10 ms·

Considerations for Californians looking to move out of state (2019)

18 points by hnburnsy 5y ago

koshergweilo 5y ago
For other people, this article is mostly about the tax implications of people moving away from California. It doesn't cover anything from a social, or even financial perspective
tempnow987 5y ago
Just look at social side - that should be everyone's focus these days in my view as its the biggest area of weakness even among well off folks. Everything else is irrelevant. So, in order. 1) Does your partner support the move? 2) Do you have family, friends moving with you or whom you will be closer too? 3) Have you traveled to new destination / lived there a bit / have a small community there? 4) Is the community aligned in terms of values It is easy to fantasize the positive about a new place without living / thinking of the negative.
- tharne 5y ago
  > It is easy to fantasize the positive about a new place without living / thinking of the negative. This is very true. I live in a state that I don't much care for poltics-wise, but I have a lot of family and friends here, which makes it 100% worth it.
- site-packages1 5y ago
  Well said. Before we moved to ${MARQUEE_LOCATION} my partner and I made a couple visits of about 2 weeks each, each time staying in different neighborhoods. We decided it was right for us and made the move, and knew even what neighborhood was for us. I've personally found that staying long enough to have time to get a minor routine in the new place can be super helpful.
- thatfrenchguy 5y ago
  5) Is the weather aligned with your activities? Like, no, thank you, as someone who goes outside every week-end, I'm not moving somewhere where it's 100F or 20F for like 3-6 months of the year. It's insane coming from Western Europe how shitty of the US is climate-wise.
  - ReaLNero 5y ago
    This is such a big pain, it's probably the one reason pushing me to move back to Europe. Europe has a much gentler climate because of the Mediterranean sea and the Sirocco.
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    We Californians (possibly other places in the same latitude) are spoiled like that, but can anyone blame us? For most of the year, weather is something that just doesn't need to enter the equation when planning things. I know that "but the weather" is kind of a meme for Californians, though I will say that it really is pretty frickin' nice having lived in New Zealand (a really nice place btw) where it rains heavily for a large portion of the year.
    - gnat 5y ago
      Depends where you are in NZ, of course. Some places it only rains for much of the year. I grew up in NZ, moved to Colorado for ten years and whined about the snow, then came home and realised how good I'd had it in CO. I hadn't noticed the rain because I'd grown up with it. Only when I came back to it from a place with little and predictable rain, did I notice it.
      - ravenstine 5y ago
        I lived in Welly, though yeah I imagine maybe up north it would have been a bit more temperate for more of the year.
        gnat 5y ago
- faanghacker 5y ago
  I am a Silicon Valley native, graduated from Stanford, worked at Google for a decade. Never felt like I belonged there socially or in terms of viewpoints. I left to complete the journey to financial independence without the burden of California state income tax. I got no benefit from being around a bunch of one dimensional software engineers with zero creativity in their lives outside of tech, no sense of independence or adventure.
  - didibus 5y ago
    That's generalizing, California is huge, and has big creative art scenes. The tech bubble side of things is not all there is to it.
  - pyinstallwoes 5y ago
    Where’d you go Bouts?
  - david38 5y ago
    You’re hanging out with the wrong engineers. But I hear you. You should move, at least do a six month lease somewhere and work remotely.
Melatonic 5y ago
As usual this fails to mention property tax and how California is lower (sometimes dramatically lower) than other states.
- the_optimist 5y ago
  * With great generational distinction. As a new entrant you can enjoy both high property taxes and high income taxes.
- tharne 5y ago
  I'll take high local taxes over high state taxes any day. It's an order of magnitude easier to influence decisions in my town vs. my state. The other thing is that it's also much easier to leave my town if I don't like the decisions made. Sure, I can move states too, but that's a much bigger hassle than moving 10 minutes down the road.
  - KerrAvon 5y ago
    Do you have a practical example of that influence actually mattering to you personally? The thing about the property taxes is that if you move to someplace like Austin where the property values are skyrocketing, your property taxes can jump a ridiculous amount in a single year. You're completely insulated from that in CA (once you _own_ property, which is obviously the hard part in the SF Bay Area etc).
    - tharne 5y ago
      I live in a pretty small town, so a handful of people complaining loudly does tend to get noticed. I realize that this is not true of larger jurisdictions like Austin. Edit: Was asked for an example, here it is. In the aftermath of the protests in 2020, there was some talk of removing the police officers that are assigned full time to the schools. Parents pushed back and we still have those officers in place.
  - mywittyname 5y ago
    I donno. Local governments get hooked on those revenues but are extremely susceptible to revenue shocks, as they have a much smaller tax base. So things like a single business closing can cause budget shortfalls. And I've seen a common go-to for increasing revenue is by policing for profit. I've also lived in towns with corrupt local governments, and you can't do shit about it. Good luck getting people to come out to vote. And when the good ol' boys club takes the mayor and sheriff offices, and fills the roles with their friends/family, it can be hard to oust them. Prove that the tickets you're getting are due to running against they mayor on a platform of change, and not because you were speeding for the 7th time this week. It got so bad in the town I grew up in that people were pushing to dissolve the police and local government. Even my hardcore right-wing, retired police officer uncle was in favor of dissolving the police department.
albatross13 5y ago
As a native, life-time Californian I cannot believe anyone is leaving. You'll never find a state as progressive as California- energy, taxes, social causes, taxes, transit, homelessness, taxes, housing prices, political corruptness, taxes. The best part about my fellow, life-time Californians leaving California is how they simply continue to vote the same way no matter where they end up. This is a great mechanism for allowing for more states just as progressive as California, which they will unfortunately leave at some point too!
- mistrial9 5y ago
  "my house has risen in value thirty percent in just two years"
  - rcpt 5y ago
    "my property taxes are set to 1990"
- tharne 5y ago
  > The best part about my fellow, life-time Californians leaving California is how they simply continue to vote the same way no matter where they end up. I've seen this a lot, and never understood it.
  - gedy 5y ago
    The politicians look correct or virtue signal some low effort things and people vote for them by default.
  - twblalock 5y ago
    They don't realize that voting that way is what led to the outcomes that made them want to leave California -- particularly on issues like taxation and housing.
- umeshunni 5y ago
  I'm assuming this post is sarcasm
triyambakam 5y ago
> As discussed below, they may be surprised to find out that they are a California resident. So a lot like discovering you are a Facebook user and never created an account.
jeffbee 5y ago
"California is experiencing a new wave — an exodus, some believe — of high net worth individuals and businesses seeking to find a new home, or more technically, “domicile,” outside of the state." This statement is objectively false. High income and high net worth individuals and families are the only category that continues to arrive in a positive net domestic migration into California. The people who are leaving are the less wealthy, who don't need to pay the state taxes, but who also cannot afford the housing prices.
- ecf 5y ago
  The only people I personally know who are moving are Central Valley farmers who have bled the water table dry and are leaving now that California is in perpetual drought. The state is better in every way, shape, and form with them gone.
- gamblor956 5y ago
  Yes, it's the big lie in all the conservative posts about people "fleeing" California. The ones actually fleeing are the lower-income conservatives who can't afford to stay, and don't want to because of politics. Meanwhile, wealthy conservatives are flooding into the nice parts of CA, driving up housing prices. There's a reason that every major GOP presidential candidate comes to Los Angeles when they want to raise lots of money: it's where the wealthiest Republicans live.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

18 points by hnburnsy 5y ago

For other people, this article is mostly about the tax implications of people moving away from California. It doesn't cover anything from a social, or even financial perspective

tempnow987 5y ago

Just look at social side - that should be everyone's focus these days in my view as its the biggest area of weakness even among well off folks. Everything else is irrelevant. So, in order. 1) Does your partner support the move? 2) Do you have family, friends moving with you or whom you will be closer too? 3) Have you traveled to new destination / lived there a bit / have a small community there? 4) Is the community aligned in terms of values It is easy to fantasize the positive about a new place without living / thinking of the negative.

tharne 5y ago
> It is easy to fantasize the positive about a new place without living / thinking of the negative. This is very true. I live in a state that I don't much care for poltics-wise, but I have a lot of family and friends here, which makes it 100% worth it.
site-packages1 5y ago
Well said. Before we moved to ${MARQUEE_LOCATION} my partner and I made a couple visits of about 2 weeks each, each time staying in different neighborhoods. We decided it was right for us and made the move, and knew even what neighborhood was for us. I've personally found that staying long enough to have time to get a minor routine in the new place can be super helpful.
thatfrenchguy 5y ago
5) Is the weather aligned with your activities? Like, no, thank you, as someone who goes outside every week-end, I'm not moving somewhere where it's 100F or 20F for like 3-6 months of the year. It's insane coming from Western Europe how shitty of the US is climate-wise.
- ReaLNero 5y ago
  This is such a big pain, it's probably the one reason pushing me to move back to Europe. Europe has a much gentler climate because of the Mediterranean sea and the Sirocco.
- ravenstine 5y ago
  We Californians (possibly other places in the same latitude) are spoiled like that, but can anyone blame us? For most of the year, weather is something that just doesn't need to enter the equation when planning things. I know that "but the weather" is kind of a meme for Californians, though I will say that it really is pretty frickin' nice having lived in New Zealand (a really nice place btw) where it rains heavily for a large portion of the year.
  - gnat 5y ago
    Depends where you are in NZ, of course. Some places it only rains for much of the year. I grew up in NZ, moved to Colorado for ten years and whined about the snow, then came home and realised how good I'd had it in CO. I hadn't noticed the rain because I'd grown up with it. Only when I came back to it from a place with little and predictable rain, did I notice it.
    - ravenstine 5y ago
      I lived in Welly, though yeah I imagine maybe up north it would have been a bit more temperate for more of the year.
      - gnat 5y ago
faanghacker 5y ago
I am a Silicon Valley native, graduated from Stanford, worked at Google for a decade. Never felt like I belonged there socially or in terms of viewpoints. I left to complete the journey to financial independence without the burden of California state income tax. I got no benefit from being around a bunch of one dimensional software engineers with zero creativity in their lives outside of tech, no sense of independence or adventure.
- didibus 5y ago
  That's generalizing, California is huge, and has big creative art scenes. The tech bubble side of things is not all there is to it.
- pyinstallwoes 5y ago
  Where’d you go Bouts?
- david38 5y ago
  You’re hanging out with the wrong engineers. But I hear you. You should move, at least do a six month lease somewhere and work remotely.

Melatonic 5y ago

As usual this fails to mention property tax and how California is lower (sometimes dramatically lower) than other states.

the_optimist 5y ago
* With great generational distinction. As a new entrant you can enjoy both high property taxes and high income taxes.
tharne 5y ago
I'll take high local taxes over high state taxes any day. It's an order of magnitude easier to influence decisions in my town vs. my state. The other thing is that it's also much easier to leave my town if I don't like the decisions made. Sure, I can move states too, but that's a much bigger hassle than moving 10 minutes down the road.
- KerrAvon 5y ago
  Do you have a practical example of that influence actually mattering to you personally? The thing about the property taxes is that if you move to someplace like Austin where the property values are skyrocketing, your property taxes can jump a ridiculous amount in a single year. You're completely insulated from that in CA (once you _own_ property, which is obviously the hard part in the SF Bay Area etc).
  - tharne 5y ago
    I live in a pretty small town, so a handful of people complaining loudly does tend to get noticed. I realize that this is not true of larger jurisdictions like Austin. Edit: Was asked for an example, here it is. In the aftermath of the protests in 2020, there was some talk of removing the police officers that are assigned full time to the schools. Parents pushed back and we still have those officers in place.
- mywittyname 5y ago
  I donno. Local governments get hooked on those revenues but are extremely susceptible to revenue shocks, as they have a much smaller tax base. So things like a single business closing can cause budget shortfalls. And I've seen a common go-to for increasing revenue is by policing for profit. I've also lived in towns with corrupt local governments, and you can't do shit about it. Good luck getting people to come out to vote. And when the good ol' boys club takes the mayor and sheriff offices, and fills the roles with their friends/family, it can be hard to oust them. Prove that the tickets you're getting are due to running against they mayor on a platform of change, and not because you were speeding for the 7th time this week. It got so bad in the town I grew up in that people were pushing to dissolve the police and local government. Even my hardcore right-wing, retired police officer uncle was in favor of dissolving the police department.

albatross13 5y ago

As a native, life-time Californian I cannot believe anyone is leaving. You'll never find a state as progressive as California- energy, taxes, social causes, taxes, transit, homelessness, taxes, housing prices, political corruptness, taxes. The best part about my fellow, life-time Californians leaving California is how they simply continue to vote the same way no matter where they end up. This is a great mechanism for allowing for more states just as progressive as California, which they will unfortunately leave at some point too!

mistrial9 5y ago
"my house has risen in value thirty percent in just two years"
- rcpt 5y ago
  "my property taxes are set to 1990"
tharne 5y ago
> The best part about my fellow, life-time Californians leaving California is how they simply continue to vote the same way no matter where they end up. I've seen this a lot, and never understood it.
- gedy 5y ago
  The politicians look correct or virtue signal some low effort things and people vote for them by default.
- twblalock 5y ago
  They don't realize that voting that way is what led to the outcomes that made them want to leave California -- particularly on issues like taxation and housing.
umeshunni 5y ago
I'm assuming this post is sarcasm

triyambakam 5y ago

> As discussed below, they may be surprised to find out that they are a California resident. So a lot like discovering you are a Facebook user and never created an account.

jeffbee 5y ago

"California is experiencing a new wave — an exodus, some believe — of high net worth individuals and businesses seeking to find a new home, or more technically, “domicile,” outside of the state." This statement is objectively false. High income and high net worth individuals and families are the only category that continues to arrive in a positive net domestic migration into California. The people who are leaving are the less wealthy, who don't need to pay the state taxes, but who also cannot afford the housing prices.

ecf 5y ago
The only people I personally know who are moving are Central Valley farmers who have bled the water table dry and are leaving now that California is in perpetual drought. The state is better in every way, shape, and form with them gone.
gamblor956 5y ago
Yes, it's the big lie in all the conservative posts about people "fleeing" California. The ones actually fleeing are the lower-income conservatives who can't afford to stay, and don't want to because of politics. Meanwhile, wealthy conservatives are flooding into the nice parts of CA, driving up housing prices. There's a reason that every major GOP presidential candidate comes to Los Angeles when they want to raise lots of money: it's where the wealthiest Republicans live.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]