has raised housing values. The most reliable opponents to growth aren't the radical leftists (who only complain because they want guaranteed low-cost housing included), but the more conservative enclaves (San Mateo, Los Altos, Burlingame, Woodside, to name a few). This place has become intrinsically more conservative over the past decades, while folks from the outside have been fooled by a handful of Berzerkley protesters and a younger demographic.


FYI, I live near Redwood City, which has been building like crazy along the transit corridor for ~20 years, to the consternation of all sorts of my older friends across the political spectrum who pine for the "good ole days." (the political spectrum here is pretty much "fashionably liberal" to "fiscally conservative, yet socially moderate", which explains why everybody here gets along so well ;)

On the other hand, I am not contemplating the move from Tucson to the Bay Area.

An average house in Tucson.

https://www.zillow.com/...85712/61768593_zpid/


What that would get you in East Bay

https://www.zillow.com/...303/2096702187_zpid/

Well, George also included all natural resources held in the land. I don't think stock options would have gotten much of a rise from him.

I was surprised that the Bay Area was less Bernie-centric than the rest of the country. But when I think about it awhile I suppose it makes sense. My question now is what do you call the subset of Bernie supporters that aren't classified as Berzerkley bat-shit crazy?

Also, what started with N and ended with V?

Increased governmental regulation IS leftist policy. The government must inject itself into business and regulate it is leftism and its perfected in the Bay Area, especially environmental regulations.

https://www.bizjournals.com/...e-building-laws.html