I just saw this on yahoo news, the top five states people are leaving. Happy to see CA is not one of them but now I’m wondering if this is correct since other news reports I’ve seen make it appear like CA should be in the top three if not number one. Maybe CA is number six.
Around here there still seems to be a housing shortage, there are never many homes in the market at any given time.
It’s a tradition that stretches back to the 19th century — with pioneers headed west in search of gold and silver.
news.yahoo.com
summarily per the above article and in order of appearance:
New Jersey
Illinois
New York
Michigan
Wyoming
Thanks for the post
@Ronnie!
What’s missing of course is where these folks moved to. It’s fine to say they wanted to move to be closer to family, but where is the family, and even more telling would be where the family is and how long the family had been there, were those family members the true pioneers / scouts who took the risk for a better life and found it? And now that success is relatively assured these recent interviewees are now moving ? The absolute hardest part of moving to another state is making the commitment to do so, sure there is the logistical work, but nothing like mental karate matches that preceded the decision.
Retirement, also lacking is where were these retirees were moving to and why? Sure there are a number of retirees that move for better weather on their aging bones, but I’d be willing to bet it’s to make their retirement funds go farther in states with drastically lower cost of living and a higher quality of life. Weather wise for me it was to not have any more long hot summers and a desire for four seasons, and to stop getting financially raped by a state government that was taking my money and spending it on things that did not support a high quality of life. In fact, the quality of life in my home state of CA had been declining for decades. Its quite sad actually, CA has such beautiful topography, in the 80’s you could go surfing in the morning and snow skiing in the afternoon, high paying blue collar jobs were abundant etc etc..
Work… CA over the last two years has seen, I think it’s 70 substantial companies (as well as hundreds more small companies) leave the golden state for states like Texas, Tennessee and Florida, so one has to wonder how many of those folks who said they are leaving for jobs / work are following their companies as I’m sure the high tax states mentioned in the article are also hemorrhaging businesses.
Wyoming…There’s an old joke about Wyoming, how do you make a millionaire in Wyoming? Start with a billionaire! The most attractive part of Wyoming to most folks is the south west corner, think Yellowstone / Jackson Hole, but there are also the BigHorn Mountains further east. (Also Keyhole Reservoir and Glendo Reservoir) The reasons listed were that folks moved there during the pandemic, but why? Answer? to escape draconian lockdowns etc imposed by the states they left. So now that the lockdowns have been lifted, and those folks have realized that along with those freedoms comes some harsh winters to go along with the summer beauty, they are ready to go back…that makes no sense to me, but hey, to each their own. I’m pretty sure that happened here in SD as well, I saw a lot of license plates from far flung states with those draconian lock downs here in the summer of 2020, and then the inventory of houses started shrinking as those folks decided they wanted to move here. Now after a decent winter I’m seeing more houses come on the market and prices are starting to fall. My property value that I bought in 2020 went from an assessed value of $339K to $565K this year, I’d love to do a refi and put up a large pole barn, but I’m not giving up my 3% mortgage for a 7% mortgage to do so. I was hoping for a harsher winter, but, if the farmers almanac forecast is correct, the warm months of summer will be longer in coming this year, it will be a cool wet spring, a wet and hot summer and a cool wet fall. Not the kind of weather a lot of folks encountered when they visited in 20 and 21. So perhaps the house inventory will be increasing this year as the tenderfoots leave for “nicer” weather. As a footnote note, those newcomers are easy to spot by the way they drive, they stick out like a sore thumb with their impatient driving style, speeding, and cutting people off only to have to stop at the signal with everyone else.
The other thing not mentioned, as it was probably not part of the survey questions are the social aspects of their home states. There’s a lot of people leaving places that are tired of the high and increasing rates of crime, policies that are discriminatory and preferential towards the few at the expense of the many for political reasons, and politics overall. Hard working taxpayers are tired of state governments not working for them and their best interests. I think a lot of people are tired of their home states‘ governments denigrating and vilifying them, yet these same people are expected to keep producing for the “needs” of others at their expense. Who is John Galt?
