Cali ExPats - Where are you living? (Ontario, Irvine: income, living in)

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

My wife, kids and myself are leaving the state that we grew up in and have lived our entire life for Surprise, Arizona a suburb of Phoenix in the North West corner of the Valley of the Sun as the Phoenix area is called. Both of us love our little part of the state. We both grew up on the coast in the city of Oxnard. Even with a housing downturn it is still hard to find homes for a good price. What we like about the Surprise area is that many ex-californians are there. The city is fairly new, as the majority of the growth occured during the past 10 years. Surprise grew from around 30,000 people in 2003 to 104,000 people today. Probably 80% of the homes are less than 6 years old or it seems anyway. Currently the base price for the home that we are buying is $169,990 and chances are it may decline in the next six month period. I am hoping anyway, as we haven't closed on the home yet as they just started building today.

We love our part of California, the Ventura County Coast. Love living here and will miss it, but as others have said, it isn't too far to drive or fly back into. At the same time over the past five year time frame of visiting my parents in Surprise, Az. (Yes they left the area also.) We have come to love Arizona and the West Pheonix area.

[BreaOC]

Phoenix, at the rate it's been growing (average of over 120,000 people a year), will be no different than LA in the next decade or two. Except for the intense heat. Out of hand growth is the downfall of many of the great communities in the southwest.

[Sonrise]

From Burbank to Greenville, SC. We absolutely love it here. All 4 seasons, but none are extreme, great people, great family values and best of all; in Burbank we had a 1 bedroom apartment and were paying $1125/month. They raised it to $1250 the day we moved out. We bought a brand new semi custom 4 bedroom/2 bath 2000sqft home with vaulted ceilings, hardwood floors and a half acre backing up to the woods. We can see the Blue Ridge Mts from our deck. And, oh yeah, $181,500.

My wife loves it here now and said she didn't think she could ever go back to LA. It'll be a year next week and the time flew by. The day after we moved in we found out that we were pregnant and Sophia Grace is almost 4 months old already. The Carolinas are booming.

[Soccersupporter]

Originally Posted by bungalowbob

Where in the world is everyone in California relocating? The exodus seems to be growing.

We picked up roots and moved to Keller, TX. No regrets!

[Wyndsong71]

Originally Posted by bungalowbob

Where in the world is everyone in California relocating? The exodus seems to be growing.

Its seems like we're all coming out here to Vegas. My family moved out here last year, and on the same street two other families moved in that were from calforina.

Our Reasons were:
1. Fewer good paying jobs
2 Higher rent, utilities, gas, and other costs of living
3. the rediculous laws that seem to keep poping up (i.e. homeschooling issue, more and more bans on smoking, sticter gun laws, crazy "no spanking" laws)

At least once a month I see something on the news that makes me say "Man am I glad we don't live in Cali anymore". I was born and raised there, but I can't see me ever going back... no matter how pretty it is.

[Mrs. H]

My hubby and I moved out to Avondale, Arizona, which is Southwest of Phoenix. We moved from San Mateo and have been here for about a year. What a shock! It's ok out here but we decided early we wouldn't plant roots here. Arizona was not what I thought it would be but I am not unhappy I made this decision. Gotta try new things, right?

Anyways, in June '08 hubby and I are returning to California to help out my recently widowed grandmother. I will be returning to my roots in the San Joaquin Valley; the good thing is we will be about 2 hours away from the Bay Area.

[laysayfair]

Originally Posted by Cali-girl

No, this was at 10:00 - 11:00 a.m. (I had to be in Irvine at 1:00 p.m. and left SLO early to avoid traffic, which was a waste because there was none.)

Sorry to disappoint you though!

~Cali-girl

Edited to add: The number of cars I noted was located between the 405 interchange and the exit to the 210 on the 118. I did not mean to imply that I saw just 25 cars on the entire length of the 118. Sorry for any confusion. Nonetheless, the low number of cars between those 2 normally crowded points was, to me, amazing.

10am is one of those great windows on the 101. It will go to 12:30pm and be over. At 1pm it will start all over again. The 118 always has alot less traffic than the 101.

[RobertsGirl]

I'm stuck here, but we have friends and family who've left here (within the past 10 years) for:

Texas, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado

Only the ones who moved to Colorado came back, and only because they lived in CO Springs (I think), and their kids' friends kept moving away (military families). They just could never put down roots. The dad is bummed. He loved it there.

[Charles]

More United Van Lines Data.



http://www.unitedvanlines.com/united...on-study-a.jpg

and the tables:

http://www.unitedvanlines.com/united...study-list.pdf

[Sonrise]

Interesting chart. Other than Oregon and Nevada (or more specifically Portland and Vegas) all of the "high inbound" states are very conservative, i.e traditional family values, low taxes, inexpensive real estate.

Some food for thought.