by Michael Snyder, The Economic Collapse Blog:

In recent years, the number of people moving away from the state of California has greatly outnumbered the number of people moving into the state. Reasons for the mass exodus include rising crime, the worst traffic in the western world, a growing homelessness epidemic, wildfires, earthquakes and crazy politicians that do some of the stupidest things imaginable. But for most families, the decision to leave California comes down to one basic factor…

Money.

For a lot of Californians, it simply does not make economic sense to remain in the state any longer. So over the past decade approximately 5 million people have picked up and moved to another state, and many believe that this trend is going to accelerate if California does not start doing things differently. The following is from an excellent article by Kristin Tate, the author of a new book entitled “How Do I Tax Thee?: A Field Guide to the Great American Rip-Off“…

The largest socioeconomic segment moving from California is the upper-middle class. The state is home to some of the most burdensome taxes and regulations in the nation. Meanwhile, its social engineering — from green energy to wealth redistribution — have made many working families poorer. As California begins its long decline, the influx outward is picking up in earnest.

I don’t know anyone that enjoys being taxed at extremely high levels, and in California extracting more and more revenue from the citizens has become an art form. California’s highest marginal tax rate is now a whopping 13.3 percent, and on average taxpayers are hit with a 9.3 percent rate…

Taxes also are much lower in Arizona than California. California residents pay nearly twice as much in state income taxes. The individual income tax rate is 4.54 percent in Arizona. It’s 9.3 percent in California, according to the Arizona Sun Corridor.

Under the old rules, the tax burden imposed upon Californians was mitigated by federal rules allowing for the deduction of state taxes. But now the new tax bill has made some major changes, and some experts believe that this will actually accelerate the exodus out of the state of California. The following comes from CNBC…

In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal headlined “So Long, California. Sayonara, New York,” Laffer and Moore (who have both advised President Donald Trump) say the new tax bill will cause a net 800,000 people to move out of California and New York over the next three years.

The tax changes limit the deduction of state and local taxes to $10,000, so many high-earning taxpayers in high-tax states will actually face a tax increase under the new tax code.

Of course taxation is only part of the equation.

For many, the exceedingly high cost of housing in California is the primary reason that they have chosen to leave. At this point, the average price of a home in California is more than $200,000 above the national average…

According to Zillow, the average price for a home in the U.S. was $261,000 in February 2018. The average home price in California was $469,000. In Oklahoma, it was $116,000.

And that $469,000 figure is for the state as a whole.

In Santa Clara County (the home of Google and Apple), the median price of a single family home is 1.4 million dollars.

Yes, you read that correctly.

In some areas of northern California, the housing bubble is completely out of control. For example, just recently a burned out husk of a home sold for more than $900,000…

Real estate agent Holly Barr says she’s never had a listing generate as much attention as the one on Bird Avenue in the San Jose neighborhood of Willow Glen. The house caught fire two years ago during a remodeling job. What was left was a burned-out husk of a California bungalow sitting on 5,800 square feet of land.

When Barr put the property on the market in April for $800,000, the listing made international headlines. It sold for over $900,000 — in less than a week. The burned down house will be razed and a new property will be built there that will likely sell for far more.

Well, if families cannot afford to buy a home, why don’t they just rent?

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