Lethe200
Senior Member
- Location
- San Francisco Bay Area
I agree, those kinds of articles are just 'clickbait'. True, but also a lot of generalization which can render its definitions of "expensive" meaningless. We live coastal Northern CA and have no financial issues to speak of, in our retirement.
Our home is paid off except for a small second. Our utilities are low because we purchased a roof solar system that has almost eliminated our electric bill (still have the natural gas bill, tho). Maintenance, repairs and remodeling can be expensive as we are a high-cost labor state.
Our property taxes are capped by Proposition 13 which only allows a 2% max increase per year and is based on the last sales price, which in our case was 1989 and $180K. The county raises it annually when possible - in RE recession times we were approved for a tax CUT - but it is still only appraised at maybe 60% of market value.
California is expensive if you are renting in an urban area, or if you currently want to buy a home near the coast - which of course, everybody does. But if you are mostly debt-free in retirement and a homeowner, then it's a great place to live. There's no dearth of opportunities to spend your discretionary income, that's for sure!
Some Boomers move away to save money. Some sell because they are house-rich/cash-poor, so they need to free up the equity for their old age healthcare. Some sell because they want/need to be closer to family. One of our old neighbors did so, but comes back as often as she can - she really doesn't like living in AZ.
It's hardest for the Gen X and Y, who are marrying and starting families. Developers build a lot of condos but not many SFH: in coastal CA there are no inexpensive large acreages on which to throw up the usual cookie-cutter tract homes. So SFHs are built much further out, which adds to transit issues as there is little public trans built out to those locations, so people have to drive at least part of the way.
Distance is a big problem in CA. As with TX and AK, unless you live here it's hard to imagine the scope of it. We don't talk about how many miles from 'here' a place is - we frame it in "how long does it take to get there?"
You can buy a nice tract house for $350K, but you could be driving three hours one way just to reach the office!
Our home is 10 mins from where DH worked. Even when I worked in SF it only took 1/2 hr on public trans, and that included driving to the station. But that's why our little home is now in the $750-800K range - whatever was built before, will probably remain in place as-is. In many neighborhoods and cities, you can't build huge condo buildings to replace SFHs; the zoning wouldn't allow it. Usually the most that can be done is to upgrade a SFH into a legal duplex, but that's costly (another neighbor just did it for her daughter, and it cost them close to $250K).
Even if the land costs were affordable, this is Earthquake Country. High-density can be extremely dangerous. Thus....RE prices are high, which drives most other costs higher as well.
Hence, we look very expensive, and for certain costs - food, gas, etc. - it is. But if your fixed costs are manageable, the higher salaries out here make it easier to enjoy life.
Our home is paid off except for a small second. Our utilities are low because we purchased a roof solar system that has almost eliminated our electric bill (still have the natural gas bill, tho). Maintenance, repairs and remodeling can be expensive as we are a high-cost labor state.
Our property taxes are capped by Proposition 13 which only allows a 2% max increase per year and is based on the last sales price, which in our case was 1989 and $180K. The county raises it annually when possible - in RE recession times we were approved for a tax CUT - but it is still only appraised at maybe 60% of market value.
California is expensive if you are renting in an urban area, or if you currently want to buy a home near the coast - which of course, everybody does. But if you are mostly debt-free in retirement and a homeowner, then it's a great place to live. There's no dearth of opportunities to spend your discretionary income, that's for sure!
Some Boomers move away to save money. Some sell because they are house-rich/cash-poor, so they need to free up the equity for their old age healthcare. Some sell because they want/need to be closer to family. One of our old neighbors did so, but comes back as often as she can - she really doesn't like living in AZ.
It's hardest for the Gen X and Y, who are marrying and starting families. Developers build a lot of condos but not many SFH: in coastal CA there are no inexpensive large acreages on which to throw up the usual cookie-cutter tract homes. So SFHs are built much further out, which adds to transit issues as there is little public trans built out to those locations, so people have to drive at least part of the way.
Distance is a big problem in CA. As with TX and AK, unless you live here it's hard to imagine the scope of it. We don't talk about how many miles from 'here' a place is - we frame it in "how long does it take to get there?"
You can buy a nice tract house for $350K, but you could be driving three hours one way just to reach the office!
Our home is 10 mins from where DH worked. Even when I worked in SF it only took 1/2 hr on public trans, and that included driving to the station. But that's why our little home is now in the $750-800K range - whatever was built before, will probably remain in place as-is. In many neighborhoods and cities, you can't build huge condo buildings to replace SFHs; the zoning wouldn't allow it. Usually the most that can be done is to upgrade a SFH into a legal duplex, but that's costly (another neighbor just did it for her daughter, and it cost them close to $250K).
Even if the land costs were affordable, this is Earthquake Country. High-density can be extremely dangerous. Thus....RE prices are high, which drives most other costs higher as well.
Hence, we look very expensive, and for certain costs - food, gas, etc. - it is. But if your fixed costs are manageable, the higher salaries out here make it easier to enjoy life.
