patrick.net

so, dave, what is it that you don't like? seriously.

Explain it. Give examples such as the following:

1. Crime rate stats
2. Property taxes
3. Sales tax
4. School test scores (i.e., including SAT and ACT)
5. Demographic trends
6. Infrastructure condition
7. Debt rating

Daves not here says

I will not reveal where I am going as the wacko left may follow.

Yes, because there is nothing progressives enjoy more than spending time with elderly, paranoid, white male wing-nuts.

Enjoy Idaho.

one less regressive vote in CA.

Godspeed!

The unfunded pension liability is pretty scary if you ask me.

AFAIK the state union pension funds are still assuming a 7.5% compounding return to reach their 80% funding mandate.

http://calpensions.com/2013/03/25/calpers-rate-hike-50-percent-over-six-years/

has some details about the higher taxes / spending cuts necessary to fund the baby boomer pensions.

Now, the state's economy will see all this money returned right back into it since pensioners spend their pensions, so that's stimulative to a great extent (unless pensioners move to Idaho, LOL).

California has one third the GDP of Japan with one fourth the population -- Not Bad.

California corporations pull tons of money from the rest of the national and international economy -- Silicon Valley, Hollywood, plus California is perfectly located to be the trade interface between the US and Pacific Rim.

We've got tons of Agribusiness, too, as long as the groundwater holds up.

I think the state will do OK this decade and next. State economy is pretty strong, and it'd be stronger if we didn't have to support so many red-state welfare cases with our 80c to the dollar net flow to DC.

California gets 80c, Idaho takes $1.20 on the dollar, LOL

Just wait til SoCal takes the rest of the Delta River water, the Delta will become a stagnant sump. Maybe Discovery Bay will become Discovery Dunes.

back to water wars aren't we?

The only thing I don't like is house prices. There should be a premium -once you have lived through a midwest winter or a humid summer in the south-you really do appreciate it a lot more. But not this kinda premium. In the late 90s it was pretty reasonable and the economy was booming and the state was in surplus. But now the price difference is obscene. You can get pretty decent houses for 200k-300kin other places. So 300, fine 400k is a nice premium-but not 600-800 k for the same house-or even much less.

600 to 800, you are looking in very expensive areas.

FortWayne says

600 to 800, you are looking in very expensive areas.

Not these days I think. Basically I am comparing the house I can get in a decent area, nice lot, nice everything . My friend just bought a quarter acre 5 bedroom 4 bath in a very nice area of Dallas-12 year old house for 260k. Nice school district too. Now for those ameneties and the same "area"-here is 600k or higher.

Now one good thing about CA is property taxes. In some areas of Texas it can get close to 3%. So depending on the area-it may be the same. I really like the Conejo valley-I am still seeing 400k+ houses there-though two years ago saw plenty for 300k+ and a few 250k+ houses. But unless I get a job that lets me work from home a few days a week-that is out. Or I need one of those big consulting firm ones where I fly out every week. But that is tiresome-did that for a bit and just can't do it anymore.

Though I do know someone who commutes to Irvine from SFV every day!! So I guess it depends on what you are looking for. I do know of someone who bought a house in Reseda for 300k-says it is close to 400k now -but again comparing what you get in other states for the money!!

lostand confused says

Now one good thing about CA is property taxes. In some areas of Texas it can get
close to 3%. So depending on the area-it may be the same. I really like the
Conejo valley-I am still seeing 400k+ houses there-though two years ago saw
plenty for 300k+ and a few 250k+ houses.

And you just said that a friend bought a house for $260K and a matching home in the bay area would run $600K (or more). Well, if the property tax on the $260K house was 3% and the $600K house was 1.5% - guess which house costs you more in terms of money out of your pocket? And CA picks your pocket again.

And I live in Texas, the house we bought for less than $120K would have cost us over $300K in the Portland Oregon area where we came from. All things considered, Texas is a NICE place to live.

mmmarvel says

And you just said that a friend bought a house for $260K and a matching home
in the bay area would run $600K (or more). Well, if the property tax on the
$260K house was 3% and the $600K house was 1.5% - guess which house costs you
more in terms of money out of your pocket? And CA picks your pocket again.

And I live in Texas, the house we bought for less than $120K would have cost
us over $300K in the Portland Oregon area where we came from. All things
considered, Texas is a NICE place to live.

Yes, the tax is the same for the different amounts -but you owe close to 400k more on your mortgage for the same kind of house in CA! Which is why I am seriously looking that ways. I don't want to owe 400k in extra money to some bank. In these days of houses as investments-they can go up and down like any stock or currency.

Plus my cousin lives in Austin and has two houses there, but I have quite a few people I know in Dallas and one or two in Houston. I do love CA, but just wondering why I should eschew fiscal sanity just to live here?

donjumpsuit says

Property tax in Cali is ~1.25%, unless you factor in Prop 13.

Yes and I think in newer communities, you have mello roos that jacks up your taxes too? Not sure how that works?

lostand confused says

Not these days I think. Basically I am comparing the house I can get in a decent area, nice lot, nice everything . My friend just bought a quarter acre 5 bedroom 4 bath in a very nice area of Dallas-12 year old house for 260k. Nice school district too. Now for those ameneties and the same "area"-here is 600k or higher.

A lot higher.

ahh yes.... its clear we're in a bubble when once again ancedotal stories of people moving to "paradise" ( aka Houston and Dallas TX) start popping up again...

edvard2 says

ahh yes.... its clear we're in a bubble when once again ancedotal stories of people moving to "paradise" ( aka Houston and Dallas TX) start popping up again...

Sounds like a bubble again. When you compare the house prices between metros and what you get for your buck, you are met with derision. Nobody is saying Texas is a paradise or CA is a hellhole-but just looking at the facts on the ground.

lostand confused says

Sounds like a bubble again. When you compare the house prices between metros and what you get for your buck, you are met with derision. Nobody is saying Texas is a paradise or CA is a hellhole-but just looking at the facts on the ground.

It just feels like a knee-jerk reaction. TX seems to somehow always be the de-facto relocation alternative. That and Portland and Seattle. I grew up in the Southeast and believe me- MOST of the country is a LOT cheaper than California, and in many cases even cheaper than TX and its metros.

As mentioned in another thread, its really easy to pull up a real estate site in anywhere USA and say: " well I'll be durned, I can buy a house for 250k in ( name your favorite relo city of choice) But the reality in many cases is that ( big shocker) the prices are not considered dirt-cheap in those areas usually because the local economy doesn't support higher prices. I'd even go as far as to say that some of the real popular relocation cities like Austin, Raleigh, and Seattle have actually much higher prices than the local economy actually supports simply from the influx of Cali and east coast 'refugees'.

The takeaway, at least for me after considered moving to one of those places for years is that they are cheaper than California but they aren't cheap by their local standards. They're only cheap if you managed to save up a wad of cash from you high-paying Cali job and thus can use that to buy the home of your dreams elsewhere. That's really about it.

Yes this thread is looking familiar !

After 4+ months of crummy winter - cloudy, cold, dreary...living in Tennessee after spending 1977 to 1998 in both bay area and So Cal...

There were a few days I was aggravated about not being in sunny Cali but they lasted for just a short time. How much you value nice weather over other significant lifestyle factors is a very personal choice.

The rest of the life style advantages outweigh the occasional winter blahs though...predictable expenses, traffic, crime, commute time, school quality, social life, pretty geography. being able to afford the hobbies, etc. Even the Mexican food is darn good here! surprise surprise

My wife has a friend who moved from SFBA to Nashville area Del Webb, and absolutely loves it because the social climate is warm and friendly, she has a sense of place and community there she never had in CA after years of living in SFBA. The cost of living is much less, but she says she wouldn't move back even if she could.

Like Alfred Hitchcock said, in California, the weather is warm and sunny, but the dispositions not necessarily so.

It seems in CA somebody is always trying to yell at you, get one over on you, make you miserable if you are having fun, or charge you for something that used to be free. There is also a nearly indelible sense of alienation that is only compensated by financial wealth and materialism.

Too bad, CA has such mystical beauty but the beast is hard to ignore.

lostand confused says

Yes, the tax is the same for the different amounts -but you owe close to 400k
more on your mortgage for the same kind of house in CA! Which is why I am
seriously looking that ways. I don't want to owe 400k in extra money to some
bank. In these days of houses as investments-they can go up and down like any
stock or currency.

Plus my cousin lives in Austin and has two houses there, but I have quite a
few people I know in Dallas and one or two in Houston. I do love CA, but just
wondering why I should eschew fiscal sanity just to live here?

Maybe I wrote it wrong - I'm advocating FOR Texas and basically against CA. To me, outside of the ocean and climate there is no reason to stay in CA; and those two reasons aren't enough to justify the costs of living there.

I'm not clear why Stockton bankruptcy is bad?

Vacaville went bankrupt a few years ago, there was much wailing about that, then.... no disaster.

Once in a while bankers and creditors have to take losses, too bad.

mmmarvel says

lostand confused says

"Maybe I wrote it wrong - I'm advocating FOR Texas and basically against CA. To me, outside of the ocean and climate there is no reason to stay in CA; and those two reasons aren't enough to justify the costs of living there."

No, I knew what you meant so sorry for taking it out of context. But after having lived all over the country, you have to admit that the Bay Area and other parts of Cali are pretty nice. I love my folks but whenever I visit them in the Southeast where they still live, sure- its ok there.

But a whole lot of it is sort of.... bleh... I can't explain it. Lots of strip malls, freeways, and the restaurant scene is mostly chains and fast food even though there has been a more recent trend towards good food as is across the country. There's just an air of generic-ism that seems to be prominent in most of suburban USA these days. I'd get along just fine if I had to go back there. But it would mean saying bye bye to an awful lot of things that don't really exist there.

Vicente says

I'm not clear why Stockton bankruptcy is bad?

Bankruptcy affects all creditors: bondholders, suppliers, unions, etc. It might not be a disaster, but it is a last resort. For that reason, it also portends bad news going forward, i.e. whatever standard of living they had got accustomed will be reduced either by raising taxes or cutting spending or both. And, they will need to make those decisions despite obviously having been unable to do so in the past, so there will be a lot of acrimony and various oxen will get gored and the results might not even make the best of their bad situation. Sometimes it portends fewer police and more crime, other times it portends library closures and higher sales taxes and nuisance fees, sometimes a combination.

P.S. I'm really puzzled who Disliked both the question and the answer and why? It was a reasonable question, and if I may say so I think that I provided an accurate answer - no one else has even disagreed with it.

curious2 says

P.S. I'm really puzzled who Disliked both the question and the answer and why? It was a reasonable question, and if I may say so I think that I provided an accurate answer - no one else has even disagreed with it.

[updated - sorry - see below]Oh, I get it now. Apparently it's the OP, who dislikes almost everything about CA so much that he's leaving. Enjoy wherever you're going, I doubt anyone will miss you.

Vicente says

Once in a while bankers and creditors have to take losses, too bad.

But why not union employees with fat pensions since this is the primary reason these cities are broke? Why are they immune while everyone else takes a hit?

Frankly, I don't have much sympathy for a Wall Street bank investing in California Muni-bonds. Particularly the idiots that floated $130 million to Stockton to pay back due CALPERS payments.

If a judge rules that these California cities can screw all creditors and bond holders while union pensions remain untouched - say goodby to the California Muni-bond market. Even the dim-thinkers in Wall Street will finally realize that investing in California government bonds is not worth the risk.

SFace says

If you like it here, then lock that portion up. Everybody votes with their wallet and there are always reasons to stay and reasons to go

I would add to this and only because it sort of bugs me:
If you're moving somewhere else, don't do it just because you're looking for a cheap house. I saw this over and over again on various relocation forums during the boom: families from NJ, MA, NY, CA, and so on wanting to move to NC, TX, GA, and other places for cheap houses and yet they knew NOTHING about those places. That was always really baffling to me, that these people seemingly cared less about the culture, history, food, natural beauty, and people of a given area and more about a house they wanted to buy. Once you buy a house, the house becomes the least of your daily routine as you actually have to live in the area in which you bought it.

In the end what really matters is whether you can retire or not. If you live in the Bay area, can't afford a house, but save a lot of cash from your high-paying job, then there's no pain in simply saving and saving for retirement and then maybe moving somewhere else.

Daves not here says

Not me.......but thanks for staying......somebody's got to keep paying more taxes as the ship goes down.

Thanks for answering, but I think your exit plans might be optimistic. With Obamacare, there is no escape. For example, SF's biggest industry is already hospitals (not tourism, not banking, not even real estate), and they're building more with no emergency departments, i.e. these will be purely for elective procedures covered by mandatory insurance. And by law, since Homefool can't afford the cost of insurance to cover his toxic disproved SSRIs, he and every other sucker who falls for those ads can shift their subsidized insurance costs onto you, no matter where you go. Every state has been given a federal checkbook, so every unnecessary bypass and every toxic pill on TV can be charged to the federal taxpayers. Since California has "tort reform," it's basically all upside for the hospitals, with practically no risk of accountability. And the more useless pills they put on TV, the more pills Homefool will go through because none of them work. Useless pills are like bad channels: the more they put on the set, the longer it takes to flip through them before figuring out there's nothing worthwhile. The difference is, instead of clicking his own remote, Homefool can visit every prescriber in town, on your dime, no matter where you go. How long do you think it will take Sacramento to figure out that they can mandate unlimited revenue for in-state providers ("no lifetime caps!"), at the expense of taxpayers in other states? Who can put more deluded homefools on more pills than California? No matter where Dave is, the cost of Homefool's pills will follow. Sorry to say Dave, you can run, but you can't hide.

California's population has tripled since I was a kid. Most of the resultant sprawl is just more crap, a stucco tsunami of convenience stores and fast food flytraps.
Competition for what is truly special makes it unavailable, you can't get a parking spot at the beach let alone afford a beach house.

Bellingham Bill says

he unfunded pension liability is pretty scary if you ask me.

A couple of years dated, but. . . .

Stanford study pegs California pensions' shortfall at $500 billion

http://blogs.sacbee.com/the_state_worker/2011/12/new-stanford-study-pegs-pension-shortfall-at.html

Bellingham Bill says

Now, the state's economy will see all this money returned right back into it since pensioners spend their pensions, so that's stimulative to a great extent (unless pensioners move to Idaho, LOL).

We could guarantee that some of this money is returned to the state by implementing punitive taxes on excessive pension benefits.

SFace says

The permanent cost (real estate) of living here (1M home) is approximately 2K - 3K a month for a higher wage earner. Not much more expensive than Austin.

That's a myopic view which leads to a very flawed conclusion.

You are not considering state income taxes (TX = 0%, CA = highest in the USA). Higher insurance rates in CA (house and car). Not to mention that $2-3k/month of higher real estate costs in California AFTER TAXES is a significant amount of money, even for someone on a six-figure salary.

The thing that bugs me about real estate prices was that it was much more reasonable when the dotcom economy was booming . Jobs were easy to come by, people were wooed for jobs. I remember being in the hot tub and talking to a guy and was offered a job and he tried convincing me to join for almost 5 minutes. But housing was reasonable.

It is not fair value for it be double or triple that-considering the CA economy and the state of the job market. it is better than two years ago-but not to command such hefty premiums. Now it is what it is-just like the stock market-but one can always seek other avenues.

donjumpsuit says

because I don't have $200k right now to put a downpayment.

If you don't have it now, you certainly will never have it once you commit to the $4500/mo mortgage payment to live here.

socal2 says

Even the dim-thinkers in Wall Street will finally realize that investing in California government bonds is not worth the risk.

Two particular companies were playing hardball didn't even ENGAGE in negotiations. If you read, you will find the judge was ticked off with both sides but CLEARLY the banks were not acting in good faith.

Klein concluded that National Public Finance and Assured Guaranty "each took the position that there was nothing to talk about" unless the city sought concessions from CalPERS.

"The translation: If you don't intend to impair CalPERS, we're not going to talk to you," Klein said of the creditors' stance. "They absented themselves from all discussions. ... And, having voted with their feet, there was no point in talking to them further."

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/04/01/5308036/stockton-bankruptcy-challenge.html#storylink=cpy

Why should the banks care which segment of the city budget took the hit? They shouldn't, just like I shouldn't care if you cut your kids lunch budget or your own to pay me back. Cutting off even the discussion due to some particular dogma, is idiotic. I realize it's a religion with Wall Streeters to destroy pension plans but this was just plain stupid and unnecessary.

Finally I don't agree with your conclusion. A few bankruptcies is part of risk management and playing in the Big Leagues. You didn't account for it, sucks to be you. Some other house will take the next deal. There's always a next deal. Orange County had a much bigger bankruptcy in 1994 they unable get bond investors? Riiiight.