Is Northern California receiving a big influx of remote workers? (Los Angeles: homes, to buy)

[Phil P]

Now that we're decently into this remote trend and CA has a lot of employees that had jobs that could be done remote - has there been a big movement of people to smaller cities and towns in Northern CA? I know Tahoe and Sacramento received a lot the remote exodus, but how many people wandered further up into the smaller locations? Are places like Ukiah, Weaverville, Redding, Susanville, Yreka, Eureka getting an influx of people?

I'm not sure how many people in the the Bay Area were actual outdoor enthusiasts vs just weather snobs, but for a person who likes nature and the outdoors, Northern CA seems like a great spot to be remote - decent tax rate (compared to OR), home prices aren't really that bad, good or great weather (depending how far east) and being surrounded by National Forest that has surprisingly low visitation rates. Plus if you had family in CA, it would be much easier to visit them while staying in state vs going to Idaho or something like that.

If I didn't have family that I wanted to be within driving distance of, I would have likely relocated to this area, Yreka seemed like the perfect location, just down the road from Ashland and Shasta but good tax and COL.

[Ruth4Truth]

No one's stampeding to Susanville, no. Have you been there? It doesn't have much to offer, and it's very hot in the summers. It's close to Reno.

Eureka has seen an influx of population since WFH, which has driven the cheap RE prices up. I haven't seen any reports of sudden growth elsewhere around Humboldt County, nor Del Norte Co., or Trinity, nor Ukiah. The elevated fire risk in much of NorCal may be causing people to think twice before moving to small towns in gorgeous surroundings.

Redding and the surrounding area are hellishly hot for 6 months out of the year. Some people may be tempted to move to the Shasta area, but still: heat. Potential fire. Even so, a few people have expressed interest in Redding on this forum now and then in recent years. It used to be a nice town, if you go back a bit in history.

I think a few people have been moving to Mendocino and Fort Bragg. The cool coastal areas are drawing some. There may be a silent influx happening in places like Gualala, that are so small, they're off most people's radar. And probably the Russian River area's seeing some influx: Guerneville, Healdsburg, possibly. And the small towns outside of Santa Rosa are attracting remote workers.


Rural-ish NorCal would be an ideal place to locate for remote workers and retirees if it weren't for the fire risk. The natural beauty can't be beat. But there are also concerns about the availability of medical care in the off-the-beaten-track locations, which is why I think some people are clustering outside urban areas like Santa Rosa; they want to be near city amenities while getting a smaller-town discount on RE (theoretically).

Western Washington State has plenty of locations like that, too: natural beauty, cooler weather, smaller towns that still have decent amenities and access to medical, others with limited access to medical. No state income tax. Some of the locations aren't that cheap to buy into, though.

[ccm123]

Several of my friends and former colleagues relocated out of the Bay Area/Northern California, during the height of the pandemic when employers were offering remote office arrangements. Some moved to Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Southern California (i.e., San Diego, Los Angeles), Phoenix, etc.

Most citied the elevated housing costs & living costs as the primary reasons to move and most were able to purchase larger homes in their new destinations. I had an old colleague sell his home in San Francisco and purchase a ranch in Montana. That was his dream and he was able to accomplish it.

[aslowdodge]

Somehow I can’t see moving to some of those areas Ruth. They are pretty remote and I would wonder about Internet connections as well as isolation. I would think a lot of people would consider out of state though.

[wp169]

Originally Posted by aslowdodge

Somehow I can’t see moving to some of those areas Ruth. They are pretty remote and I would wonder about Internet connections as well as isolation. I would think a lot of people would consider out of state though.

Or the companies might consider moving the jobs out of the country for cheaper labor, I read articles warning U.S. remote jobs could be in danger of going overseas.

[Phil P]

Originally Posted by ccm123

Several of my friends and former colleagues relocated out of the Bay Area/Northern California, during the height of the pandemic when employers were offering remote office arrangements. Some moved to Montana, Idaho, Utah, Colorado, Southern California (i.e., San Diego, Los Angeles), Phoenix, etc.

Most citied the elevated housing costs & living costs as the primary reasons to move and most were able to purchase larger homes in their new destinations. I had an old colleague sell his home in San Francisco and purchase a ranch in Montana. That was his dream and he was able to accomplish it.

I guess it just seems kinda weird to go all the way to Colorado or Montana when there's a similar experience in Northern CA. The only thing is there's not much for actual cities up there outside of Redding, so people may not want to go from Coastal big city CA to a smaller town. Cost wise Northern CA is similar or cheaper than most of these other states locations.

Regarding wildfire, there may be some recency bias with the last couple years being especially bad for fires, but Northern CA isn't any worse than Front Range CO, AZ, ID, or Florida for that matter according to FEMA https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/map. At least there's not much beetle kill.

Weather wise, looking at Yreka, it's not that different from Colorado Springs, little more temperature swings and hotter summers and cloudier winters, but way less wind, less UV, and no hail - it doesn't seem too harsh. I'd take Yreka's over COS.

[Igor Blevin]

Originally Posted by Phil P

I guess it just seems kinda weird to go all the way to Colorado or Montana when there's a similar experience in Northern CA. The only thing is there's not much for actual cities up there outside of Redding, so people may not want to go from Coastal big city CA to a smaller town. Cost wise Northern CA is similar or cheaper than most of these other states locations.

Regarding wildfire, there may be some recency bias with the last couple years being especially bad for fires, but Northern CA isn't any worse than Front Range CO, AZ, ID, or Florida for that matter according to FEMA https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/map. At least there's not much beetle kill.

Weather wise, looking at Yreka, it's not that different from Colorado Springs, little more temperature swings and hotter summers and cloudier winters, but way less wind, less UV, and no hail - it doesn't seem too harsh. I'd take Yreka's over COS.

State income tax on $100,000

California = $5,520
Colorado = $3,840


Sales tax rate

San Francisco = 8.6%
Denver CO = 4.3%


That is just two factors that might cause someone to want to work remotely from outside of California. There may be many more that are not financial, depending on your personal needs.

[ccm123]

Those are valid points. I know there were other reasons that precipitated at least some of the moves that I’m aware of. Some of my friends wanted to move closer to family, wanted “out” of California (I won’t get into the reasons, but we’ve all heard them!), some thought that a move to say, Montana, would be a “once in a lifetime opportunity”, given the uncertainty of the pandemic’s effects.

A few have returned back to California. As they say, “the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.”

Originally Posted by Phil P

I guess it just seems kinda weird to go all the way to Colorado or Montana when there's a similar experience in Northern CA. The only thing is there's not much for actual cities up there outside of Redding, so people may not want to go from Coastal big city CA to a smaller town. Cost wise Northern CA is similar or cheaper than most of these other states locations.

Regarding wildfire, there may be some recency bias with the last couple years being especially bad for fires, but Northern CA isn't any worse than Front Range CO, AZ, ID, or Florida for that matter according to FEMA https://hazards.fema.gov/nri/map. At least there's not much beetle kill.

Weather wise, looking at Yreka, it's not that different from Colorado Springs, little more temperature swings and hotter summers and cloudier winters, but way less wind, less UV, and no hail - it doesn't seem too harsh. I'd take Yreka's over COS.

[Ruth4Truth]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

Redding and the surrounding area are hellishly hot for 6 months out of the year. Some people may be tempted to move to the Shasta area, but still: heat. Potential fire. Even so, a few people have expressed interest in Redding on this forum now and then in recent years. It used to be a nice town, if you go back a bit in history.

Just in case people might doubt that Redding is "hellishly hot" (someone DM'ed me about it), I'm going to add, that a few years ago when I spent a few days in the area, it was 115, and that was in mid-October! And it was not just a temporary heat wave. It really gets that hot in that part of I-5. OK, to be fair, we can chalk some of that heat up to the "heat island" effect of cement and asphalt in urban areas, so probably outside of town and around Shasta it's a little less furnace-like. And this was toward the end of the mega-drought years, so maybe it's not 115 every October, but July-August-September would be in that range.

As a result of my shock, I researched the historical temperatures in Redding as far back as records go, to see what it was like closer to the time of the city's founding. One of the city's founders is in my mother's maternal lineage, so I became curious as to what the temps were like in his day. Turns out, the peak temps were in the low to mid 90's in the 1920's or so, which is as far back as I was able to find records, and those were in the month of August consistently. July and September were in the 80's and high 70's, as I recall. So it was livable. I wouldn't call it livable now, but maybe that's just me; I was born and raised in the East Bay fog belt of Berkeley/Oakland. I love cool weather, and struggle with anything much over 80. But the area has definitely experienced a long-term warming trend in the last 100 years.

[evening sun]

Originally Posted by aslowdodge

Somehow I can’t see moving to some of those areas Ruth. They are pretty remote and I would wonder about Internet connections as well as isolation. I would think a lot of people would consider out of state though.

I live on the outskirts of a small town in Butte county. We have Xfinity internet. A person would have to be really remote to not get good internet. There are choices for homes within or verging on town limits that are cheap & have good internet available. Now if you live on 10 acres 20 miles from town, that is a different story. But many housing options are available.