Any other long-term CA residents reconsidering their “forever home”?

[Scuba]

We lived in Coastal So CA, thinking that would be our forever home, for 30+ years. After retiring and taking an extended vacation in the Desert, we decided to move to Palm Springs for the slower pace and more relaxed environment, thinking this would now be our “forever home” but keeping the beach property as a back-up plan in case we didn’t enjoy the desert lifestyle.

We’ve adapted well to Palm Springs and really enjoy living here. Despite the ridiculous cost of living which has accelerated more sharply than in many other states, we can still afford to live here.

However, we are getting concerned about the longer term viability of staying here. Several friends, some much wealthier than we are, moved out of CA due to quality of life issues. So many people are leaving that an exit tax is being proposed. It seems that more and more businesses and individuals leave CA every day for states that have lower taxes/cost of living and a perceived higher quality of life.

Just wondering if there are other long-term CA residents out there questioning whether to spend your remaining years here, and if so, how will you make your decision whether to stay or leave? We have no children. Remaining family members are in the SE US, but we have many friendships and community connections in CA.

 

[jurgs01]

Why not do AZ or NV? Close enough to visit, good weather, better cost of living and taxes. Vegas and Phoenix real estate is heading down hard. May be able to nab a great deal late 2023 or early 2024.

 

[DrRoy]

We love to visit CA but would never choose to live there.

 

[Surewhitey]

We lived in greater LA valley and loved California but went there with an opportunity plan. It worked out & we left for another country for a few years.

Our friends are mostly still there and I understand why, just not in the cards for us. Taxes and COL for newbies (prop & income taxes especially) make a hard pill to swallow. We go to visit often though and get our fix on Yosemite, Cambria coast and friends. We also have Palm Desert friends and go there too.

The friends who moved went to NV (just over the border with Tahoe, Oregon, TX, CO and AZ. If you are retired, CA is not so bad, imo. Good services for the long-term folks.

We like lower humidity in our home areas, personally, but have live(d) in Dallas and coastal Mexico too. I'd never live in places like Houston and New Orleans though. Property taxes are high (% of value, similar to net $ of CA) in TX, but income taxes are 0, so we are here for now... And 2 GK's.

 

[Spock]

Off track but parallel: I'm moving elsewhere next month partially due to the influx of Californians moving here.

 

[Music Lover]

There is a lot more to life than good weather. Find a better place to live and if it comes with a couple months of bad weather just go somewhere else for a while.

 

[MarieIG]

This is an incredibly personal decision, which IMHO, comes down to quality of life - but raises different considerations for different people.

We live on the opposite side of the country so, I will not address California, but moving out of state is something we are strongly considering. (It will not be easy for me as I have lived in the region my entire life; DH has no special attachment to the area, beyond the parks and beaches.)

 

[Helen]

Oregon, especially Multnomah county (Portland) is getting to be quite expensive too. And the city is going downhill fast in terms of livability.

 

[Souschef]

We plan to stay in Ventura County. I was glad to move out of LA County with all the nonsense going on there.
We moved from a +55 MHP where we never saw anyone, to a brand new apartment right on the coast. Yes it is quite a bit more expensive, but we can afford it, thank goodness.

 

[Freedom56]

We have no plans to leave. For every person moving out, there is an even wealthier person moving in. This is why prices are not crashing and did not crash like states like Florida after the 2008 financial crisis. We sold our condo in Florida as property taxes, insurance, and condo fees were more expensive than our home in California which made no sense to us. It was a good investment given that we bought the condo during the last real estate crash in Florida and now have sold it for 6.8 times what we paid for it.
The quality of life in Florida was deteriorating and the homeless problem around downtown West Palm Beach was getting progressively worse. Walking or running down the waterfront and marina in the morning was like a scene out of the Walking Dead series with homeless people waking up as you pass by. A lot of businesses have left the downtown core, leaving more and more empty retail space. Much of the retail space has remained empty since 2011 when we purchased our condo. Yes you can live in gated communities that keep the homeless out, but once you leave you leave your gated community, you enter a war zone. The other consideration is access to healthcare. We live close enough to three of the best healthcare providers in the country: Cedars-Sinai, UCLA, and USC-Keck. There are very few states that can offer that.

 

[CindyBlue]

We retired 4 years ago, and plan to stay here in Northern California, unless costs get so high we can no longer afford it (and then I don't know where we'd go.) I grew up here. It's my home. Hubby has lived here since the early 70s, and in California (previously southern) since his high school years. Thank goodness for Prop 13/19, helping to keep our property taxes closer to reasonable. We don't need much and so far can pay the bills with just our pensions and SS, reserving our savings until we need them.

 

[RobbieB]

Moved to CA from Detroit back in 1979. That makes 44 years. Not considering moving. Here in the Central Valley it's not nearly as expensive as SF or Silicon Valley. I have a big boat docked a nice covered low cost berth in Stockton.

House is paid for with nice low property taxes. CA has high income taxes and sales taxes, but they don't tax SS.

I like the variety of dining, variety of outdoor activities and the weather. Blooming where I've been planted -

 

[Irishgirlyc58]

I’m a 5th generation Californian and have no intention of moving at this time.
I live in Northern California- not to be confused with the Bay Area. [emoji38]
We don’t have the everyday traffic issues but live a driveable distance to the big city.

My biggest concern is of course the water issues but that isn’t specific to California.
The other is the forest fires. I live in one out of 2 counties in California that are low fire risk due to not having any federal forest land but when the surrounding counties have fires they share the smoke.
But again forest fires aren’t specific to California we just happened to have a lot of federal forest land so lots of fuel for fires.

Most importantly my grandkids live here.
Along with the rest of my family.

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

Can't find any place I'd rather be.

Cheap property taxes, abundance of food options, no bugs to contend with, the Pacific Ocean, no tornados/hurricanes.

As long as one doesn't go into the big cities, you don't deal with big city problems. Same as any other place in the country.

 

[Mark1]

...


However, we are getting concerned about the longer term viability of staying here. Several friends, some much wealthier than we are, moved out of CA due to quality of life issues. So many people are leaving that an exit tax is being proposed. It seems that more and more businesses and individuals leave CA every day for states that have lower taxes/cost of living and a perceived higher quality of life.
...

We lived CA in the mid-90s and I remember the story's about everyone leaving the state (i.e all the U-Hauls were outbound and essential none inbound). I see the population of CA was ~31MM in mid-90s, whereas it is now~39MM. Apparently, not everyone left.

We really enjoyed our time in CA, but there are now 39MM reasons I wouldn't want to live there.

I say live at the your first choice of retirement location that you can afford.

 

[Irishgirlyc58]

Can't find any place I'd rather be.

Cheap property taxes, abundance of food options, no bugs to contend with, the Pacific Ocean, no tornados/hurricanes.

As long as one doesn't go into the big cities, you don't deal with big city problems. Same as any other place in the country.

I love being able to ride my bike down the street and get fresh produce. If that one is out of what I want I just ride my bike to the next one.
It’s my understanding from people that have moved here from other states that the availability and vast selection of really fresh produce is unique to California. [emoji2370]

I will say that living in the middle of ag land there are an abundance of mosquitos if you are driving through around dusk at certain times of the year.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

We love it here in the Bay Area - Mediterranean climate, Redwood parks, beaches, mountains, museums, lots of social / hobby clubs and extensive arts and culture activities. We can go to places like Napa, Santa Cruz and Sausalito for the day, and overnight to places like Lake Tahoe, Mendocino, Carmel and Yosemite. This past weekend we went to a San Francisco Symphony Orchestra concert. It has been a really fun place for us to be retired.

We lived in a very boring city before this with bad weather, not a lot to do and no scenery so our next move we did more research and ended up here, with San Diego the runner up. We bought our house a long time ago and with Prop 13, our living costs are very reasonable.

The people leaving tend to be lower and middle income households, those making making less than 6 figures, https://calmatters.org/california-d...dle-and-low-income-people-leaving-california/.

People are leaving the city of San Francisco with the work at home movement, a lot of the store fronts there are vacant these days and the office towers have vacancies, but many workers have just moved out to the suburbs: "We've all seen countless stories about San Francisco tech workers decamping for Texas and Florida — but according to U.S. Postal Service change-of-address records, they're mostly moving to Bay Area suburbs...", https://www.axios.com/2021/02/17/san-francisco-exodus-cities-data

 

[pdxgal]

Oregon, especially Multnomah county (Portland) is getting to be quite expensive too. And the city is going downhill fast in terms of livability.

+1. I have a rental in SF (bought years ago) and ironically it would probably cost me less to live there than in Portland. If my tenant ever moves out I will seriously consider moving back. But my plan A is to get out of the country for a while and see how that goes.

 

[RetiredAndLovingIt]

We have no plans to leave. For every person moving out, there is an even wealthier person moving in. This is why prices are not crashing and did not crash like states like Florida after the 2008 financial crisis. We sold our condo in Florida as property taxes, insurance, and condo fees were more expensive than our home in California which made no sense to us. It was a good investment given that we bought the condo during the last real estate crash in Florida and now have sold it for 6.8 times what we paid for it.
The quality of life in Florida was deteriorating and the homeless problem around downtown West Palm Beach was getting progressively worse. Walking or running down the waterfront and marina in the morning was like a scene out of the Walking Dead series with homeless people waking up as you pass by. A lot of businesses have left the downtown core, leaving more and more empty retail space. Much of the retail space has remained empty since 2011 when we purchased our condo. Yes you can live in gated communities that keep the homeless out, but once you leave you leave your gated community, you enter a war zone. The other consideration is access to healthcare. We live close enough to three of the best healthcare providers in the country: Cedars-Sinai, UCLA, and USC-Keck. There are very few states that can offer that.

Freedom, what So Cal zip code do you live in that there are no homeless and Walking Dead drug addicts these days? I'm not being funny, I'm genuinely curious bt I'm assuming you are not in Los Angeles county? Even in the nicest areas there is so much bad stuff going on these days and even when they get caught, they're back out on the street the same day. I would submit everywhere is a war zone right now and the police get absolutely zero support from our politicians.
Both my kids bought homes in 2009 which they never could have afforded if the prices did not crash back them, almost every home sale was a foreclosure in 2009. The one I bought for my daughter cost 1/3 of the price that the previous owners had paid for it a couple of years previously. There is no way that California was unaffected by the 2008 crash and prices stayed low for a long after that.
I will agree that smaller cities are not as impacted as the large ones but trouble is everywhere in Southern California and I only stay here because I want to stay close to my kids and grandkids.

 

[Dash man]

I grew up in Southern California playing in the orange groves that were plentiful in the 60s. I left for good in 1987 and knew I’d never go back to live there. I’ve only returned to visit family or when I traveled on business. Lots of reasons why, but I admit weather was not one of them.

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

Freedom, what So Cal zip code do you live in that there are no homeless and Walking Dead drug addicts these days? I'm not being funny, I'm genuinely curious bt I'm assuming you are not in Los Angeles county? Even in the nicest areas there is so much bad stuff going on these days and even when they get caught, they're back out on the street the same day. I would submit everywhere is a war zone right now and the police get absolutely zero support from our politicians.
Both my kids bought homes in 2009 which they never could have afforded if the prices did not crash back them, almost every home sale was a foreclosure in 2009. The one I bought for my daughter cost 1/3 of the price that the previous owners had paid for it a couple of years previously. There is no way that California was unaffected by the 2008 crash and prices stayed low for a long after that.
I will agree that smaller cities are not as impacted as the large ones but trouble is everywhere in Southern California and I only stay here because I want to stay close to my kids and grandkids.

I live in LA county and a few minutes ago completed a 2.5 mile mid day walk through my city. I didn't encounter any criminals, homeless, zombies, war zones (I can tell you never served in the military) nor "trouble" that you speak of. Haven't been a crime victim in the 60 years I've lived here.

I did chat with some people I passed. I also charged my EV for free during this entire process. I enjoyed all the clean air from the recent rain.

Funny how experiences can be so different. And I am not in one the nicest area's either.

 

[stepford]

45 years in CA, homeowner for 35 of those. No way I'm moving. I love seeing those California exodus stories. Less crowded beaches would be great.

 

[Freedom56]

Freedom, what So Cal zip code do you live in that there are no homeless and Walking Dead drug addicts these days? I'm not being funny, I'm genuinely curious bt I'm assuming you are not in Los Angeles county? Even in the nicest areas there is so much bad stuff going on these days and even when they get caught, they're back out on the street the same day. I would submit everywhere is a war zone right now and the police get absolutely zero support from our politicians.
Both my kids bought homes in 2009 which they never could have afforded if the prices did not crash back them, almost every home sale was a foreclosure in 2009. The one I bought for my daughter cost 1/3 of the price that the previous owners had paid for it a couple of years previously. There is no way that California was unaffected by the 2008 crash and prices stayed low for a long after that.
I will agree that smaller cities are not as impacted as the large ones but trouble is everywhere in Southern California and I only stay here because I want to stay close to my kids and grandkids.

We are in Los Angeles county. I can assure you that there are no Walking Dead homeless where we live. We live at 2100 feet elevation in a cul de sac and no Walking Dead Homeless would ever push their shopping carts up to these elevation or have the stamina to walk up the steep grade. The Sand Canyon area in the SCV is void of homeless people. It's a very safe area with no porch pirates, bike thieves, or automatic weapons fire waking you up while you are sleeping which unfortunately we encountered in downtown West Palm Beach Florida. We have never been a victim of crime in California, but I can't say the same about Florida.

California was not impacted by the 2008 crash like Florida was. Any significant price drops were in the desert communities or locations like Stockton. We were looking for bargains in Del Mar, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and other coastal cities but could not find any. Any properties that seemed like bargains had other issues such as the backyards eroding down hillsides. As for price appreciation, our home is worth 3.5 times what it was in 2008 and almost 9 times what we paid for it in 1996. Whereas we sold our in Florida condo at just 15% more than what it sold for in 2008 and 6.8 times what we bought it for in 2011. Homelessness is an issue across the country but some areas have managed to escape the issue due to geography or security gates. When we walk around our area, we see a lot of wildlife but never the homeless Walking Dead.

 

[Another Reader]

We are in Los Angeles county. I can assure you that there are no Walking Dead homeless where we live. We live at 2100 feet elevation in a cul de sac and no Walking Dead Homeless would ever push their shopping carts up to these elevation or have the stamina to walk up the steep grade. The Sand Canyon area in the SCV is void of homeless people. It's a very safe area with no porch pirates, bike thieves, or automatic weapons fire waking you up while you are sleeping which unfortunately we encountered in downtown West Palm Beach Florida. We have never been a victim of crime in California, but I can't say the same about Florida.

California was not impacted by the 2008 crash like Florida was. Any significant price drops were in the desert communities or locations like Stockton. We were looking for bargains in Del Mar, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and other coastal cities but could not find any. Any properties that seemed like bargains had other issues such as the backyards eroding down hillsides. As for price appreciation, our home is worth 3.5 times what it was in 2008 and almost 9 times what we paid for it in 1996. Whereas we sold our in Florida condo at just 15% more than what it sold for in 2008 and 6.8 times what we bought it for in 2011. Homelessness is an issue across the country but some areas have managed to escape the issue due to geography or security gates. When we walk around our area, we see a lot of wildlife but never the homeless Walking Dead.

Smog, fires, and mudslides are what I think of when Santa Clarita is mentioned. Also earthquakes - wasn't the area damaged in the last major quake?

Every place has problems, you pick which ones you can tolerate. I will pass on Santa Clarita.

 

[RobbieB]

In our city we have relocated the homeless (and their tents) to a strip on a city park right next to the fenced in dog park. They work the nearest corner for handouts from people driving by.

Here is our second home parked securely in the freshwater Delta;

For less than half the price of an uncovered slip in Alameda.

We like it here -