Want to move to CA (lived there before), but see people leaving (San Diego: how much, buy)

[dennismpat]

Mainly quality of life issues, the biggest being home affordability. Not very many can buy a median-priced home in the larger California cities with an income of $100K. Living here generally is more expensive than most other areas of the country.

If you're not fortunate enough to either work at home or at least find a job within short distance, be prepared to spend a good amount of time stuck in traffic. California freeway traffic during rush hour is NOT for the faint-hearted.

There are untold thousands of non-English-speaking immigrants (illegal and legal) living here not bothering to learn English.

People are rude (not all of them, but many). Makes me wonder if parents are teaching their kids good manners anymore.

That's MY short list, for what it's worth.

[speedoflight]

You've pretty much hit the nail on the head with your points. The highways are not for the faint hearted at all. I'd rather take a job with less money than one for more but expect me to do 2 hours of peak traffic commute each way. Here, we don't measure a commute purely by distance but by commute time. You could live 20 miles away and be in traffic for 1.5 hours.

Schools here are very crowded. They aren't building enough schools to house the population explosion. Crime is bad in big cities.

Parents have no time to spend with their kids for they have to work so hard make ends meet. Some people have to do 2 jobs just to make it. $100k+ income is nothing here. Once you take factor in state, federal taxes and the high cost of living, your actual take home isn't that much left.

Crowds are huge everywhere. There's very little space and privacy. And at the risk of sounding politically incorrect - yes, there's many, many here who do not bother to learn English or assimilate into American culture. Some have lived here for decades and don't bother to try and expect everyone to cave in. If you say anything, they scream discrimination and that you are being un PC.

Originally Posted by dennismpat

Mainly quality of life issues, the biggest being home affordability. Not very many can buy a median-priced home in the larger California cities with an income of $100K. Living here generally is more expensive than most other areas of the country.

If you're not fortunate enough to either work at home or at least find a job within short distance, be prepared to spend a good amount of time stuck in traffic. California freeway traffic during rush hour is NOT for the faint-hearted.

There are untold thousands of non-English-speaking immigrants (illegal and legal) living here not bothering to learn English.

People are rude (not all of them, but many). Makes me wonder if parents are teaching their kids good manners anymore.

That's MY short list, for what it's worth.

[Caliguy2007]

More Californians are staying put and just relocating to more affordable parts of the state.

[shannon94]

Originally Posted by Caliguy29

More Californians are staying put and just relocating to more affordable parts of the state.

Where do you get this info? I hope your not taking about the inland empire. That's what people were doing several years ago. Now people are moving from there, including a friend of mine. Had to lower her price 50k to sell.... it was on the market for 8 months.

[speedoflight]

I saw some TV news show the other day which said that a lot of SoCal people are moving inland toward cities like Twentynine Palms, rural parts of Riverside County, etc. But I also know of many all over the state who have left. So, I think it's a mix of both types of exodus. I think that those who have moved inland but are still holding to their old jobs are going to face horrendous commute times. Here in NorCal, they're moving northwards. There are people who live in Sacramento and commute to the Bay Area. Gasp! I don't know how they manage it on a daily basis. It's a very far drive in such heavy prime time traffic.

[connie]

Many people move to the Central Valley from expensive areas of the state. For a long time, it's been the place du jour for Californians to relocate. Fresno, in particular, is a destination because it's a decent city and one of the school districts is one of the best in the state. This is why Fresno experienced huge real estate increases during this latest housing boom (one of the most in the entire U.S.)

However, that being said .... you just don't hear about the transplants coming here anymore. I don't have any stats, but you just don't hear about Bay Area or southern Californians moving to Fresno as much anymore.

[shannon94]

Originally Posted by speedoflight

I saw some TV news show the other day which said that a lot of SoCal people are moving inland toward cities like Twentynine Palms, rural parts of Riverside County, etc. But I also know of many all over the state who have left. So, I think it's a mix of both types of exodus. I think that those who have moved inland but are still holding to their old jobs are going to face horrendous commute times. Here in NorCal, they're moving northwards. There are people who live in Sacramento and commute to the Bay Area. Gasp! I don't know how they manage it on a daily basis. It's a very far drive in such heavy prime time traffic.

That's just it...what kind of a life is it when that home your paying for is something you rarely get to enjoy. My friend was spending between 3 and 4 hours commuting from Murrietta to San Diego EVERYDAY!! After getting up early to get to work...and then sitting in traffic after work for a couple of hours, they would get home , have dinner, and basically go to bed so they could get up way early the next day to do it all over again. She mentioned that's what finally helped make their minds up to leave Cali......spending too much...and getting to little out of life.

[dennismpat]

All this talk about long commute times to work reminds me of a "20/20" story I watched when I lived in Sacramento in 1991. It was about people who lived in Moreno Valley but commuted every day to their jobs in L.A. (about 70 miles one way ). They would leave in a van pool at 3:30 a.m. to get to their jobs by 8:00 a.m. All the passengers would usually sleep on the drive to work.

One scene of this story showed a pizza restaurant in the middle of the day in Moreno Valley during the week with very few customers. The next scene showed this same restaurant on the weekend bustling with families eating out. At that point, I thought that all the would-be home robbers watching this program were already planning when to conduct their heists.

If I remember correctly, all these people said on camera that if driving 140 miles round-trip to and from work is what it took so they could own a home, they felt it was worth it. I just sat there shaking my head with disbelief. What kind of quality of life is that?!?!?!

[dennismpat]

Originally Posted by speedoflight

I saw some TV news show the other day which said that a lot of SoCal people are moving inland toward cities like Twentynine Palms, rural parts of Riverside County, etc. But I also know of many all over the state who have left. So, I think it's a mix of both types of exodus. I think that those who have moved inland but are still holding to their old jobs are going to face horrendous commute times. Here in NorCal, they're moving northwards. There are people who live in Sacramento and commute to the Bay Area. Gasp! I don't know how they manage it on a daily basis. It's a very far drive in such heavy prime time traffic.

When I lived in Sacramento, one of the managers I worked with in my department was driving from Stockton to Sacramento every day, about 50 miles one way. I guess the drive got to him after a while, because shortly after I moved back to So Cal in July of 1991, he retired at the end of that year---and he wasn't even close to retirement age.

[speedoflight]

What kind of quality of life when dealing with such a long commute? Not much, if someone is really honest with themselves. You lose so much of your time on the road that you could have used for yourself, your family, etc. If you do a 2-hour one way commute, that would make it 4 hours a day on the road. Each week, it'd be 20 hours. Each month, it's 80 hours. I think you can do the math to realize how many days per month and year you're losing by driving/commuting. On top of that, the house that many do own for all the sacrifices they're making isn't even that fantastic. It's just a very mediocre small house. While it may be cheaper on paper when measured in dollars, that house is by no means cheap at all in terms of all the time each day that you give up just to have. I think it's critical to make the calculation from that point of view as well. A $450k house where you have to do a 4-hour commute each day is now no longer really $450k but $x and when you factor it all in, you'd see that it's likely the same price as that $650k house sold nearer to the city centers. There's always a gotcha for something. Nothing is ever rosy red and "cheaper" or "free". At some point, I think it's really important to ask oneself - what is quality of life? Where home ownership is concerned, I do think it's a hard question and also a dilemma. The extreme high home prices do not allow most to afford a home. So, I think you either learn to adopt new values in your life such as that it is OK to rent for forever or keep your ideals of home ownership and consider moving elsewhere out of state (which is not an easy decision either since it's very risky for most). Either way, it's a very personal choice. Some employers are beginning to change a lot where they're permitting their employees to work from home. But you do of course have to have the type of job where your working from home would not interfere with getting your work done.

Originally Posted by dennismpat

All this talk about long commute times to work reminds me of a "20/20" story I watched when I lived in Sacramento in 1991. It was about people who lived in Moreno Valley but commuted every day to their jobs in L.A. (about 70 miles one way ). They would leave in a van pool at 3:30 a.m. to get to their jobs by 8:00 a.m. All the passengers would usually sleep on the drive to work.

One scene of this story showed a pizza restaurant in the middle of the day in Moreno Valley during the week with very few customers. The next scene showed this same restaurant on the weekend bustling with families eating out. At that point, I thought that all the would-be home robbers watching this program were already planning when to conduct their heists.

If I remember correctly, all these people said on camera that if driving 140 miles round-trip to and from work is what it took so they could own a home, they felt it was worth it. I just sat there shaking my head with disbelief. What kind of quality of life is that?!?!?!