Local Impact of California Exodus

The great California Exodus continues as both families and retirees are fleeing that state in droves. Epic levels of taxation along with a crumbling infrastructure and a middle class on the verge of extinction has led to an migration of biblical proportions from the Golden State. Californians are moving to Texas, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, as well as Washington, Idaho, and Montana in numbers that have never been seen before.

Here in Southwest Washington Oregon continues to dominate the list of states sending people our way, but that makes sense as they are a border state and Clark County is just a river crossing away. But California is the number two state sending people here and it has been for quite some time. State wide California is the number one exporter of new residents. Yes even more than Oregon. California is number two for Clark County but is easily number one statewide.

But the population of California has been dropping but not as fast as the domestic migration might suggest. Even as tens of thousand leave every month thousands more pour into the Golden State to fill some of the vacancies left by those who migrated out.

Locally real estate prices have been impacted by this additional market force and for some this is irritating as they view it as outsiders driving up values; but many others like the fact that the extra demand makes owning real estate a better investment. For retirees the extra attention means home owners can count on being able to cash out their residence when the time comes or utilize a reverse mortgage to access equity later in life.

Our local market is not feeling the California effect nearly as much as Seattle is. Our out of state migrants are by far mostly Oregonians moving locally across the river. Many Oregon retirees are tired of sending 9% of their income to Salem and find Washington's lack of an income tax refreshing. Californians are actually moving to both Texas and Arizona in far greater numbers than they are sending north to Oregon and Washington.

There really isn't a strong impact from California in Southwest Washington. The value difference between Portland and Vancouver does create a bit of a pressure point but the difference is not enough to stress the pricing here much. Most of Oregon is less expensive than Clark County. In fact of Oregon's 36 counties, only Multnomah, Washington, and Clackamas counties have median home prices in excess of those here in Clark County Washington.

We can roll out the welcome mat to retirees from all over the country, including California.