I’m a displaced California native – I graduated HS in 1981 and moved to Texas in 1988 when the defense business tanked. My extended family all live in California, and I would like to move back.
It’s hard to forsee a crash in the California real estate market severe enough that I could afford to move back (and buy, not rent) on my Civil Engineering salary. In retrospect, I could have stretched and done it in the mid-90’s but California housing looked outrageously expensive to me at that time, as nice houses in beautiful Sugar Land, Texas zoned for exemplary public schools were selling for a third of (at the market bottom) California prices. Like a dummy, I bought a Texas house, because it seemed like a wiser financial decision.
