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Housing woes spur Bay Area residents to ponder exodus from costly region, poll says
San Jose Mercury-News ^ | September 19, 2017 | By GEORGE AVALOS

Posted on 09/19/2017 7:29:23 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

BERKELEY — The Bay Area’s brutal spikes in home prices have spurred more than half of its residents to dream of escaping from the expensive region, and the urge to flee is strongest among millennials, according to new poll results.

In July, the median price of a single-family home in the nine-county Bay Area was $804,000, up 10.1 percent from a year earlier.

The new Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies Poll determined that 65 percent of the Bay Area’s registered voters and 48 percent of voters in California describe the issue of housing affordability as an “extremely serious” problem.

The poll also found that 51 percent of Bay Area residents have considered moving out of the nine-county region, compared with 56 percent statewide who have considered relocating.

Young people, such as millennials, are more likely than older people to be seeking an escape from the region. The poll found that 65 percent of people aged 18 through 29 have considered a move out of their region of the state, while just 38 percent of people aged 65 or older had thought about leaving. About 69 percent of people aged 30 through 39 had considered a move out of their area, the survey determined.

“The only folks who are cheering our region’s astronomical housing costs are the folks at U-Haul who are helping residents move right out of the state,” said Carl Guardino, president of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group. “But this problem is eminently fixable with political courage. People with jobs need a place to go home to sleep at night.”

(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: balloon; bubble; burst
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To: x1stcav

The californians are overruning the entire west coast, west of the cascades all the way up to canada. Housing prices along the I-5 corridor are going up due to speculation of californians with lots of money from selling their overpriced homes, and moving north.

And they’re mostly bat-shit crazy leftists, and will tell it to your face.


21 posted on 09/19/2017 7:55:40 AM PDT by factoryrat (We are the producers, the creators. Grow it, mine it, build it. MAGA!)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

The laws of economics do not apply to Californians because they are smarter than all the rest of us. They need to raise taxes and furnish a bay view home to everyone that wants one.


22 posted on 09/19/2017 7:57:00 AM PDT by oldplayer
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

For decades, companies have fled high NYC taxes by putting offices in New Jersey along the I-287 corridor and elsewhere.

In PA, companies have fled Philadelphia crime and taxes by going to the suburbs.

Bay Area could do likewise.


23 posted on 09/19/2017 7:58:54 AM PDT by PapaBear3625 (Big governent is attractive to those who think that THEY will be in control of it.)
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To: factoryrat

>And they’re mostly bat-shit crazy leftists, and will tell it to your face.<

Yeah, I know. I’m from there originally and got out in ‘91.

All the family is still there but I haven’t been back since 2012 and have no plans to ever return.

An evil place.


24 posted on 09/19/2017 7:59:26 AM PDT by x1stcav (We have the guns. Do we have the will?)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Texas is closed.


25 posted on 09/19/2017 8:01:04 AM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (“The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive.” - DJT)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Most will never leave. They are scared to leave. They think Trump’s White Racist Brigade is hiding behind every bush in Flyover Country, just waiting with their SKS rifles to kill them because they supported gay marriage. :)


26 posted on 09/19/2017 8:04:56 AM PDT by Mr. Jeeves ([CTRL]-[GALT]-[DELETE])
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To: rktman
They can’t help the old “That isn’t how we did it in Cali.” line.

That's fixable but nobody has the stomach for what it takes to fix it: the first time somebody uses that line in a meeting where some issue is being addressed, the natives fall upon that person with great resolve to persuade them forcefully that nobody cares about "how Cali did it." Word will get around...

27 posted on 09/19/2017 8:05:11 AM PDT by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

I moved to the bay are almost 20 years ago. I bought a house when prices were less than half of what they are now. We will retire to a state where taxes and the cost of housing are much lower. Until then, I will remain one of the few proud conservatives in the bay area.


28 posted on 09/19/2017 8:06:42 AM PDT by Huskrrrr
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To: x1stcav

Stay the F out of Texas!!!!!


29 posted on 09/19/2017 8:07:43 AM PDT by RoseofTexas
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

My wife and I considered leaving, and did - almost 25 years ago.

They can come to Idaho if they’re not deranged liberals.


30 posted on 09/19/2017 8:08:24 AM PDT by Disambiguator (Keepin' it analog.)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Please, leave (not you or anyone reading this, actually, we sure as Hades could use some more constitutional conservatives).
and if you don’t live hear already, come for the wine and the coast but go home.

I love where I live here in Norcal, but way too many people in this state.


31 posted on 09/19/2017 8:08:54 AM PDT by RedStateRocker (Nuke Mecca, deport all illegal aliens, abolish the IRS, DEA and ATF.)
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To: RegulatorCountry

Yes. When our friend was looking for something to buy in SF, he said he was competing with Chinese nationals for housing who would ask “How much?” - and write a check for whatever was asked - or offer even more than was asked.

He looked for two years before he found something for $1.7 million - and finally wasn’t outbid.


32 posted on 09/19/2017 8:09:02 AM PDT by Bon of Babble (In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida, Baby!!)
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To: Huskrrrr

Got a brother out there with you...we haven’t even touched on the utility, gas and taxes.

My brother has a nice suburban home of medium size. The water bill runs 400 to 500 a month. Yes, even 500 in some months.

I live in the desert and it is 1/8th of that.


33 posted on 09/19/2017 8:13:42 AM PDT by KC Burke (If all the world is a stage, I would like to request my lighting be adjusted.)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

It’s largely a matter of whether those people already own their home.

I agree that housing costs are a supply & demand function but the quality of life in the Bay area is IMO slipping badly. It’s fully, 100% as crowded as Los Angeles now. Additionally, there are very few roads here, in the sense that LA has a checkerboard of freeways. In the Bay area, there’s generally exactly one way to get somewhere unless you are willing to drive 40 miles out of your way to an alternate route. This means that one guy who drops his lawn mower out the back of his pickup truck obliterates traffic for 350,000 people behind him.

There are lots of folks who drive huge distances to commute to work in the Bay Area and they find themselves losing 3 hours a day to driving. It ain’t 1975 here (or anywhere else) any more.

My point is, there are considerable costs to living in this area, not just housing.


34 posted on 09/19/2017 8:15:59 AM PDT by Attention Surplus Disorder (Apoplectic is where we want them!)
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To: RoseofTexas

Rose, I have no intention of moving to Texas.


35 posted on 09/19/2017 8:17:02 AM PDT by x1stcav (We have the guns. Do we have the will?)
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To: x1stcav

It happened when the Taxachusetts folks left for the south. They are who they are and you will become who they are, or else.


36 posted on 09/19/2017 8:17:29 AM PDT by momincombatboots (White Stetsons up.. let's save our country!)
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To: Attention Surplus Disorder

Excellent points, about how some people live so far from work due in part to high housing prices.

Then a question is, why do they do it? Do they have some unique jobs in the Bay Area which aren’t found elsewhere? Are they in careers that can’t easily transfer to another less expensive place to live? Do they love the Bay Area so much that they can’t bear the thought of making their lives better financially by moving somewhere else? Were they born and raised in the Bay Area, and can’t imagine living anywhere else, even if housing and traffic woes make their lives difficult?

Everybody has a reason why they live where they live. And everybody theoretically could move away and avoid the problems. “Theoretically” being the operative word here. There may well be many “real world” reasons why they stay and tolerate the Bay Area problems.


37 posted on 09/19/2017 8:21:24 AM PDT by Dilbert San Diego
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To: momincombatboots

I’ve had friends in the South complain to me for years about how leftarded NE school teachers retire and come south with their poison living comfortably off of their pensions.

It should be law that when you collect a state pension it is only paid if you reside in that state.


38 posted on 09/19/2017 8:22:19 AM PDT by x1stcav (We have the guns. Do we have the will?)
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To: KC Burke

“The water bill runs 400 to 500 a month.”

We manage to keep our water costs to less than $200 (most of the time). Of course that means brown lawns and short showers. When California imposed water restrictions, we complied. The following year SJWC informed us that, because of lower water usage, they were raising water prices. That’s California for you.

We are considering some desert regions for our retirement.


39 posted on 09/19/2017 8:23:45 AM PDT by Huskrrrr
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

Sadly, the next place they land is in the Rocky Mtn states.


40 posted on 09/19/2017 8:25:27 AM PDT by lurk
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