I’m guess considering that CA is still one of the major employers of various industries, that it’s still better off than a lot of places that people moved to…I’m guess some of the folks that moved out of state because they felt it was too expensive to own here and finding out that when times are good, you can take the “I’ll work in a lower cost area”…But when times are bad, some of those lower cost areas have no jobs and opportunities.
I think what made a lot of places like NV,AZ,OR thrive was the hype of real estate bubble, when “investors” that no longer could afford to speculate in CA for property started looking outside the state for a quick-buck flip opportunity like in NV,AZ,OR,NM, subsequently driving up home prices in those lower cost areas and with that stimulating the economy in those areas.
I was almost going to purchase RE in those states, and went with the crowd to those states to check things out. Aside from real estate appreciation, I was baffled how any of the local people would be able to afford the new high prices of those homes. Take Oregon for instance. Some homes that use to sell for $300k appreciated to $600k in a few months, when clearly the Oregon economy and job market could not support that sort of level. (Ever wonder why you cannot fill up your own gas in Oregon..Yup unemployment problem…And that was BEFORE this economic meltdown)..Digging deeper into some of those homes, I was finding a lot of those homes were being bidded up by CA folks who took out equity from their primary in CA to speculate…. So much of those local economies were heavily dependent strictly on RE bubble, with no other industry or job supporting those levels. Yet, those bubble times created a lot of fluff jobs in those areas that normally would not have existed.
Now that some of those Real Estate “Investors” are getting slaughtered, the so called strength in economies of those states are were nothing more than an illusion that went when as some of those CA “investors” lost their shirt. As screwed up as CA is, it probably still has more opportunities than some of those other states folks started moving to for “more affordable cost of living”.
Also, if you’re going to be unemployed/uninsured, the best state to be in is CA afterall…
For the longest time, the media was reporting how “well” Oregon real estate was holding up, and part of me was thinking that this can’t sustain because the employment scene was never that good in Oregon…Well looks like I was right. Oregon currently has the highest unemployment rate in the nation.
