8 ms·
Boise and Reno capitalize on the California real estate exodus
- siberianbear 8y agoSpeaking for myself, I was glad to escape California. Not only because of real estate, but also because of taxation. A top marginal state tax rate of 13.3%? OUCH!
- dxhdr 8y agoPlus a 9.5% / 10.25% sales tax rate if you're fortunate enough to live in LA or Santa Monica. I believe SF is around there as well.
- avmich 8y agoSo now we need to compare different apples with different apples again, avoiding comparison of different apples with same oranges?
- georgewfraser 8y agoCalifornia's total tax burden is 9.5% of income; the median state is Kansas at 8.5% [1]. I was surprised the difference is so small; is there something not captured by these stats? [1] https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-burden/20494/ https://wallethub.com/edu/states-with-highest-lowest-tax-bur...
- dahdum 8y agoInequality isn’t captured, CA relies more heavily on the top earners to fund the budget.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> Inequality isn’t captured, CA relies more heavily on the top earners to fund the budget. Because of the high reliance on regressive parcel taxes on property (because of Prop 13 limits on ad valorem property taxes that doesn't effect parcel taxes) and regressive sales taxes combined with progressive income tax, California state and local taxes are, in net, regressive at the low end and progressive at the high end; most other groups below the top 1% pay less, proportionately, in taxes than the bottom 20%. https://itep.org/whopays/california/ https://itep.org/whopays/california/
- Pfhreak 8y agoThat seems.... reasonable to me? (As someone who is in a fairly high tax bracket and who wishes our local taxes were higher on folks like me so we had better services.)
- abecedarius 8y agoIt’s much higher than even the second highest, NY.
- ap3 8y agoIs there a way you can donate your excess cash to fund the services improvements you want? Would be cool if you could voluntarily fund specific services (schools/homeless) and lower the tax burden on others
- intopieces 8y agoHigher salaries make up for higher taxes. That number you see in your pay statement before taxes was never going to be yours.
- protomyth 8y agoThe article talks about two points of resentment. The more serious is people moving to red states not understanding why they are moving and voting for the same type of politicians that they fled from. If you move, at least try to understand your neighbors.
- tofof 8y agoPeople should vote for whomever they feel best represents their concerns and interests, or whom they think will govern best for their society at large. If you move, try and understand your neighbors, certainly, but that doesn't mean voting for the candidate that best represents them instead of best representing you.
- ip26 8y agoSpeaking as a transplant, it's not wrong to ask that transplants at least take a moment to consider why they left home and moved here, when making voting decisions. If you left because of high taxes, voting for tax increases in your new home at least appears misguided.
- alexanderwept 8y agoFair point. Let me try to steel man the parent comment and maybe you can respond: These people are fleeing the very predictable consequences of progressive governance, they should make an attempt to understand what made their origin so bad they wanted to leave and what made their destination so good that they decided to move there. If they vote for the policies that led them to flee, they might start the cycle over again.
- everdev 8y agoHow about fleeing to lower cost of living states. I don't think their politics have much to do with the cost of living. Some very blue states like Hawaii and Delaware have very low property taxes and Washington has no income tax.
- themodelplumber 8y agoI grew up in Washington and remember how excited everyone was to go shopping in Oregon and not have to pay sales tax.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> How about fleeing to lower cost of living states. I don't think their politics have much to do with the cost of living. Politics has a lot to do with broad economic outcomes (in both directions) which has a lot to do with cost of living specifically. > Some very blue states like Hawaii and Delaware have very low property taxes So does California. Not that that makes any of them low cost of living states.
- everdev 8y agoAnother theory is that it's the desirability of the location. I'm sure there are plenty of high cost of living areas in the highly desirable areas of red states and plenty of low cost of living areas in the least desirable parts of blue states. I'd guess that local beauty, amenities, jobs and housing supply has a much greater correlation and causation with housing prices than state wide political identity. Let's not forget that political identity has huge roots in culture not just economics.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> I'd guess that local beauty, amenities, jobs and housing supply has a much greater correlation and causation with housing prices than state wide political identity. All of those things are influenced significantly by government policy; politics isn't just identity. (Local climate is a factor that is relevant, and isn't particularly sensitive to local politics, but it doesn't overpower all the things that are sensitive to that.)
- dawhizkid 8y agoLife hack: Move to the Bay Area and get a Bay Area tech compensation package, gain enough trust within your company/team to convince your manager to work remotely, move to a cheaper cost of living place and keep same compensation package...profit. Seen it done many times...
- jchw 8y agoHere's the thing: what happens if you like living in the Bay Area and prefer working in person to working remotely? This strategy probably works great if you Want to live elsewhere, but otherwise it's a big trade off.
- ip26 8y agoYou're more than welcome to stay in California and pay California prices. A lot of other people feel that way too. No one is stopping you.
- andkenneth 8y agoThen you pay the premium to live and work in the place that you (and millions of other people) want to be. The above strategy works best for people who don't actually WANT to live in the Bay Area.
- gjs278 8y agowhat do you think?
- erik_landerholm 8y agoWhy even move there? Many companies, including ours pay Bay Area salaries regardless of where you live.
- dawhizkid 8y agoI don’t think that’s true...AFAIK your typical FB/Goog comp package for the same level as Bay Area in London, for example, is significantly lower. And base salary might be semi comparable but total comp (I.e. stock) is for sure significantly higher in Bay Area than other areas.
- chrisco255 8y agoAs a Floridian, I'm pretty familiar with how locals feel about folks piling in from out-of-state. A lot of retired Northeastern and Midwesterners live in FL that moved over the past few decades, and it totally changed the makeup of the state. Locals get uneasy, but it's mostly a nervousness about how the transplants would change the area. In some cases, former rural areas were transformed into huge retirement communities and planned developments (PUDs). While they certainly changed Florida, I also think that Florida changed them. Most of the snowbirds I met in central FL tended to vote Republican, though they might have been Democrats in their home states. The main reasons people move to FL are low taxes, good weather, and affordable housing. It's a very pro-business, pro-development state. I think it's hard to move to a state and not be influenced by its culture.
- protomyth 8y agoMy favorite is the people who move in next to a farm then make life hell on the farmer. A lot of people aren’t moving to a new area, they are homesteading.
- hn_throwaway_99 8y agoPerhaps, but I think things have changed now such that the politics of an area are much more impacted by the urban/rural divide than the red state/blue state divide. Look at Texas, which hasn't elected a Democrat statewide in decades. People used to joke about "The People's Republic of Austin" in reference to the liberal lean of that city, but now all of the largest cities in the state, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, El Paso, voted for Hillary in the last election. Someone moving from SF or LA to Austin is probably not going to find their local sensibilities that different from where they left.
- chrisco255 8y agoMaybe. I think that may be true overall, that denser cities lean left. Where does that leave suburbia though? Somewhere in the middle? While Austin votes blue every city/county around it voted red, including Round Rock. And Ft Worth went red but Dallas went blue. So I guess it might even depend on your neighborhood.
- kchoudhu 8y agoWe took one whiff of California's tax and housing regime and bought a house in Las Vegas. So what if it's a charnel house for three months every year, the lack of state tax and reasonable housing prices make it worth it.
- raverbashing 8y ago> So what if it's a charnel house for three months every year Wait, what? Looking at that definition I still don't understand
- bsagdiyev 8y agoI think the reference was towards the ridiculously hot summers Vegas can see. When I went in the beginning of June for my birthday San Diego was in the 70s and Vegas was topping out over 110.
- tartoran 8y agoFrom my one experience in vegas 110 is quite bearable due to low the humidity. How did you take the heat?
- bsagdiyev 8y agoI took it fine, I used to work outdoors in the High Desert (Victorville/Apple Valley/Lucerne Valley) area doing point-to-point wireless installs. Summers there can be just as brutal. Quick edit: not as brutal, but close. Vegas regularly sees higher temps.
- kchoudhu 8y agoIt's fine. We have our industrial air conditioning units and swimming pools, and there is plenty to do indoors for the duration of the summer.
- kchoudhu 8y agoMight have misused the phrase -- I was simply referring to how hot it gets during the summer.
- wnevets 8y agoNow if we could only stop giving subsidies to red states and let them pulls themselves up by their own bootstraps.
- fuckboyz 8y agoThis is going to get worse when they take away the SALT deduction.
- tartoran 8y agoSo a lot of voting demographics will change I assume, a lot of red states would become less red if this migration becomes a serious trend. Middle class New Yorkers are affected by high prices in housing as well