Californians Flee The State In Droves Over Taxation And Housing Costs

Californians are bailing on the Golden State in droves as the tax burden and housing costs make the price of living unbearable for far too many. Many of those fleeing are the hearty middle-class who are being pushed into poverty by the socialist policies forced on them by the state’s elites.

The trend is a symptom of the state’s housing crunch and the ever increasing taxation. Census Bureau data show California lost just over 138,000 people to domestic migration in the 12 months ended in July 2017. Lower-cost states such as Arizona, Texas, and Nevada are popular destinations for relocating Californians.

Housing costs and the tax burden is far less impactful in pretty much any place outside of California, whose socialist policies drive up poverty and continuously erode the middle class leaving only the extremely wealthy and those in abject poverty.

The surging number of those working in Silicon Valley and still unable to afford adequate housing should be a warning about big government, but it sure doesn’t seem like anyone is taking notice as their taxes continue to rise. As governments creep toward socialism though, poverty becomes the norm, not the exception. Silicon Valley has the highest median income in the nation. But a soaring tax burden and expensive regulations have caused housing prices to increase which has also caused homelessness to surge. –SHTFPlan

“There’s nowhere in the United States that you can find better weather than here,” said Dave Senser, who lives on a fixed income near San Luis Obispo, California, and now plans to move to Las Vegas. “Rents here are crazy if you can find a place, and they’re going to tax us to death. That’s what it feels like. At least in Nevada, they don’t have a state income tax. And every little bit helps.” Senser added that he previously lived in the east San Francisco Bay region, and said housing costs and gas prices are “significantly lower in Las Vegas. The government in the state of California isn’t helping people like myself. That’s why people are running out of this state now.”

A USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times Poll of Californians last fall found that the high cost of living, including housing, was the most important issue facing the state. It also found more than half of Californians wanted to repeal the state’s new gas tax, which raised fees by a whopping 40 percent further burdening those already living paycheck to paycheck.

During the 12-month period that ended in July of 2017, California saw a net loss of just over 138,000 people, while Texas had a net increase of more than 79,000 people. Arizona gained more than 63,000 residents, and Nevada gained more than 38,000. “You can literally have a lot of buying power for the dollar in Southern Nevada versus Southern California,” said Christopher Bishop, president of the Greater Las Vegas Association of Realtors. “So it has been a major trend over the year, year and a half, and we’re seeing it increase.”

Sales Of Ultra-Luxury Homes In Greenwich Continue To Plummet

It used to be that low state income taxes and practically non-existent property taxes, at least compared the neighboring county of Westchester in New York, was more than enough to lure Manhattan"s hedge fund billionaires out to Greenwich, CT.  But, it seems that a festering pension crisis and resulting state income tax hikes in Connecticut has resulted in many of NYC"s gazillionaires choosing a trophy 3,000 square foot apartment in "the city" over a 10,000 square foot Greenwich mega-mansion.  

As the Wall Street Journal points out today, sales of ultra-luxury Greenwich estates, priced at over $10 million, collapsed after 2008 and have just continued to deteriorate year after year ever since.

There were only five sales for $10 million or more in 2015 and 2016, the slowest pace in this category since at least 2008, and less than half the average, according to brokerage Houlihan Lawrence. In all, there are 38 properties listed for $10 million in and around Greenwich, meaning it would take at least seven years to sell them all at the current pace.

Although brokers say showings have picked up this spring, some worry that among the most affluent buyers a suburban mansion in Connecticut is losing ground to a trophy Manhattan apartment.

And two massive state income tax hikes in the past 6 years, to nearly 7%, are likely to blame...

At play, also is the rising state income tax burden on the very wealthy that makes Connecticut less of a tax haven than it used to be compared with New York, brokers said. Connecticut raised its top tax rate twice in the last decade, in 2011 and 2015, to the current 6.99%.

“For the longest time we were definitely benefiting from very low state taxes,” said Tamar Lurie, an agent at Coldwell Banker Real Estate in Greenwich. “We are inching higher and of course it impacts buyers.”

“The high-end city property owner is generally staying in the city and we are not seeing the flight to the suburbs at the upper end of the market,” he noted.

...which we suspect has something to do with that pesky $68 billion underfunded pension liability.

Of course, while New York"s ultra-rich, liberal investment bankers and hedge fund managers are all too willing to advocate for the "pay your fair share" political candidates, they"re wholly unwilling to actually practice what they preach.

All of which raises the obvious question: where exactly will NYC"s hedge fund managers park those Bugattis now that they"re giving up their 8-car garages?