Life in the West (Western US)

[SunnyOne]

I live on the East Coast. I always have and I always will, so I am ignorant
to the realities of day to day life back west, even though I've traveled a lot.
That said, two things have been brought to my attention.
My sister lives in a small town in upstate NY. Her neighbor friend is a realtor. In the past month, she's had six
inquiries for homes from people wanting to move from Texas. That's unheard of for her little sleepy town
and no new job growth going on either.
As well, there's a subreddit group called "samegrassbutgreener" - it's a large group of people who give
advice to others seeking to move to other states.
I keep seeing in that group, my state (NY) suggested time and again as a climate haven...hard to believe. Unheard of even
a few short years ago. People aren't even batting their lashes at our property taxes - only looking at our attributes.
People in the group from CA, AZ, TX mention wildfires and drought and heat.
So I have a a few questions for any here on that side of the country to help me better understand it

Other than fear and watching forecasts (not discounting them) - are wildfires driving property insurance rates? and drought - is it driving the water bills of the average home owner? or is water typically bundled into other bills? I have read of severe restrictions for lawns and swimming pools, for example - but I have no idea how these work on a practical basis. Are people closing up their pools, filling in their lawns with gravel?
What do you see on a daily basis? If you care to share any details, I am curious, thanks.

 

[teej1985]

California has had a huge insurance crisis for a couple years. it's not as bad as Florida or Louisiana, but it's not good

 

[ShokWaveRider]

We used to live in SoCAL. We now live in N.E. Florida. We save ~$15k annually in State income tax alone. That can buy a lot of insurance.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Nevada has very low property taxes and no state income tax thanks to the casinos and tourism. Water is an issue and when I had a house we put in high quality Astro turf for that reason. Wildfires aren’t a huge issue here but we do get some smoky days. The fires are usually caused by people being idiots.

 

[cathy63]

Other than fear and watching forecasts (not discounting them) - are wildfires driving property insurance rates? and drought - is it driving the water bills of the average home owner? or is water typically bundled into other bills? I have read of severe restrictions for lawns and swimming pools, for example - but I have no idea how these work on a practical basis. Are people closing up their pools, filling in their lawns with gravel?
What do you see on a daily basis? If you care to share any details, I am curious, thanks.

"The west" is a huge place. I don't think there's one generic answer that's going to apply to Cheyenne, Seattle and Phoenix, not to mention the vast amounts of open space between them.

For my California beach town
-- no I am not worried about wildfires. We have large bodies of water on two sides and a competent fire department.
-- no wildfires aren't affecting property insurance rates as far as I can tell (I manage the finances for our tiny HOA and our rates have gone up slightly faster than inflation but not the crazy numbers I've heard about in Florida).
-- I am also not worried about air quality from smoke since the prevailing winds are coming off the ocean. Very rarely we've had smoke from fires around L.A. or even north of there reach us. It happens when there's a mild Santa Ana condition (wind from the east) that pushes smoke out to sea and then it circles around to the south and comes ashore here. When that happens, it's a high haze in the sky, not ash falling to the ground or anything like that.
-- very few people have swimming pools here. It only gets above 80F for about 15 days per year and it's also a short walk to the ocean or the community pool. Our water bill for July was $65.79. We were home all month and had also two sets of houseguests during that time, so our consumption was a bit higher than usual. That doesn't include sewer charges which are on our property tax bills.
-- some people replace lawns with fake turf for ease of care, not for water usage reasons. Some people put in native landscaping, xeriscaping or hardscaping, but I'd say that's more for looks than for water usage. Gravel is not commonly used in my town, but some people use river rock as a design feature.

 

[gcgang]

In Montana, we just put on our boots and Cowboy Up!

 

[AudiDudi]

<snip>

Other than fear and watching forecasts (not discounting them) - are wildfires driving property insurance rates? and drought - is it driving the water bills of the average home owner? or is water typically bundled into other bills? I have read of severe restrictions for lawns and swimming pools, for example - but I have no idea how these work on a practical basis. Are people closing up their pools, filling in their lawns with gravel?
What do you see on a daily basis? If you care to share any details, I am curious, thanks.

Living in the mountains in very rural Montana, fire is always a concern so I have a good cleared buffer space around the house. As we are on a well, water is not an issue. Garbage is $15/mo paid on the property taxes and being on septic, no sewer bill. Being in a class 10 fire district, HO insurance is about $2k/yr on a $500k house on 25 acres. (Class 10 pretty much means if it catches fire, it will be a total loss.) We did have one ins. co. that had insured the house for 30 yrs pull out of the state about 5 yrs ago - finding a new company was not hard and saved about 30% from what the old company was charging. No pool to worry about and have around 12k sqft of lawn. No close neighbors - the nearest is about a mile away (for now). It's about a 45 minute drive to the nearest stop light and shopping. No way could I move to the east coast.

 

[erkevin]

Tucson here; water is the biggest issue, with the heat #2. Property taxes are low, state tax is 2.5%. I don't mind the heat too much as I was out trimming my roses at noon yesterday (100 degrees). Water bill was $71 last month. No one really has grass here; we all have artificial turf! All vegetation is on a timer drip system.
Wild fires are not a huge concern in my particular area, but definitely are in other areas. HO insurance is pretty down low as I learned from a previous thread on that subject.

 

[pacergal]

we've had some hikes in home insurance, but not out of the ordinary.
We have been on the "to go" warning once for wildfires, unfortunately wildfires are happening every summer. We get a few days of hazy skies and air quality alerts off and on. We simply close up the windows, turn on the AC.
We don't have pool, in fact, the two houses in our neighborhood that did have them, the new buyers filled them in!
We stop watering our grass in the summer to avoid spikes in the water bill (which is bundled with the sewer bill) I water my flowers, and fill the bird bath, that's about it. We were the early adopters of the "brown grass brigade" in our neighborhood. Many are now following. Who wants a $3-4-500 or more water bill? Plus, the more you water and grow grass, the more you have to mow and we don't have lawn service, other than DH!
PNW area a beautiful area, but "summer hot " normally is Aug/Sept. The past few years, the temps have been hotter earlier.

The USA is a big, beautiful country and wherever you call home, will have its +/-.

 

[Ian S]

We are in a high desert area (Sedona) and pretty much surrounded by National Forest. Our water comes from wells that are forecast to last more than 100 years. Drought? Hey it's a desert, of course it's dry! Folks here go for desert landscaping almost exclusively. Only development is infill of the few lots still available. In summer, we are 10 degF cooler during the day than Phoenix and 20 degF cooler at night. Wildfires are a risk but our property insurance is stable and low compared to many other places. No earthquakes, hurricanes or tornadoes. The natural beauty entices folks to live here. No industry to speak of but with a service economy, workers have trouble affording the relatively expensive real estate.

 

[Gallaher]

“The west is a huge place”
I grew up in southern Arizona. Always wanted to leave because of limited fishing opportunities. Now live in Oregon, nearly 50 years.
I will not leave Pacific NW.
We do have some smoky days, not enough to move.
Property tax not bad, insurance increasing.
Wide open spaces are totally impressive.
I’m not quite in the middle of no place but I can drive there in an hour.

 

[EarlyandLate]

I think the reality is that we are just a super mobile society. Here in Atlanta, we could ask the same type of question about the north. I see lots of cars with NY and PA license tags driven by folks who seem to live here.

 

[SunnyOne]

"The west" is a huge place. I don't think there's one generic answer that's going to apply to Cheyenne, Seattle and Phoenix, not to mention the vast amounts of open space between them.

For my California beach town
-- no I am not worried about wildfires. We have large bodies of water on two sides and a competent fire department.
-- no wildfires aren't affecting property insurance rates as far as I can tell (I manage the finances for our tiny HOA and our rates have gone up slightly faster than inflation but not the crazy numbers I've heard about in Florida).
-- I am also not worried about air quality from smoke since the prevailing winds are coming off the ocean. Very rarely we've had smoke from fires around L.A. or even north of there reach us. It happens when there's a mild Santa Ana condition (wind from the east) that pushes smoke out to sea and then it circles around to the south and comes ashore here. When that happens, it's a high haze in the sky, not ash falling to the ground or anything like that.
-- very few people have swimming pools here. It only gets above 80F for about 15 days per year and it's also a short walk to the ocean or the community pool. Our water bill for July was $65.79. We were home all month and had also two sets of houseguests during that time, so our consumption was a bit higher than usual. That doesn't include sewer charges which are on our property tax bills.
-- some people replace lawns with fake turf for ease of care, not for water usage reasons. Some people put in native landscaping, xeriscaping or hardscaping, but I'd say that's more for looks than for water usage. Gravel is not commonly used in my town, but some people use river rock as a design feature.

good to hear that in your corner, all is well.

 

[SunnyOne]

Living in the mountains in very rural Montana, fire is always a concern so I have a good cleared buffer space around the house. As we are on a well, water is not an issue. Garbage is $15/mo paid on the property taxes and being on septic, no sewer bill. Being in a class 10 fire district, HO insurance is about $2k/yr on a $500k house on 25 acres. (Class 10 pretty much means if it catches fire, it will be a total loss.) We did have one ins. co. that had insured the house for 30 yrs pull out of the state about 5 yrs ago - finding a new company was not hard and saved about 30% from what the old company was charging. No pool to worry about and have around 12k sqft of lawn. No close neighbors - the nearest is about a mile away (for now). It's about a 45 minute drive to the nearest stop light and shopping. No way could I move to the east coast.

There are more rural areas that one might imagine lol.

 

[SunnyOne]

We are in a high desert area (Sedona) and pretty much surrounded by National Forest. Our water comes from wells that are forecast to last more than 100 years. Drought? Hey it's a desert, of course it's dry! Folks here go for desert landscaping almost exclusively. Only development is infill of the few lots still available. In summer, we are 10 degF cooler during the day than Phoenix and 20 degF cooler at night. Wildfires are a risk but our property insurance is stable and low compared to many other places. No earthquakes, hurricanes or tornadoes. The natural beauty entices folks to live here. No industry to speak of but with a service economy, workers have trouble affording the relatively expensive real estate.

I've been reading lots about Prescott as a good location.

 

[SunnyOne]

I think the reality is that we are just a super mobile society. Here in Atlanta, we could ask the same type of question about the north. I see lots of cars with NY and PA license tags driven by folks who seem to live here.

lots of Northerners consider Atlanta "drive over" country on the way to FLA for the season. LOL.

 

[SunnyOne]

We used to live in SoCAL. We now live in N.E. Florida. We save ~$15k annually in State income tax alone. That can buy a lot of insurance.

so your income tax bill remained unchanged in retirement? just curious if you were not yet retired in SoCAL, but then in Florida?

 

[Kings over Queens]

I keep seeing in that group, my state (NY) suggested time and again as a climate haven...hard to believe. Unheard of even
a few short years ago. People aren't even batting their lashes at our property taxes - only looking at our attributes.

Never in a million years would I think that Syracuse, NY, would be considered a climate haven. Those people from Texas are in for a rude awakening.

We're in NJ and don't enjoy our climate, meanwhile, our Daughter who lives in Denver enjoys 300 days of sunshine, low humidity and expansive views. Sure, it might get cold, but snow melts quickly. She'll tell us that today's weather is "snow with chance of swimming." then she sends a photo of snow at 7am and her sitting poolside by lunch.

 

[Koolau]

Any further west and we'd be east. Hawaii has fire issues as it's been in drought for many years. We also have volcanic smoke to deal with from time to time.

I've mentioned here before that "our" insurance companies have put the state on notice that they'll just pull out if they aren't allowed to raise rates to make up for their losses due to the Lahaina Maui wildfires. There are plenty of entities who are actually at "fault" for the fires but they'll never have to pay because it's just passing on the cost to rate/tax payers. So it will fall to the insurance companies and they do NOT lose gracefully.

 

[SunnyOne]

Never in a million years would I think that Syracuse, NY, would be considered a climate haven. Those people from Texas are in for a rude awakening.

We're in NJ and don't enjoy our climate, meanwhile, our Daughter who lives in Denver enjoys 300 days of sunshine, low humidity and expansive views. Sure, it might get cold, but snow melts quickly. She'll tell us that today's weather is "snow with chance of swimming." then she sends a photo of snow at 7am and her sitting poolside by lunch.

It's hard to believe now, but Buffalo was long considered the armpit of the US and now it's at the top of many lists for most popular city for relocation. All of the upstate cities, once considered the rust belt, are growing. The micro chip industry is moving in (Micron). The statistics are there. The winters are milder than they used to be. Housing costs are much lower here than the rest of the US - we regularly show up on those lists too. I had to laugh at the comment about how much insurance can be bought with FLA tax savings. We feel the same way, the low price of housing here does buy lots of taxes (and services) lol....I live in a nice, average home in an affluent New-Englandy town. This house would sell for less than $250K right now. Upstate NY is really way off the radar for most people in the US and I'd say the people here are happy about that lol.

 

[rk911]

As former winter Arizonans (Mesa, Apache Junction) I can tell you the weather in the valley from October-November thru March and early April is wonderful. The rest of the year...well, get your errands done early. Most of the front yards we saw had desert landscaping. For a time we entertained the thought of moving to AZ. Phoenix/Tucson in the winter, Northern AZ in the summer. There are some areas about an hour northeast of Phoenix at a moderate altitude that are, reportedly, very climate friendly all year long.

 

[calmloki]

We've been doing 6 in Oregon and 6 in La Quinta Ca for years now - means our heating bill is very low for the winters down south and the cooling bill is tiny in Oregon in summer. Oregon all by itself has desert in the East, mountains in the middle, lots of forest and farmland, and a whole side of cool foggy coast. More fires than appreciated, but pick your area right and you stay out of them.

In La Quinta we are surrounded by a nearby ring of pointy jagged hills, This time of year it's 115~, but cools right down to 87 by 5AM before heading up again. The Salton Sea is rapidly drying and shrinking and stinking really badly. Eau de Eau ma Gahd. Just had a pretty good fire jumping from weed bunch to creosote bush maybe 50 miles away. Earthquakes.

An odd thing: Our Oregon water bill is $104 while we are gone and have zero use, going up to $147 while here and watering. We're two blocks from the river. In La Quinta with 4" of rain/year we spend $39/month with a pool, zero while gone. OTOH, sales tax of 8.75%

Surprised to see that New York is half the land area of Oregon (larger than I expected) with about five times the population.

 

[Diogenes]

Apartment-dweller here, so I can't comment on homeowner insurance or water bills. But it does seem to be especially the case in recent years, that various folks have grown antsy and disaffected by their current locale, be it costs or politics or some real or perceived faults, and have been hankering to move long-distance, to the Promised Land. Long-term residents in said land, would be befuddled, to see such fervent zeal, in going from the old place, to the new.

Retirees are especially vulnerable to such passions, as one is no longer tied to the workplace, and not concerned about job opportunities in the target location.

My own feeling is that local variation is more stark, and affects quality-of-life more substantially, than what time-zone one happens to choose. The different parts of Los Angeles, for example, differ from each other, in appearance and amenities, "vibe", wealth, clutter and density, access to nature and so on.... more than some comparison between California and New York State. So if we are going to move, to chase our dreams or to escape from current nightmares, perhaps we should think more locally.

The one notable exception is state income tax. Whether in Beverly Hills or Blythe, a Californian is going to pay... what a Californian pays. There is no discount for moving from to toniest coastal gated community, to scrubland in 110-degree heat. For persons of a certain financial standing, income tax considerations may well determine, where to live... and thus prompt a long-distance move.

 

[cathy63]

The one notable exception is state income tax. Whether in Beverly Hills or Blythe, a Californian is going to pay... what a Californian pays. There is no discount for moving from to toniest coastal gated community, to scrubland in 110-degree heat. For persons of a certain financial standing, income tax considerations may well determine, where to live... and thus prompt a long-distance move.

But the person who lives in Blythe typically has a lot less income than the person who lives in Beverly Hills and is in a much lower tax bracket.

With SS not being taxed and CA having highly progressive brackets, there are many retired people paying $0. A couple over 65 can have almost $60K in non-SS income before they even have to file a CA return. Even here in San Diego where COL is higher than Blythe, at least 60% of the tax returns I do as a Tax-Aide volunteer show no CA tax liability.

If you have huge pensions or other income you can't control, then yeah, moving to Blythe won't help reduce your taxes, but there are a lot of people who don't have that problem.

 

[Drake3287]

Yep, things here in California are almost intolerable for millions of residents. Everything from real estate, property taxes to politics and don't start me with gasoline prices. Still $5.00 a gallon around me. Although I'm fortunate enough that I can afford it, most younger people can't. I can't tell you how many of my friends in the 60 year age group have already moved out of here.

It's so bad there's even a Facebook group called "Leaving California" that has well over 100k members with the same issues and most are moving to other states. And speaking of utility costs, I pay $200. a month for water, $200 a month for power ( I have no A/C) in the summer and around $350. in the winter. My Comcast bill which I just paid today is $324. and that covers internet and TV, no premium channels either. Insurance, that's another incredible high bill and we've never made a car or homeowners claim in 35+ years.