Something seems fishy about this article. It attributes residents leaving CA due to increased home construction, increased congestion, and a growing job market. All three of these things are indicative of an increasing population, not decreasing.
The article states this: "California has seen negative outward migration to other states for 22 of the last 25 years."
Yet, here is what the census shows:
2015
39,144,818
2014
38,802,500
2013
38,431,393
2012
38,062,780
2011
37,701,901
2010
37,336,011
2009
36,961,229
2008
36,604,337
2007
36,250,311
2006
36,021,202
2005
35,827,943
2004
35,574,576
2003
35,253,159
2002
34,871,843
2001
34,479,458
2000
33,987,977
1999
33,145,121
1998
32,682,794
1997
32,217,708
1996
31,780,829
1995
31,493,525
I also thought this was odd. "Eaton and her sister had a $724,000 house in The Villages in South San Jose that they sold before moving to Ohio. Their mortgage payments were $2,200 a month, plus $1,000 for association fees in the gated community."
A $2200 mortgage for a 3/4 $Million house is pretty damn good! My mortgage is just a little less than that and my loan balance is about half that. And $1,000 HOA for a gated community in a nice neighborhood is not bad at all (I'm assuming that the $1000 is annual and the monthly is $83).
I'm not buying this outflow of CA residents to other states. I predict there will always be an overall state influx. I do agree that perhaps low income and middle income residents are getting squeezed out of prominent cities but that's not what this article's emphasis is about.
