My source was doing the research on moving my parents out here.
1. I begin to see one of your problems. You lived in Corpus. I don’t, I live in Dallas. My parents were thinking about Austin. In neither place do you need to pay for hurricane insurance.
2. The parents’ house in CA is a small place, but it’d sell for about $750K. A nice place here in the Dallas or Austin area of comparable quality, neighborhood and size? $150-200K, and it would be on a larger lot.
3. The property tax would be higher - but all the other state taxes would be lower or non-existent. We ran the numbers for them and they would save almost $100K per year in taxes, “fees” and ‘service charges’ alone. Case in point - registering their cars cost over $1000 per every two years. Texas would charge them $172 every year.
4. Medical care in Texas costs less and is of higher quality. This was not a trivial concern at the time (mom had cancer) and both of them were not getting any younger. How much cheaper was it? Well, it was cheaper for her to get on a plane, fly to Texas, stay in a good hotel, get treatment at M.D. Anderson and fly back to CA when done than it was to get the same treatment at any SoCal cancer center. This means you get to keep more of your money.
5. Home insurance rates are cheaper here for the same coverage. Mom’s jaw hit the floor when she was running her own numbers.
6. CA pays $1-2 more per gallon of fuel as opposed to Texas. If you drive a lot, that adds up in a hurry.
It just goes on and on and on from there. If you’re a renter the disparity in buying power is even worse.
I know the hurricane insurance is location dependent - I was just giving you our particular details.
Your folks obviously came from one of the high priced areas I was talking about. All costs are higher there but the majority of the state is not like that. Prices in Texas are pretty consistent so perhaps you are not used to that. Sounds like their area also gouged them on gasoline, since the difference is less than 50 cents a gallon typically.
I did notice medical care was cheaper but since we had insurance that did not translate into any savings for us. But that’s a good point for retirement. I hadn’t put that aspect in my retirement calculations. Vehicle fees too, are cheaper in most other states. Car insurance would be too, if we stay rural. That’s more a function of population density.
I think it depends on what you are comparing where is cheaper to live. Using a high priced area (no matter what state) to Texas, where all of it has comparable house prices will always net that Texas is cheaper. Our house here, 3000 sq feet and new, would cost more in Corpus now, than it is costing here. We spent about the same ($250K) for a 2200 square foot house 10 years ago in Corpus. And all the associated costs go up as the house price goes up.
And it also depends on one’s circumstances. Not everyone is in the same category. If someone had a high income, of course being in a lower or non-existence state tax area would be beneficial. For retirement, since we will have substantially less income and want a nicer house, a high property tax state with no income tax would cost more money than the reverse.
I guess I forgot to say in the beginning I was looking for a state to move to with a job, but to also stay there through retirement. Since we could control our taxable income at that point - and would anyway to stay under the higher federal brackets, we wouldn’t be paying a lot of state income tax no matter where we lived.
In your parent’s case, sounds like they have a large income and a small-ish house - then Texas is perfect for them.
Hope your mom is doing well.
Seems only NV (so far in my research) is beneficial for all scenarios. No state tax, property taxes capped at 1%, and house prices are now reasonable and I don’t know of any weather that could affect home insurance.
I forgot to add that Texas’ property tax exemption for livestock is a great thing.
We want acreage, lots of it. As well as some goats for making cheese. So that would be a plus.
See - I’m being reaonable, just factual. (You don’t seem to be hearing anything I say though.)
I primarily want to be able to go outside year round and enjoy my chickens and goats. And not feel like I am in a foreign country. I’ve spent enough time in one (Mexifornia). I went on an 8500 mile driving trip this summer and saw a lot of gorgeous places - and most of them seemed like being back in the US! It was so refreshing.