Goodbye to San Diego

[svelte]

[quote=EconProf]
Regarding California’s population—it is declining in absolute terms. If you believe otherwise, your information is old. Census comes out with annual estimates in the first quarter of the year, and then as more data comes in gives us a revised member in July. The very latest figures show a decline.
[/quote]

“Californians may have been undercounted in the 2020 Census.

The Census Bureau’s decennial population count will have far-reaching consequences for California’s political representation and federal funding. Three in four Californians belong to one or more hard-to-count groups: children, young men, Latino and African American residents, and renters. Noncitizens may also have been particularly reluctant to participate, given the Trump administration’s actions to curtail immigration and its attempt to add a citizenship question to the census form. The pandemic further upended outreach efforts and affected in-person follow-ups by census workers. Parts of the final count will become available starting in April 2021, but it will take longer to fully discern how disruptions may have affected the count’s accuracy.”

https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-population/

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=svelte][quote=EconProf]
Regarding California’s population—it is declining in absolute terms. If you believe otherwise, your information is old. Census comes out with annual estimates in the first quarter of the year, and then as more data comes in gives us a revised member in July. The very latest figures show a decline.
[/quote]

“Californians may have been undercounted in the 2020 Census.

The Census Bureau’s decennial population count will have far-reaching consequences for California’s political representation and federal funding. Three in four Californians belong to one or more hard-to-count groups: children, young men, Latino and African American residents, and renters. Noncitizens may also have been particularly reluctant to participate, given the Trump administration’s actions to curtail immigration and its attempt to add a citizenship question to the census form. The pandemic further upended outreach efforts and affected in-person follow-ups by census workers. Parts of the final count will become available starting in April 2021, but it will take longer to fully discern how disruptions may have affected the count’s accuracy.”

https://www.ppic.org/publication/californias-population/%5B/quote%5D

Anecdotally, temeculas so crowded it can be quicker to drive to poway than one town over to murrieta. Please have a few less people .. .please…

[an]

[quote=sdrealtor]The irony is I’ve always felt retirement in place is one of the best parts of living here. All my friends back East always looked forward to retiring in a beautiful place with a warm climate. I’ve been enjoying that all along and don’t need to move to get that. Of course they say they go to Florida because of low cost of living and taxes. But truth is they buy more expensive homes there and join expensive country clubs. If the weather sucked they wouldn’t be moving there either. Kinda defeats the argument of low cost of living and taxes as a reason to a large degree. I’m staying put![/quote]
I feel the same way about retirement. Every time I go on vacation, regardless of where, when I get back to SD and experience this weather, there’s no other place I’d rather live. People come here to vacation, so if I can live my life and experience the “vacation” every day, why would I leave if I can afford it here. I’m staying put as well.

[The-Shoveler]

If you have a paid off primary (bought maybe 20-30 years ago), your tax rate should be fairly low.
So staying put probably is a better option all considered.

(like sdr I am staying put until they wheel me out)

If you bought in a really expensive area with a really high MR, but then you are probably not worried about it either as you probably can afford it.

[svelte]

[quote=an]
I feel the same way about retirement. Every time I go on vacation, regardless of where, when I get back to SD and experience this weather, there’s no other place I’d rather live. People come here to vacation, so if I can live my life and experience the “vacation” every day, why would I leave if I can afford it here. I’m staying put as well.[/quote]

I’ve lived in many other areas of the country. I know where I’m happiest, and that is in this state. As soon as we decided we would retire in San Diego, we put ourselves on a glide path to make that happen. When I retire, house will be paid off and we’ve got enough stashed away to live very comfortably.

If we moved out of state to save a few income tax dollars, all we would be doing is adding to the $ we’ll give our kids when we kick the bucket. We’re already likely to give them a significant amount, so why would we move to an area we like less just to give them more? Wouldn’t make sense.

Early on, we often thought we’d retire on the norcal coast, but the years have changed our minds. We would sacrifice entertainment options, weather, and access to major medical facilities if we did that. San Diego is the better choice.

[Myriad]

People complain that CA is an expensive state to retire, but I wonder how many have actually done the math.
Yes, if you’re young and looking to buy, it’s expensive. And if you’re moving to CA for retirement, it’s also expensive (relative to other states/cities).

But… if you’re been here for 30 years and owned your home for that long, and saved decently, it’s really not that bad.
So you have the following compared to other states:
– lower property tax
– no tax on SSA income
– slightly higher income tax rate (for $60-100k taxable income) compared to states with taxes. Moderately higher for states w/o income tax: you’ll pay more in property tax/sales tax/or other expenditures for things that are not covered by taxes.

How many people are actually paying the higher 10-13% state tax rate in retirement? And if you are, you can probably afford to “retire” to another state and keep your SD property as a second property (espeically now that you can move your property tax base to another property).

So the key here is to reduce your taxable income by shifting as much to Roth before you get SSA. It does take a little planning ahead of retirement

[EconProf]

Let’s revisit my claim of ‘ominous trends” for San Diego and CA I mentioned that got a lot of criticism. CA’s now declining population is a result of many “push factors” that are causing people and companies to make the very exensive decision to leave. Our taxes, utility costs, homelessness, and increasingly leftist government at the city, county, school district, and state level are driving this exodus. None of these trends show any sign of reversing. If you are in RE in any capacity, you know that your estimate of the future should determine today’s opinion and actions.
San Diego’s relatively good RE picture today may be largely due to the well-off buyers fleeing the more disfunctional LA and Bay Area cities, as others here have mentioned. But the same push factors are now becoming evident in SD.
People and businesses are fleeing the difunctional cities and states at an accelerating rate which could well accelerate if there is increasing civil disorder. Great weather and beaches are nice, but not enough for many people and businesses.

[scaredyclassic]

So the 10 perc bracket starts at 300k and 12 perc at 600k. Photos of people leaving in uhaul trucks aren’t in either of these brackets. Well, hell, I am, but I guess I am cheap enough to move myself in a uhaul.

Maybe you’re right.

If you’re calling a top to ca r.e. long term, prob. As foolish as calling a 20 year top to the nasdaq

[sdrealtor]

Enjoy St George and check back in when the temps are 110

Data sadly omitted from your post

[EconProf]

Will do SDR.
Remember St George is high desert, so is noticeably cooler than Las Vegas. 110 degrees is not common. And there’s a 30 degree swing in temperatures, so mornings are OK.

[gzz]

“the more disfunctional LA and Bay Area cities”

How many $10 billion+ companies were started in California the past decade versus Texas+Utah+Florida? I don’t hear much about Dell and Novell these days.

[an]

[quote=gzz]”the more disfunctional LA and Bay Area cities”

How many $10 billion+ companies were started in California the past decade versus Texas+Utah+Florida? I don’t hear much about Dell and Novell these days.[/quote]
I think that’s backward looking. To get to $10B, you’d have to start at least 5-10 years ago, unless you get lucky. We all knew CA and NY are where the VC money was. TX and FL were not really on the radar. However, past performance does not guarantee future return. If you want to see where the next set of $10b+ companies will be in 10-20 years, you’d have to look at VC funding today. Today, it’s still mostly bay area and NYC. However, Austin has beaten out San Diego (which was @ #10 6 years ago) last year to claim the 10th spot.

Also, just because they start in CA doesn’t mean they stay in CA. Just look at Tesla as a prime example. I know that cost of engineers here in CA is driving a lot of companies who have made it past survival mode to look outside of CA. When you’re in survival mode and need VC money, you need to be near the money. However, once you’re past that stage, distance to VC $ is no longer a high priority but cost of labor is.

[Anonymous]

[quote=EconProf]Let’s revisit my claim of ‘ominous trends” for San Diego and CA I mentioned that got a lot of criticism. CA’s now declining population is a result of many “push factors” that are causing people and companies to make the very exensive decision to leave. Our taxes, utility costs, homelessness, and increasingly leftist government at the city, county, school district, and state level are driving this exodus. None of these trends show any sign of reversing. If you are in RE in any capacity, you know that your estimate of the future should determine today’s opinion and actions.
San Diego’s relatively good RE picture today may be largely due to the well-off buyers fleeing the more disfunctional LA and Bay Area cities, as others here have mentioned. But the same push factors are now becoming evident in SD.
People and businesses are fleeing the difunctional cities and states at an accelerating rate which could well accelerate if there is increasing civil disorder. Great weather and beaches are nice, but not enough for many people and businesses.[/quote]

None of those factors are influencing SD RE prices one iota. If/when San Diego real estate prices crash it will be due to a crashing of the current global financial bubble which will affect RE prices in Utah and everywhere else.

[sdrealtor]

[quote=EconProf]Will do SDR.
Remember St George is high desert, so is noticeably cooler than Las Vegas. 110 degrees is not common. And there’s a 30 degree swing in temperatures, so mornings are OK.[/quote]

But 105 is

[Myriad]

[quote=EconProf]Let’s revisit my claim of ‘ominous trends” for San Diego and CA I mentioned that got a lot of criticism. CA’s now declining population is a result of many “push factors” that are causing people and companies to make the very exensive decision to leave.[/quote]

It’s yet to be seen how many people have actually moved out of state vs just moving in state.
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-citylab-how-americans-moved/

Declining native-born population maybe. But the country needs more younger immigrants to offset the aging population and to pay for SSA/Medicare. Immigrants from Asia are highly likely to go to CA and TX – so the population won’t decline. Just won’t grow as fast as TX, AZ, or FL. But CA is still way better than most NE states, so you’ll get people moving away from those states also.
The CA tax burden is much lower than those states.

Costs in SF/SJ/LA/SD are much higher relative to other tier 1 cities in other states. But eventually the main cities in TX, AZ, FL prices will move up also, negating the cost differential over time.

[Author]

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