As someone who lives in California and not interested in moving back to Texas, this analysis is pretty bad. Not factually wrong, just shining the spotlight in t

As someone who lives in California and not interested in moving back to Texas, this analysis is pretty bad. Not factually wrong, just shining the spotlight in the wrong places. If you were going to make a good effort argument, you would start with the largest expenses for an average family/household. Rent / home prices, food, car prices, gas prices, tuition, day care, utilities are all higher in CA than TX. The delta in property taxes is not significant when you consider that rent/property is far better (larger yard, more rooms, newer neighborhoods, etc) for most people in TX. Also, the reason property taxes are lower in CA is because Prop 13 caps their growth rate until the property changes hands. The macro effect of Prop 13 is to create fewer transactions, this artificially reducing sale inventory and thus increasing property purchase prices. Your comparable annual upkeep may be a smaller percentage of the purchase price, but might end up being a larger dollar figure.