High Housing Prices In Tech Cities Are Now Raising Home Prices In Other States (bloombergquint.com)

Tech cities and their high housing prices are apparently now driving up home prices in other states. An anonymous reader quotes Bloomberg: For some Californians, the state's punishing housing costs, high taxes, and constant threat of natural disaster have all become too much... In the second quarter, only 26 percent of homebuyers in the state could afford to purchase a median-price single-family house, which was almost $600,000, according to the California Association of Realtors... They're making their escape to areas such as Boise, Phoenix, and Reno, Nevada, fueling some of the biggest home-price gains in the country... Almost 143,000 more people left the state than arrived from elsewhere in the U.S. in 2016....

Boise is becoming an alternative to traditional havens for Californians such as Portland and Seattle that have also gotten too pricey, says Glenn Kelman, chief executive officer of Redfin Inc., a national real estate brokerage that recently opened a Boise outpost. About 29 percent of the Idaho capital's home-listing views are from Californians, according to Realtor.com... In Nevada, where Californians make up the largest share of arrivals, prices jumped 13 percent in August, the biggest increase for any state, according to CoreLogic Inc. data. It was followed closely by Idaho, with a 12 percent gain...

[Boise]'s been particularly attractive to Californians, who accounted for 85 percent of net domestic immigration to Idaho, according to Realtor.com's analysis of 2016 Census data... The median existing-home price in Boise's home of Ada County was $299,950 last month -- up almost 18 percent from a year earlier, but still about half California's. The influx is great news for people who already own homes in the area, says Danielle Hale, chief economist for Realtor.com. "But if you're a local aspiring to homeownership, it feels very much that Californians are bringing high prices with them."

Comments

We need to BUILD MORE HOUSING

[ZorinLynx]

We need higher density and more housing. The only way to solve this problem is to increase the supply; the ONLY reason this problem exists is because of lack of housing in places people want to live.

We need to rezone R-1 areas for multiple unit housing. R-1 zonings are a massively inefficient use of space and are part of the reason we have so much traffic and sprawl.

We need to give the NIMBY types the finger and BUILD MORE HOUSING. Especially in the Bay Area. It's the only thing that will solve this; even if you were to regulate prices, it'll just turn the problem into "nobody can FIND any housing."

Re:We need to BUILD MORE HOUSING

[b0s0z0ku]

Or just raise interest rates to pull the rug from under over-inflated markets that are being misused as investment casinos. That and tax vacant property at 1000% of the rate if it's lived in or rented.

Re:We need to BUILD MORE HOUSING

[b0s0z0ku]

Better a tax than an outright ban. Harmful behavior should be discouraged, and keeping properties vacant long-term in markets that have a scarcity of housing qualifies as harmful.

Re:We need to BUILD MORE HOUSING

[luther349]

you have any idea how many people live in the vans or rvs in that area because they cant afford or find housing. so lack of housing is a thing rite now. the city government stole billions that was giving them to build more housing. they have not green lit any new buildings in like 10 years. in short the bay area did it to themselves and are crying about it.

Re: We need to BUILD MORE HOUSING

[Anonymous Coward]

You have a responsibility to the country you live in. If you do not uphold that responsibility, people will, inevitably, rise the feck up and kick the living feck out of you.

If you do not believe you have a personal responsibility to the country you live in, you can get the feck out. If you chose not to, don't be surprised if the country you live in comes after your stupid arrogant and incredibly dumb arse. ffs

Re:Absolutly

[superdave80]

It's all rent control and low income housing which do nothing to solve our massive housing shortage and in some ways exacerbates the problem.

Amen. I'm always amazed every time rent control is brought up as some type of 'solution' to a housing shortage. Number of new housing units created by rent control? Zero. Absolutely NO new housing gets created. And in fact, it TAKES housing units off the market, because it just makes an incentive for people to never move from their rent controlled unit, even when it would make sense...

Re:California expats flush with cash

[nehumanuscrede]

I agree with you.

At least a State Income Tax is fixed to your income. The more you make, the more you're taxed.
Whereas property taxes never seem to quit going up.

Becomes a problem when you finally get to quit working and retire. That home you paid $75k for
forty years ago is now tax appraised at $300k ( or more depending on where you live ).

Gets rather tough to keep paying more and more in property taxes every year once you quit working.

Re:Absolutly

[Anonymous Coward]

"Proposition 13 was intended to make sure retirees wouldn't be price out of their homes once they had retired, due to the fact they had a fixed income."
Bullshit. Prop 13 was intended to reduce and then keep _Commercial_ Property Taxes low. Commercial Property may not change hands for decades, so those jerks like Chevron and Wells Fargo made out like bandits, still paying assessments based on 1978 values. (The SF Chron estimates that California is losing ~$9B in funding due to this chicanery every year.)
Private Housing turns over much more rapidly, and each time it is sold, maybe every 5-7 yrs, it gets reassessed. For the vast majority, except for the very old who still live in the same place as they did 40 years ago, any initial Prop 13 savings have long evaporated. Even here something was jimmied together to replace lost Education funds, "Parcel Taxes", which can exceed Assessed Taxes significantly, and Chevron pays the same fixed Parcel Tax on a Refinery that LOLs pay on their decaying Bungalows.
However, Prop 13 was _sold_ to the Electorate based on fantasies of Little Old Ladies eating Cat Food, because otherwise they couldn't pay their taxes.
No matter how bad Property Taxes were in 1978, they are horribly worse now just in Social Costs alone.
Screw Howard Jarvis, and as for Paul Gann, I understand that he suffered a long, painful, miserable, and richly deserved death.

Re:Yeah, no.

[PopeRatzo]

Are you seriously saying that the massive inflation of the Carter era was a good thing?

Yes, better than what we have now.

Because that massive inflation had the effect of stripping away the savings of those "middle and lower classes"

No, it did not, because that inflation was more evenly distributed and meant much larger wage growth. Also, the higher interest rates kept housing prices down and allowed people to actually put some money in the bank and get something back.

It was bad for the stock market, which back then was OK for the middle and working classes because their pension funds had not yet been raided by corporate fuckwads.

Sure, people that spent all their cash to buy right before the inflation started made out great. Everyone else got fucked.

This is where you make your error. Higher interest rates mean lower housing prices. Yes, the loans are more expensive, but then as soon as the rates backed off, you could refinance and your house price would go up.

The Carter years were the last years that the middle class and lower actually gained some ground. Since then, it's been a ceaseless downward trajectory.