Is this a CA exodus to Salt Lake UT?

[lostkitty]

http://www.benengebreth.org/housingtracker/location/Utah/SaltLakeCity/

Anyone read “Under the Banner of Heaven”? Could be clash of cultures ahead. Californians tend to be a fairly relaxed and liberal (generalization). I am not sure if this is still true, but BYU was even a “no shorts” school in the late 80’s.

[powayseller]

Would this be another city on the list of CA investors? Or is this where the the SD exodus is heading?

[lostkitty]

I have no idea…how can we know for certain. Are there statistics in those populations reports as to where people actually GO when they leave CA?

Saw the striking increase in prices (+65% in 9 mo!) and the decrease in inventory and wonder if it is is due to people leaving CA. I’ve heard so much talk about Californians going to Texas. the numbers show something is certainly happening in Salt Lake as well. All speculation?

We have a pilot friend (lives in Salt Lake) who has taken it in the shorts by Delta’s — agressive pay-cuts– Now he has gotten involved in real estate buying/fixing/selling (as well as still flying) – making more money at that then as a pilot – sad.

[PD]

I know a number of RE investors in Phoenix (they are pros, have been in commercial RE for a decade) and I keep hearing about New Mexico and Texas from them. There are still a lot of people chasing the RE dollar and they are going to cities that look cheap.

[Carlsbadliving]

I actually had a good friend leave San Diego last June for Salt Lake. Cashed out his house here and paid cash for an acre sized custom home there. He kept telling that he couldn’t believe how cheap it was there. He didn’t seem to have a problem finding a software job there either. It was like an island that hadn’t been touched by an portion of the bubble. Maybe he wasn’t alone and over the last year they’ve had a lot more Californians coming in. I just couldn’t bring myself to live there no matter how cheap it is.

[sdrealtor]

Can you say speculation? SLC is another on a long list of places the specualtors are chasing the last remnants of this boom. Can you say Boise?

[23109VC]

there are some places that I just wouldn’t want to live, no matter how cheap it was. Utah would be on the list of “places I’d rather not live”….

there’s a reason why it’s cheap there…no one wants to live there….

i think the reason we’ve seen massive price increases in areas that originally were NOT hot spots – like Vegas, Phoenix, etc… was that all the CA folks who cashed out headed east. Also, people who were finally ready to buy but couldn’t stomach CA prices, may have gone east to find a suitable/affordable place to buy/live.

as the boom ENDS in so cal and prices start to fall….you’ll see less people leaving. maybe even see people come back. as that happens, the bubble may pop out in those less desireable places too…

you just have to wonder WHY some of these places exploded…I mean do people REALLY want to live in Phoenix…..or did they go there b/c it was a compromise. They didn’t like the desert heat (aka HELL in summer) – but liked the fact that they coudl buy a great house at a good price….so they “settled”. had prices been “normal” in so cal they would have stayed/bought in so cal.

as prices get back to normal…i wonder if the trend will reverse…

all things equal..i can’t see how anyone in their right mind would live in Phoenix over San Diego. but they aren’t equal..housing prices are WAY different…as that differnce shrinks….which I think it will to some extent….what will happen to the people who bought in Phoenix and rode the wave up..they too may see prices cool/fall….piles of inventory….

[Bugs]

I would say that someone who takes their equity and makes it count in their destination city is anything but a speculator. There are a lot of people who would regard having their home paid off as the fulfillment of a lifetime dream.

Of course, I’ll also say that at least some of the money that’s fueling the markets in these other areas is imported money from markets like San Diego and L.A., and that when the source of that money dries up it will have a ripple effect.

Someone on another forum made the comment that the money we bring in to other areas may be ours when we bring it, but when we leave it stays there.

[anxvariety]

I’ve heard SLC is overpriced.. but there are still other areas on the 7th largest contintent that are priced low.

If you do a wage comparison and cost of living in Austin, TX vs. San Diego, CA – I BET(haven’t done the comparison)there is still a huge gap.. and Austin isn’t really a low priced area of Texas.

I think we’ll see lots of these areas boom while the big bubble high priced areas like San Diego are crashing.. just imagine what a huge exodous of people from Southern California to Texas and Utah will be like? I don’t think many markets are flexible enough to take huge influxes without a little chaos..

The people have to live somewhere argument still works, people just have to live where it’s affordable.. and even if a place in Texas should be $150k but it’s $250k, that’s still very affordable and even has some room to grow for someone coming from CA that just bailed out on their $700k loan..

The biggest question mark in my opinion is, where are they going to get that $250k, what does their credit look like at that point, and what are interest rates at? Most will probably end up renting these cheap homes… which makes any healing of the San Diego inventory look even more bleak!

[powayseller]

Where is the population exodus from SD headed? The 44K people/year who are leaving, I mean. Inland empire? Texas? Arizona?

[Carlsbadliving]

I think they’re headed to all those places, plus Wash, Oregon, Idaho, etc. Any place that was cheaper.

[PD]

I know a lot people who moved to Arizona. I happen to love the desert and would move back to the Phoenix area in a heartbeat. I love how it feels at night in the summer (the days stink but I hate it when it is gloomy here too). I also think the desert is beautiful and there are few things more majestic than the huge, pastel tinged sky of a desert sunset.

[anxvariety]

PD, I agree with you lots of places in arizona are beautiful.. Sedona, Flagstaff or the drive in between.. most people don’t really know much about the desert. Some people think the desert is hot 100% of hte time.. and don’t understand that it gets really cold in the desert sometimes too!

[Anonymous]

I was in SLC a few weeks ago and I was shocked by the number of new home developments I saw there vs. the last time I passed through 2 years ago. Judging by the prices I was seeing, it’s not the locals who are snapping up most of these new houses. Driving on I-15, an absurd number of the billboards were housing related. The county median price was up 16% for 1st Quarter 2006 SFRs.

Speculation is alive and thriving there too.

In the last housing downturn here in SoCal, Californians also cashed out and moved to Salt Lake, pushing up the prices of houses 42% between 1990 and 1994 in one figure I saw. I know one family who sold in Mission Viejo in the last downturn and moved into an 8 bedroom monstrosity of a house with their 2 children, mostly because it seemed cheap in comparison. This time just looks like more of the same.

From the Utah 2006 Economic Report to the Governor:

“Housing sales have recently dropped in California while rising in Utah. Realtors report that investors are even buying homes site unseen over the Internet.”

“The state (UT) experienced its 15th straight year of net in-migration in 2005. Net in-migration at 40,647 was the highest level in 60 years. As a percent of total population, net in-migration was the strongest in 13 years. This
was the first time in over a decade that net in-migration, and not natural increase, made up the largest component of the state’s population growth.”

[Author]

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