Live/Work in Nevada, visit California?

[EconProf]

Lots of Californians have discovered the tax benefits of spending over 50% of the year in NV in order to escape our confiscatory taxes. Just be sure you can document it via receipts, voting in NV, changing all your insurance, car license and driver’s license, renting or buying housing in NV, getting all your mail there, etc. CA tax authorities are justifiably worried more wealthy people will flee, and have been known to travel to Las Vegas to dig up evidence that their escapees are not spending over 1/2 of their time out of CA. CA is considering a surtax on our higher income people to cover our deficit, so I imagine that will be the last straw for many high earners who are now considering a move. It is entirely possible that a surtax would result in less tax revenue for the state.
The atmosphere, people and weather of Las Vegas get old pretty fast and are genuine negatives, so perhaps Reno and Incline Village have more of a real world feel to them.

[barnaby33]

Tijuana? Its close and you could claim Texas as your state of residence. I mean if you are considering Vegas or Reno, Tijuana isn’t much different. Other than its closer to San Diego.

[CA renter]

We know someone who moved to Vegas and still works in CA from time to time, and he loves it.

Best of luck to you, whatever you decide to do!

[curiousmind]

[quote=barnaby33]Tijuana? Its close and you could claim Texas as your state of residence. I mean if you are considering Vegas or Reno, Tijuana isn’t much different. Other than its closer to San Diego.[/quote]

Hehe.

[curiousmind]

[quote=CA renter]We know someone who moved to Vegas and still works in CA from time to time, and he loves it.

Best of luck to you, whatever you decide to do![/quote]

Thank you!

[briansd1]

Vegas is not that bad if you spend time indoors (I’ve been there too many times for conventions that I have no interest anymore).

But generally, people like to visit Vegas, so if you have a comfortable, well air-conditioned house with a nice guest room, not far from the strip, you will likely get a parade of friends and relatives visiting you.

They might visit you more frequently than if you lived a couple hours by car from them in California.

[poorgradstudent]

If you can do your work from anywhere and don’t need to commute, there’s few reasons to live in an expensive city like San Diego. I work in biotech, so I have to physically be close to my job and every extra mile of commute costs in both time and dollars.

Vegas does get very hot in the summers and colder than SD in the winter. If you’d be flying out here every other weekend some of your cost savings might get eaten up pretty quickly on plane flights.

[joec]

I have family that live in Vegas and after getting used to it, they like it a lot. Tax savings are huge since they are insanely high dual income.

That said, if you are single, no kids/spouse like you say, it isn’t a bad idea since you work most of the week anyways and weekdays are shot to begin with. Weekends, it’s probably even cheaper to drive/fly/crash at a friend’s house or hotel if there is anything going on that weekend/party.

Most of the time, folks are so busy anyways to really see their friends as they get older w/ kids unless they also have kids themselves to do the whole kid party thing.

Depending on your hobbies, you’d probably be just as happy socking money away for a few years and move back later.

Downside maybe harder to keep in touch after you move so your friends won’t be as close anymore if you move away.

[curiousmind]

[quote=joec]<...>
Depending on your hobbies, you’d probably be just as happy socking money away for a few years and move back later.

Downside maybe harder to keep in touch after you move so your friends won’t be as close anymore if you move away.[/quote]

Thank you, appreciate the information.

[svelte]

It really depends on what you like. I would hate living in Nevada and just visiting California. Here’s why.

Las Vegas: we go there a few times a year, and while the strip is fun I find very little else appealing about that area. Not only is it unbearably hot during the summer, what most people forget is that it is also exceedingly dry. The people we know who live there have huge humidifiers in their homes, and even that is not enough to keep my wife and my noses from drying out to the point of bleeding. Couple that with the bleak landscape, lack of greenery, and the boring sterile dirty look of the buildings (except for the strip, which locals avoid anyway) and I think living there would actually bring me down. Finally, the town attracts a very weird element…it is fun to watch them on a weekend visit, but I doubt I’d like to live amongst them.

Reno/Carson City: Las Vegas on a smaller scale. We go here often too (relatives) and I just can’t imagine living there. Since it is smaller than LV, it lacks the only thing LV has going for it: a plethora of fun things to do on the strip. The Reno strip is tiny and pathetic in comparison. But just up the hill is Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevadas which can take some of the sting out of it. Problem is, during the summer that area is one big traffic jam. A drive that can take 20 min with no traffic will take hours. We’re not into skiing, so that really doesn’t help us either. There are pockets of nice areas between Reno and CC which would be acceptable for living, but we wouldn’t have ready access to the nightlife that we have here in San Diego.

If you think you’ll be visiting Calif often, then I would submit to you that you’ll spend every penny you saved in Calif income tax on traveling back and forth to Calif. On top of that, unless you buy a second home in Calif, you have hotel expenses also. Then factor in what the travel time is worth.

I also shake my head at all the Californians who load up their trailers/campers with toys (dune buggies, boats, motorcycles)and head out to the desert each weekend. Obviously some ppl don’t mind the traveling and like the arid desert landscape. That’s not me but if it is you, more power to ya and you might want to consider moving to Nevada. 🙂

[bearishgurl]

[quote=svelte]It really depends on what you like. I would hate living in Nevada and just visiting California. Here’s why.

Las Vegas: we go there a few times a year, and while the strip is fun I find very little else appealing about that area. Not only is it unbearably hot during the summer, what most people forget is that it is also exceedingly dry. The people we know who live there have huge humidifiers in their homes, and even that is not enough to keep my wife and my noses from drying out to the point of bleeding. Couple that with the bleak landscape, lack of greenery, and the boring sterile dirty look of the buildings (except for the strip, which locals avoid anyway) and I think living there would actually bring me down. Finally, the town attracts a very weird element…it is fun to watch them on a weekend visit, but I doubt I’d like to live amongst them.

Reno/Carson City: Las Vegas on a smaller scale. We go here often too (relatives) and I just can’t imagine living there. Since it is smaller than LV, it lacks the only thing LV has going for it: a plethora of fun things to do on the strip. The Reno strip is tiny and pathetic in comparison. But just up the hill is Lake Tahoe and the Sierra Nevadas which can take some of the sting out of it. Problem is, during the summer that area is one big traffic jam. A drive that can take 20 min with no traffic will take hours. We’re not into skiing, so that really doesn’t help us either. There are pockets of nice areas between Reno and CC which would be acceptable for living, but we wouldn’t have ready access to the nightlife that we have here in San Diego.

If you think you’ll be visiting Calif often, then I would submit to you that you’ll spend every penny you saved in Calif income tax on traveling back and forth to Calif. On top of that, unless you buy a second home in Calif, you have hotel expenses also. Then factor in what the travel time is worth.

I also shake my head at all the Californians who load up their trailers/campers with toys (dune buggies, boats, motorcycles)and head out to the desert each weekend. Obviously some ppl don’t mind the traveling and like the arid desert landscape. That’s not me but if it is you, more power to ya and you might want to consider moving to Nevada. :-)[/quote]

svelte, all good points. I hate breathing the dry air in NV as well. You can avoid the traffic jam from Carson City to South Lake Tahoe by living in South Lake Tahoe (CA side). This area is at the top of my retirement list and 1200-1800 sf 40-55 yo ranch homes there situated on about 8-12K lots right in town on the free bus line have current asking prices of about $175-$350K. There are *newer* (10-40 yo) multi-level homes in the >$350K price range available around the fringes of the Heavenly Ski Resort and west/SW of town.

This area has everything one would need . . . even a small hospital. The four seasons are present and its beauty is incomparable.

The OP should take note of this gorgeous area. High-speed internet service is generally reliable there unless you are living in a remote area W/SW of town. However, there may be a way to get reliable service in the more remote areas that I am not aware of.

The (Stateline, NV) casinos only take up a little over 2 blocks. If you aren’t into that lifestyle (I’m not), you don’t have to hang around there. It’s nice to be close to several entertainment venues which regularly book top music talent, however.

One drawback (which doesn’t really bother me): Two or more times per winter, for 1-3 days, one or all roads are closed in or out of South Lake Tahoe.

As for the SoCal deserts, believe it or not there is now admission charged to take “toys” out on some of the dunes just north of I-8 just west of Yuma, AZ, lol. Apparently, this “recreational element” was leaving a lot of trash out there after a weekend and the state/county did not have the resources to continually clean it up. So now they have hired a maintenance service, provided dumpsters, etc and are “charging” dune-users for its services :=]

I’ve driven thru enough desert “mirages” in my lifetime to place them end-to-end all the way to FL and back, lol. No thanks, that life is not for me.

[ctr70]

You couldn’t pay me to live in Vegas. That is just such a soulless, artificial feeling, cookie cutter place and terribly hot in the summers. I’m ready to get the hell out of Vegas in about 1.5 days anytime I visit. Only part of Nevada I could tolerate would be the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. I knew a rich guy who lived in Florida in winters and summers in the Nevada side of Tahoe (both places no state tax).

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