Take the 5 to the 5 and then just stay on the 5.
September 6, 2014 8:51 PM Subscribe
I've noticed that it's been a trend since at least the 90's to complain about the Californians moving to your city and buying up all the property at inflated rates. But is this really a real thing?
Are there THAT many Californians to create bubbles in property markets seemingly everywhere? I've heard about this phenomenon from WA to TX, and now I'm curious if it extends any farther east? Can someone explain where all these rich Californians are coming from? Because now I AM one of them, who fled California for somewhere else (somewhere that has for years complained about the influx), but I still don't have enough money to compete in overheated markets in this desirable non-CA city. I have a normal reasonably well paid professional job - just because I came from CA, I didn't magically gain the ability to plunk down $600K cash on a bungalow.
So, when people talk about the Californians buying up all the property in cash, what are they actually talking about? I'm certainly not one of them, rather I feel that I'm pretty much the average yuppie who is probably going to get screwed trying to buy a house like everyone else. It makes me think that "the Californians" is something of an invention, someone to blame for deals that don't work out, the traffic, the weather, whatever.
Tell me: is the phenomenon of Californians buying property in other states at inflated prices a real thing, or is it just a target for locals feeling disenfranchised in some way? Genuinely curious - I've heard the meme for at least 20 years, but now that I'm one of them, it just seems totally unrealistic that everyone from CA has so much more cash than everyone else. I mean, we spent it all on rent in CA already!
Are there THAT many Californians to create bubbles in property markets seemingly everywhere? I've heard about this phenomenon from WA to TX, and now I'm curious if it extends any farther east? Can someone explain where all these rich Californians are coming from? Because now I AM one of them, who fled California for somewhere else (somewhere that has for years complained about the influx), but I still don't have enough money to compete in overheated markets in this desirable non-CA city. I have a normal reasonably well paid professional job - just because I came from CA, I didn't magically gain the ability to plunk down $600K cash on a bungalow.
So, when people talk about the Californians buying up all the property in cash, what are they actually talking about? I'm certainly not one of them, rather I feel that I'm pretty much the average yuppie who is probably going to get screwed trying to buy a house like everyone else. It makes me think that "the Californians" is something of an invention, someone to blame for deals that don't work out, the traffic, the weather, whatever.
Tell me: is the phenomenon of Californians buying property in other states at inflated prices a real thing, or is it just a target for locals feeling disenfranchised in some way? Genuinely curious - I've heard the meme for at least 20 years, but now that I'm one of them, it just seems totally unrealistic that everyone from CA has so much more cash than everyone else. I mean, we spent it all on rent in CA already!
I just did it. And looking at your question history, we just made basically the same move. I'm on the Eastside now.
I think a lot of the problem is that the Californians in question assume that people know just how crazy the property prices are in some parts of CA and talk matter-of-factly about prices that seem astronomical to people not used to those markets, which comes across as bragging when it isn't intended to be. Recalibrating your numbers to talk like a local about what constitutes an "expensive" house just takes a few weeks. During those few weeks Californians do a lot of damage to their reputations, especially because a lot of us are a little dizzy with the possibilities. I sold a pretty terrible house and now I live in a much nicer one that cost less. It's hard to not talk about it, especially because everyone asks why you moved when you say you're new in town and "why I moved" was, among other things, "cost of living".
Looking at your question it sounds like you were a renter, which explains why you don't suddenly feel flush with cash :) If you'd sold a house when you left, you'd have a huge chunk of change to plunk down as a down payment for a house that I promise would feel like a big upgrade.
posted by town of cats at 9:59 PM on September 6, 2014 [5 favorites]
I think a lot of the problem is that the Californians in question assume that people know just how crazy the property prices are in some parts of CA and talk matter-of-factly about prices that seem astronomical to people not used to those markets, which comes across as bragging when it isn't intended to be. Recalibrating your numbers to talk like a local about what constitutes an "expensive" house just takes a few weeks. During those few weeks Californians do a lot of damage to their reputations, especially because a lot of us are a little dizzy with the possibilities. I sold a pretty terrible house and now I live in a much nicer one that cost less. It's hard to not talk about it, especially because everyone asks why you moved when you say you're new in town and "why I moved" was, among other things, "cost of living".
Looking at your question it sounds like you were a renter, which explains why you don't suddenly feel flush with cash :) If you'd sold a house when you left, you'd have a huge chunk of change to plunk down as a down payment for a house that I promise would feel like a big upgrade.
posted by town of cats at 9:59 PM on September 6, 2014 [5 favorites]
I am another one of those people who moved from CA to elsewhere (specifically Seattle), though it took me over 6 years to have enough money to buy up some property, and even then it was a very modest place paid for with a good old fashioned loan and there was certainly no bidding war.
That said, it is definitely true that people from CA are moving up here and buying houses with cash - in every case I've known it's been someone from a startup or long-standing Googler who struck it rich bigtime on company stock. So, definitely not your average American and not the majority of people buying here. You just hear about it because the notion of buying a $600k house in cash has been pretty insane for a long time and because the news outlets like to make a sensational story out of how crazy the bidding wars are and how everyone needs to BUY RIGHT NOW OR ELSE.
posted by joan_holloway at 10:31 PM on September 6, 2014
That said, it is definitely true that people from CA are moving up here and buying houses with cash - in every case I've known it's been someone from a startup or long-standing Googler who struck it rich bigtime on company stock. So, definitely not your average American and not the majority of people buying here. You just hear about it because the notion of buying a $600k house in cash has been pretty insane for a long time and because the news outlets like to make a sensational story out of how crazy the bidding wars are and how everyone needs to BUY RIGHT NOW OR ELSE.
posted by joan_holloway at 10:31 PM on September 6, 2014
It's a stereotype. I have a friend who tried studying this for a Master's paper in Sociology (assuming I understood that right) at a Texas university and wound up going for a different topic because the themes weren't quantifiable-in-the-sense-of-a-survey, they came down to human nature. Some of what I remember her saying:
Does it extend farther east? Generally no, because New Yorkers/New Englanders pick up that slack on the east coast.
Why do Californians get a bad rap in the western states and Texas? It basically came down to what town_of_cats wrote: expectations of now-ex-Californians are so far out of relation to what current locals have experienced that there's a sense that the newcomers are bragging and a sense of jealousy from the locals. ("What do you mean, you sold your 2/1 craphole for $800,000 and just paid cash for a five-acre spread with 83 bedrooms and a retractable golf course? I'd love to be able to do that but I didn't luck into it!") Having watched the northern suburbs of Dallas, and now the trendy urban neighborhoods of Dallas, become home to majority-former-Californians, I've witnessed the accompanying social changes.
That said, it is interesting that two out of the three replies here when I post are from the Seattle or Seattle area (I live in Seattle; can I bag on the Eastside resident at this point? No? Ok, then.) and your question is posed as someone who moved to Seattle. I'm also a Seattle transplant by way of Texas and, even though Texans get a bum rap for our governors, I've not had the same level of "ugh, you're from Texas?" like Californian friends have about their state. I get the impression that native Seattleites, who are now a minority in their own city, are feeling a bit invaded after Seattle having been "ignored" for so long. Since California is the source of most of the US immigrants (of course it is, it has the most number of people, but let's not bother with numbers right now), it's the biggest target of angst. Add in a dash of Silicon Valley and most of southern California having a reputation for "money, money everywhere," and there you go.
posted by fireoyster at 12:54 AM on September 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
Does it extend farther east? Generally no, because New Yorkers/New Englanders pick up that slack on the east coast.
Why do Californians get a bad rap in the western states and Texas? It basically came down to what town_of_cats wrote: expectations of now-ex-Californians are so far out of relation to what current locals have experienced that there's a sense that the newcomers are bragging and a sense of jealousy from the locals. ("What do you mean, you sold your 2/1 craphole for $800,000 and just paid cash for a five-acre spread with 83 bedrooms and a retractable golf course? I'd love to be able to do that but I didn't luck into it!") Having watched the northern suburbs of Dallas, and now the trendy urban neighborhoods of Dallas, become home to majority-former-Californians, I've witnessed the accompanying social changes.
That said, it is interesting that two out of the three replies here when I post are from the Seattle or Seattle area (I live in Seattle; can I bag on the Eastside resident at this point? No? Ok, then.) and your question is posed as someone who moved to Seattle. I'm also a Seattle transplant by way of Texas and, even though Texans get a bum rap for our governors, I've not had the same level of "ugh, you're from Texas?" like Californian friends have about their state. I get the impression that native Seattleites, who are now a minority in their own city, are feeling a bit invaded after Seattle having been "ignored" for so long. Since California is the source of most of the US immigrants (of course it is, it has the most number of people, but let's not bother with numbers right now), it's the biggest target of angst. Add in a dash of Silicon Valley and most of southern California having a reputation for "money, money everywhere," and there you go.
posted by fireoyster at 12:54 AM on September 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: Hah, well apparently this is a CA to Seattle thing. One thing I remember in the 90s that Oregon was especially annoyed about all the Californians moving in.. something about driving up property taxes and something about schools? Does anyone remember this and can explain it more clearly than that?
And technically I just lived in CA for a decade but am native PNWer ;) /streetcred
posted by annie o at 6:23 AM on September 7, 2014
And technically I just lived in CA for a decade but am native PNWer ;) /streetcred
posted by annie o at 6:23 AM on September 7, 2014
Santa Fe (New Mexico) natives pretty famously bitch about Californians moving to the area, driving up prices and plopping their outsized homes smack on top of hills, ruining the views.
posted by Thorzdad at 6:30 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Thorzdad at 6:30 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
I recall in the 80s seeing "Don't Californicate Oregon" bumper stickers and hearing about California tourists putting "don't worry, just visiting" signs on their cars when in Seattle with CA plates. I worked at a company with offices in CA and TX among other states and those who relocated to TX were always chirping about how much house they could buy there. So yes, it's a thing.
Of course in CA, people complain now about the Chinese buying up all our real estate with cash and upping prices and tech folks pricing non-tech folks out of places like San Francisco. It seems people just like to point fingers and sigh over how things used to be.
posted by cecic at 7:16 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Of course in CA, people complain now about the Chinese buying up all our real estate with cash and upping prices and tech folks pricing non-tech folks out of places like San Francisco. It seems people just like to point fingers and sigh over how things used to be.
posted by cecic at 7:16 AM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Best answer: It's a CA to CO thing, too. It was pretty virulent in the 90s. It's either abated somewhat or I just don't hear it as often. When I moved here 20+ years ago even my then-SIL made snotty remarks about "Californians moving here and ruining everything." (I moved here because her husband's brother, a native, brought me.)
I used to describe the stereotype as "rich people from LA who loaded up their BMWs with gang members and the contents of their wine cellars and bought dilapidated old houses in old downtown neighborhoods that none of us wanted and they're fixing them up and the economy and property values and jobs are improving, waaahhh. Plus they don't know how to drive in snow (because everybody knows it never snows in CA; the whole state just one big beach/Disneyland)" :roll:
I could never understand what this supposed pre-Californiacated utopia was that they wanted back; did they want to revert to the days immediately after they stole the land from the Indians, or just back to the days when the entire state's economy rose and fell (mostly fell) on extractive industries like mining and energy?
My coworkers used to say the most hateful and bigoted things in my presence about the awful Californians who were destroying Colorado. When I reminded them that I was one of those awful Californians, they'd say, "But you aren't like that" and I'd say, "Exactly, and neither are the ones you're complaining about." My ex had his car with CA plates vandalized repeatedly, and he was sure it was because of the Californian hate. The only transplants they hated almost as much as Californians were Texans, but the stereotypical awful Texan was not so clearly defined.
I was a renter in CA. I wasn't rich when I moved here, by a long shot. If I'd stayed in CA, eventually I might have owned a home there, but it's not likely. Some of my first impressions of living in Denver were that even poor people could live in brick houses in what appeared (to me) to be desirable close-to-downtown neighborhoods. And sure enough, I did (eventually) buy one of those old houses in an old neighborhood and fixed it up, and now the natives who fled to the 'burbs in the 80s and 90s can't afford to buy a house here. These are the same people who used to say things like, "Oh, I'm so sorry" (that is a direct quote) when I told them I lived in this neighborhood, as recently as nine years ago.
On reflection, I am surprised at how much remembering this treatment still rankles after all these years. I love living here, but the locals sure weren't very welcoming.
posted by caryatid at 12:25 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
I used to describe the stereotype as "rich people from LA who loaded up their BMWs with gang members and the contents of their wine cellars and bought dilapidated old houses in old downtown neighborhoods that none of us wanted and they're fixing them up and the economy and property values and jobs are improving, waaahhh. Plus they don't know how to drive in snow (because everybody knows it never snows in CA; the whole state just one big beach/Disneyland)" :roll:
I could never understand what this supposed pre-Californiacated utopia was that they wanted back; did they want to revert to the days immediately after they stole the land from the Indians, or just back to the days when the entire state's economy rose and fell (mostly fell) on extractive industries like mining and energy?
My coworkers used to say the most hateful and bigoted things in my presence about the awful Californians who were destroying Colorado. When I reminded them that I was one of those awful Californians, they'd say, "But you aren't like that" and I'd say, "Exactly, and neither are the ones you're complaining about." My ex had his car with CA plates vandalized repeatedly, and he was sure it was because of the Californian hate. The only transplants they hated almost as much as Californians were Texans, but the stereotypical awful Texan was not so clearly defined.
I was a renter in CA. I wasn't rich when I moved here, by a long shot. If I'd stayed in CA, eventually I might have owned a home there, but it's not likely. Some of my first impressions of living in Denver were that even poor people could live in brick houses in what appeared (to me) to be desirable close-to-downtown neighborhoods. And sure enough, I did (eventually) buy one of those old houses in an old neighborhood and fixed it up, and now the natives who fled to the 'burbs in the 80s and 90s can't afford to buy a house here. These are the same people who used to say things like, "Oh, I'm so sorry" (that is a direct quote) when I told them I lived in this neighborhood, as recently as nine years ago.
On reflection, I am surprised at how much remembering this treatment still rankles after all these years. I love living here, but the locals sure weren't very welcoming.
posted by caryatid at 12:25 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Virginia (Northern). No Californians. The running joke here is that someone sold a normal townhouse in a really nice neighborhood in DC and then used that money to buy a small town in the mid-west/southwest.
posted by anaelith at 1:39 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by anaelith at 1:39 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Of course in CA, people complain now about the Chinese buying up all our real estate with cash and upping prices and tech folks pricing non-tech folks out of places like San Francisco. It seems people just like to point fingers and sigh over how things used to be.
Yup, exactly. No matter where you go, you'll encounter people richer than you who can afford real estate you couldn't dream of affording. In the non-CA American west it just happens to be that those people are mostly coming from CA. In CA, depending on what part, you can blame folks who won the IPO or acquisition lottery, Chinese nationals flush with cash, random movie stars...
There's definitely an element of just worrying about population growth too. It seems pretty clear to me as a newcomer that there are parts of Seattle where the road capacity can just barely support the current population. In west LA, there was no clear group to blame for this traffic growth. Ultimately most of the people on our roads were people who lived in non-westside LA and commuted there for work, but there were also lots of tourists, lots of locals just trying to run errands, you could blame developers for building denser housing, you could blame the Santa Monica city government for approving it, etc. In Seattle it's very easy to say, "Well, if Californians would stop moving here we wouldn't have all this traffic," because CA has been Seattle's major supplier of scapegoats since the mid 1980s.
posted by town of cats at 2:01 PM on September 7, 2014
Yup, exactly. No matter where you go, you'll encounter people richer than you who can afford real estate you couldn't dream of affording. In the non-CA American west it just happens to be that those people are mostly coming from CA. In CA, depending on what part, you can blame folks who won the IPO or acquisition lottery, Chinese nationals flush with cash, random movie stars...
There's definitely an element of just worrying about population growth too. It seems pretty clear to me as a newcomer that there are parts of Seattle where the road capacity can just barely support the current population. In west LA, there was no clear group to blame for this traffic growth. Ultimately most of the people on our roads were people who lived in non-westside LA and commuted there for work, but there were also lots of tourists, lots of locals just trying to run errands, you could blame developers for building denser housing, you could blame the Santa Monica city government for approving it, etc. In Seattle it's very easy to say, "Well, if Californians would stop moving here we wouldn't have all this traffic," because CA has been Seattle's major supplier of scapegoats since the mid 1980s.
posted by town of cats at 2:01 PM on September 7, 2014
I just remembered something else about the early days of being a CA-to-CO transplant: the main complaint (and I'm not saying everyone said this, but the ones who did were quite vocal) was that all this in-migration of Texans and Californians was solely responsible for all the open space around Denver being turned into tickytacky/McMansion/ranchette housing developments and giant malls, and thus increasing traffic and higher cost-of-everything and turning Denver into LA.
Then there was a study done on the rate, impact, and causes of Front Range urban sprawl, which found that the people driving this demand for suburban and exurban development were almost exclusively from Colorado - either moving out from the cities or in from the country. I suspect that may the case elsewhere, too.
posted by caryatid at 2:55 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Then there was a study done on the rate, impact, and causes of Front Range urban sprawl, which found that the people driving this demand for suburban and exurban development were almost exclusively from Colorado - either moving out from the cities or in from the country. I suspect that may the case elsewhere, too.
posted by caryatid at 2:55 PM on September 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Best answer: One thing I remember in the 90s that Oregon was especially annoyed about all the Californians moving in.. something about driving up property taxes and something about schools? Does anyone remember this and can explain it more clearly than that?
I grew up in Oregon schools while this was all happening, and it was a really big deal and it continues to have a huge impact on Oregon schools. As a bit of background, Oregon has no sales tax but has had fairly hefty property & income taxes to make up the shortfall. In 1990, Measure 5 passed, establishing a state constitutional limit on property taxes, especially with respect to schools: "Property taxes dedicated for school funding were capped at $15 per $1,000 of real market value per year and gradually lowered to $5 per $1,000 per year." There were additional details about transferring funding responsibility from local government to state government but I don't think that had as much lasting impact as the hard constitutional limit on school funding.
The popular understanding of how this bill passed was that "rich" folks who had come here to retire from CA and didn't have kids in the school system overwhelmingly supported it. Californians were moving to Portland and driving up the property taxes really quickly and thus wanted tax relief from that "burden." I think they were able to convince the rural areas of Oregon to vote for it because of the transfer of funding responsibility to the state - it was supposed to mean that rural areas would get more school funding but in reality it just meant everyone's funding was reduced to a pittance.
The bill only passed by ~50,000 votes and remains one of the most controversial things in Oregon political history. To this day, my teacher friends from Oregon unanimously point to Measure 5 as the death knell for Oregon school funding and quality. The fears about the impacts on school funding were well-founded, incidentally; by the time I graduated high school, we had to bring in our own paper at the beginning of the term for handouts and such, and I know teachers in Oregon who pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket for school supplies every year.
posted by dialetheia at 5:39 PM on September 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
I grew up in Oregon schools while this was all happening, and it was a really big deal and it continues to have a huge impact on Oregon schools. As a bit of background, Oregon has no sales tax but has had fairly hefty property & income taxes to make up the shortfall. In 1990, Measure 5 passed, establishing a state constitutional limit on property taxes, especially with respect to schools: "Property taxes dedicated for school funding were capped at $15 per $1,000 of real market value per year and gradually lowered to $5 per $1,000 per year." There were additional details about transferring funding responsibility from local government to state government but I don't think that had as much lasting impact as the hard constitutional limit on school funding.
The popular understanding of how this bill passed was that "rich" folks who had come here to retire from CA and didn't have kids in the school system overwhelmingly supported it. Californians were moving to Portland and driving up the property taxes really quickly and thus wanted tax relief from that "burden." I think they were able to convince the rural areas of Oregon to vote for it because of the transfer of funding responsibility to the state - it was supposed to mean that rural areas would get more school funding but in reality it just meant everyone's funding was reduced to a pittance.
The bill only passed by ~50,000 votes and remains one of the most controversial things in Oregon political history. To this day, my teacher friends from Oregon unanimously point to Measure 5 as the death knell for Oregon school funding and quality. The fears about the impacts on school funding were well-founded, incidentally; by the time I graduated high school, we had to bring in our own paper at the beginning of the term for handouts and such, and I know teachers in Oregon who pay hundreds of dollars out of pocket for school supplies every year.
posted by dialetheia at 5:39 PM on September 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
Oh crap--that's just like our Prop13 here in CA. That law is the source of all that is unholy and impure here. I'm so sorry it's been exported.
posted by persona au gratin at 1:50 AM on September 8, 2014
posted by persona au gratin at 1:50 AM on September 8, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by dawg-proud at 9:22 PM on September 6, 2014 [1 favorite]