[wysewun]

Moved from the bay to Texas because of everything i heard. It was such a horrible experience. The heat, the bugs, the lack of density.

So few days of good weather. Maybe worth it to some, but a bigger house was not worth it to me at all. We moved back in 6 months.

So many people want to live in California which causes more issues

[edgyquant]

We live in a country the size of Western Europe with climates ranging from tropical to frozen tundra most of which are full of cheap land and housing if you don’t mind living a bit out of the way… and you picked Texas?

[andirk]

When a longtime Californian leaves California, they make a big stink about it like it's a zeitgeist and parlance of our times. And they only move to Portland, OR or Austin, TX. There have been a few to move to New York City, but that is seen as selling out. Lastly, a handful to Colorado but no one has an opinion on that therefore they are ex-communicated until they return to either California, Portland, or Austin.

[Fatnino]

That's when a democrat moves.

Republicans move to Arizona, Texas and Florida

[zactato]

As a rule, we Californias refuse to acknowledge that there are any non-democrats in the state, therefore they can’t move to Florida.

[FrontierPsych]

If you look at California by geography, rather than population, California has a LOT of red. https://www.politico.com/2016-election/results/map/president...

[m-ee]

The most virulently racist CA residents I’ve met (meet some interesting people out riding motorcycles) moved to Idaho

[andirk]

do you "recommend" any hilarious biker bars in the SF Bay Area? I only know one and it had a Pabst vending machine in the back. I didn't have a patch or a rider or really any black leather so I never checked it out. Or a motorcycle. Or have ever been on a street legal motorcycle.

[m-ee]

Don’t go to biker bars, there’s a couple pullouts in Oakland Berkeley where people tend to stop and chat. The warehouse in Port Costa is a known hangout though.

[CodeSgt]

I don't see why that's relevant, unless you mean to imply that Republicans = racists.

[Fatnino]

I think the opposite is implied.

Outspoken racists tend to be "republican". Really just some flavor of extreme conservative, but republican has become a catchall term for right wing.

More subtle, closeted racists, come from all over the political spectrum through.

[Fatnino]

Oh yeah, I forgot about Idaho

[Melting_Harps]

> Lastly, a handful to Colorado but no one has an opinion on that therefore they are ex-communicated

No, I did it and there is a big stink about us showing up in Boulder or Denver in large numbers and driving up the price of real estate enough to know we are persona non-grata amongst 'natives'--which is to say those who moved there in the late 90s or early 2000s and reaped the most benefits from said real estate spikes. It's a trope, and if you lived there or spent time there you'd know that.

I personally moved back to EU, after living in various countries for four years, and was way better received than most of the US--I'm Californian and lived in HI and CO. Granted, I was well welcomed by my local community in the startup World, but outside of that it was clear you were the scapegoat for all that was going wrong.

Personally I think the crux is that housing is less constrained in the EU and lower salaries keep things from getting completely out of hand, and their aging population coupled with significant Covid deaths meant their was an excess in vacancy and several of them sought to attract digital nomads (albeit with lengthy and tiresome processes) with attractive visa programs in order to cash in the WFH diaspora.

[kitsune_]

I'm from Europe and New Mexico looks the most attractive to me.

[dixie_land]

It is indeed very beautiful, true to the moniker Land of Enchantment

[iancmceachern]

It is a beautiful place, I'm visiting there with my wife now, we come several times a year. It does have issues though, education is lacking, there is a real lack of opportunity so you'd better have a good remote job, not really any international flights in and out, you have to hop to a bigger airport like DIA or one in California, and it's pretty monocultural.

[irrational]

LOL. You might want to do some research before committing to moving there.

[tshaddox]

Where would you choose to live with cheap land and housing where it doesn’t get extremely hot in the summer?

[MerelyMortal]

Anywhere in the middle of the U.S.?

[bmitc]

New England or the Midwest or the Rocky Mountain region.

[igetspam]

I left CA for TX about a decade ago. I like the heat but it became unbearable. Worse yet, COVID and Trump made the people unbearable. (Doesn't matter which side you're on, everyone forgot their manners and won't shut up about things.)

We left after almost 10 years. We're in NH now. There are still people who won't stop talking about their personal politics but it's a lot fewer. There are signs during voting season but that's most of it. People here seem to be genuinely friendly and not Bless Your Heart "friendly."

I wouldn't go back to CA without a major change in the economics and I'd never go back to TX because it's just going to get hotter and people will likely just keep getting worse.

[kbob]

Eugene or Portland Oregon, Pittsburgh area, northern Ohio, Maine, Santa Fe or Albuquerque, Colorado Front Range, Madison Wisconsin, maybe Milwaukee, maybe West Lafayette Indiana, maybe Chattanooga, just off the top of my head.

The maybes are places that were nice to visit but I don't know very well.

[Isamu]

Pittsburgh, but don’t tell anybody

[StanislavPetrov]

North Carolina.

[drewcon]

Maine.

[wwalexander]

Please, tech bros, stay out of Maine, Portland is already unlivable.

[notwokeno]

Doesn't that lack the diversity people in California like?

[slowmovintarget]

It lacks the tech jobs people in California like.

[notwokeno]

Most are remote now.

[ThunderSizzle]

Yes, but the secret is virtue signaling doesn't require them to do it. They just need to tell other people to do it.

[StanislavPetrov]

Yes, the streets are free from human feces and you can park your car on the street without being sure it will be broken into.

[ActorNightly]

If you moved to Texas specifically to get a bigger house for your money, then of course you are going to hate it.

We moved to Austin-adjacent and downsized on the house. We put away about 100$k from the sale of our previous house, and used the rest for downpayment, netting us a <$1000 mortgage payment per month. During the periods of heat or cold, we now just peace out and travel, because we have ample cash to do so and still manage to put away for retirement. Currently chilling in Miami till middle of next week.

The rest of the time, weather is nice, plenty of good food, plenty of things to do.

[perfectstorm]

> During the periods of heat or cold, we now just peace out and travel, because we have ample cash to do so and still manage to put away for retirement.

that's nice but is it a good long term solution? i presume you don't have any kids. i wonder how this approach would work once you have kids and they start school. or maybe you do have kids but they are much older and moved out or no plans for kids idk.

[chronsk830]

> i wonder how this approach would work once you have kids and they start school.

Simple solution: don’t have kids.

[BeFlatXIII]

Only a matter of time until someone replies with some rant about how having children is essential to the human condition.

[ActorNightly]

We don't have kids so yes it makes things easier. If we did have kids, we would optimize for other things.

[nocoiner]

I’m a life-long Texan (more or less), and this sounds like totally logical analysis. I love living in Texas, but I don’t particularly care for our state government, but it also doesn’t affect me enough to affirmatively desire to leave the state. I’d love to live in California but not sure I could afford the lifestyle I’d like to maintain. In fact, quite sure I couldn’t - CA is a great place!

[tnel77]

Thank you for this take. I don’t live in California, but most of my family has this attitude of “California is the worst! Look how expensive it is.” It seems as if supply and demand has decided it’s a great place to live.

Edit: Not sure why this take would upset anyone. I didn’t say it was necessarily good or bad to live in California. All I said is that the average price of a home seems to dictate that people enjoy living there more than many other states.

[stouset]

Yeah, every time I go home to the Georgian suburbs I have to patiently explain that—while San Francisco certainly has its fair share of obvious and well-publicized problems—if it were really all that bad, people wouldn't be lining up to pay exorbitant amounts in order to live there.

[chrisco255]

Are they lining up really, any more? I know some tech companies are trying to coerce people back into the bubble, and force them to cram into a narrow valley in central CA, where high rises are generally shunned, just so they can spend 10-20 hours a week commuting into an open office distraction zone, but, remote work is sticky. People are not coming back in the numbers they were. And it's no longer difficult to raise money outside of Silicon Valley either. The next gen of startups will begin as remote companies and will remain as remote companies throughout their existence.

Feel like the cultural center of gravity has left CA and it's in the early stages of a long decline. Detroit once had similar prominence in industry as the valley did for the past few decades. Motor City was a booming hub of manufacturing and music. And over the course of a few decades, it deteriorated. Jobs left. Local government got dysfunctional. Manufacturing left. Crime soared. Houses abandoned. Property values fell on relative and absolute basis.

At any rate, CA is running on the fumes of its former self, when it was younger, more agile, less burdened by dysfunctional politics, had more opportunities for young people and young families.

CA is a naturally beautiful state. But it's got deep-seated issues and there's almost a sense of an unfixable malaise, living there.

[_hcuq]

Judging by property prices, ie supply and demand, California has nothing to worry about.

[stouset]

> Are they lining up really, any more?

The fact that people are paying the rents being asked is more or less tautological proof of this.

[manmal]

I thought the high prices were due to wealthy startup employees needing to live in the area.

[pram]

Haha, did someone actually tell you the weather is fine? I was born in Texas and I've lived in Austin for 13 years and I've always thought the summers are unbearable.

Although my perspective is tempered with what I experienced around the gulf, in Mississippi and Florida. The humidity there is so bad I literally don't think it's fit for human settlement.

[seanmcdirmid]

I’m from the PNW but my dad went into nuclear power so I had the privilege of living in Vicksburg Mississippi for four years as a teenager. I don’t get it. Also tried Austin for a summer when in grad school…, my dashboard melted before I realized you really need those sun protection thingies.

[mc32]

San Francisco is one of the most humid cities in the US (so much that mold can be a problem in some cases). Relative humidity is on average higher than Wash DC --but lower than Port Arthur, TX.

[dragonwriter]

> San Francisco is one of the most humid cities in the US

Yes, but its neither particularly hot (so it doesn't tend to be muggy), nor particularly cold (its cold for the densely populated parts of California, but that's not saying much), so the humidity isn't much of a problem.

Hence one of the reasons it waa attractive before it was a center of the tech industry.

[subharmonicon]

I am not sure if you are speaking from experience or looking at weather data, but in 13 years I have never seen indoor humidity high enough to make mold likely. Higher humidity with cool temperatures does not feel like high humidity with high temperatures, which can be unbearable. I sweat profusely in the latter conditions and not all all in the former.

[trentgreene]

Lived in the Presidio, all my neighbors plus our house has a pretty big mold problem, likely from the humidity. When we called maintenance, the answer was to manage airflow and yeah, it’s the presidio, stuffs gonna mold.

[mikysco]

To be fair, the Presidio is the foggiest/most humid part of SF. Any part of the city & broader Bay Area directly touching coast line attracts dramatically more moisture than anywhere even a few hundred meters inland. Even in the Marina district half a mile away mold isn’t an issue afaik

[trentgreene]

To be double fair, it sometimes felt that the Presidio was only technically part of SF. We used to joke that it was really Marin's foothold on the peninsula.

[mc32]

It may have to do with a combination of location (like around great highway, for example) and age of the buildings, design and along with materials used in construction. Modern/ish buildings are likely unaffected.

[mc32]

Over by the Great Highway mold can be an issue. But not only there. Yes the cool temps make the humidity very much less noticeable.

[inferiorhuman]

No, it's very noticeable. Instead of being hot and damp you've got cold that chills you to the bone and you're still really sticky and damp. It doesn't hurt that things stay very foggy so you can pretty much see the humidity (but not the silver painted trams).

[mc32]

True, it becomes noticeable at night as the winds become stronger and the fog denser.

[happytiger]

San Francisco is moist. But respectfully, it is not the hot humidity that drives you to to find air conditioning and plan you day around staying inside to avoid.

[trentgreene]

Idk if the second part is really fair - as a Texan turned SF resident, I can understand how the Texas heat can be alarming at first. But if definitely didn’t stop us from going outside, doing things, holding sports practices (outside the rare 115 degree day), etc.

The AC is appreciated, but you get acclimated to the heat. And anecdata of one, but I really miss the heat / humidity.

Texas civilization does predate AC after all for at least a couple centuries ;)

[igetspam]

Those 115F days are less rare now.

[spiffistan]

But SF is also very chilly for California so it really helps with the perception of humidity.

[rascul]

> San Francisco is one of the most humid cities in the US (so much that mold can be a problem).

I've lived in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Georgia and mold has never not been a problem in those states. I have never lived in San Francisco though so I can't compare.

[inferiorhuman]

A friend of mine lived out in the upper 40s for a bit. I don't think mold was an issue for the building so much as it was for their poor dog that perpetually had some sort of skin condition in 'till they both moved somewhere more arid. San Francisco is a peninsula so you're surrounded by large bodies of water on most sides, of course it's going to be really humid. Winter is brutally humid especially if you're west of Twin Peaks.

[ch4s3]

That’s odd, I was just in Savanah and every place I went there smelled like mold. It was overpowering in one store I went into, where a local remarked that you don’t notice after awhile.

[seanmcdirmid]

That sort of reminds me of Bali: their new airport already smelled like mold a year after opening. I lived in the south for a few years but I never remember smelling mold so thickly.

[aplummer]

“Never not been a problem” it was a double negative I think you are agreeing.

[ch4s3]

Yeah, I was in a COVID medicine haze, I think I misread that.

[qbasic_forever]

Humidity isn't so bad when it's in the 50s/60s Fahrenheit all the time.

[fortuna86]

Right heat + humidity is bad, humidity alone isn't even noticed.

[philsnow]

Boot up google maps, go to east Texas, turn on satellite view, and zoom out a bit: https://www.google.com/maps/@32.162224,-97.8577697,1179315m/...

That easternmost part of the state is the "piney woods" and it's lovely compared to the concrete island that is Dallas. The forests have a mitigating effect on heat.

[vogt]

The westernmost part of the state as well: I live 3 hours outside of El Paso near big bend national park at an elevation of ~4000. The winters are chilly at night; the summers are MUCH better than Dallas/Austin/Houston.

[rascul]

I was at Ft. Bliss for awhile while in the Army and I mostly enjoyed the weather. I was never there for a full summer, though.

[jupp0r]

"Lovely" as in was settled only after AC and refrigerators were available widely.

[MrOwnPut]

Your Texas history could use some buffing.

Or appliance history at least (though we had iceboxes for quite some time!)

Maybe that's why we fought so hard for The Alamo; to clone it's futuristic A/C for later settlements...

[trentgreene]

The Caddos were living in east Texas pre-Spanish contact! The Spanish word Tejas comes from a Caddo word.

There is a gap in the literature though as to whether the Caddos had central air. We can only speculate.

[runnerup]

I like the heat here in TX. I moved from Michigan, where I also enjoyed the cold (but not the lack of sunlight, affinis Seattle). Saudi Arabia was a bit too hot for my taste, but Texas summers are very enjoyable to me. I may be an outlier, but I genuinely enjoy doing things outside in the Houston summers.

[Aloha]

I grew up in Los Angeles, and moved to DFW from Seattle, I'm solar powered, while houston is a little too hot for me, DFW is quite pleasant. As it turns out I'm solar powered, I'd love to go back to Los Angeles, but I'll never be able to afford it again.

[nocoiner]

But DFW is hotter than Houston? Houston is more humid and can sometimes feel warmer, but DFW is typically 5-15 degrees hotter on the same day in Houston, and the heat there is comparatively bone dry.

[gedy]

The humid heat in Houston is a kick in the ass, Dallas is more bearable to me at least.

[Aloha]

As someone who grew up in Los Angeles (California; it's a dry heat) it's a drier heat and not as bad to be out in. I do the state fair every year and hardly notice the temp.

[JeremyNT]

I'm a southerner (not TX, but living in TN currently) and I really dream of making it to CA some day.

The south is cheaper for a reason, and CA is expensive for a reason. You get what you pay for. Red State governance is truly abysmal, the climate is terrible, and there is precious little BLM land to explore.

If enough people leave CA to reduce the price (or enough people move to the south to raise the price here) I'd gladly move to the west coast.

[nxm]

And yet the economic growth of the red states, particularly in last few years has outpaced the blue states. Not to mention the tons of people moving into red states. Hence there are many that disagree with your assessment. I’m sure you‘ll miss Tennessee’s no state income tax once you move to California.

[iancmceachern]

Yeah but it's going to take 100 years for them to catch up with California, the 5th largest economy in the world

[e10jc]

Sounds like me! I'm moving back to CA after ~2 years in Dallas. I didn't hate Dallas, but my fiancee does. But yeah the weather is awful: 115 degree summers, below-freezing winters.

[lightedman]

Here in SoCal the other year we were almost hitting 118 in August (killed almost all of my potted succulents, baked the roots) and that's BEFORE including the concrete factor.

I'm a Texas native. The temps in Texas are nothing like what California gets.

On the other hand, the rockhounding is far, FAR better out here in Cali. But you aren't doing that in the summer. You could do that in Texas in the summer out in the Llano uplift region.

[jmugan]

It's hot, but 115-degree summers is an exaggeration. The high is usually around 100 degrees (still too hot, of course). I do much prefer the weather in California.

[hotpotamus]

The heat index in South Texas is regularly pushing the one-teens. It's why I'll probably move away one day despite having lived here my whole life.

[nonethewiser]

Ok, but the heat index is not the temperature

[dctoedt]

> So few days of good weather [in Texas].

That's why I tell disbelieving Californians that we have better weather in Texas than they do: When we have nice days, we appreciate it, whereas when they do, they don't even notice .... :-)

(Source: Spent several years in California long ago.)

[bombcar]

This is true of the Midwest, too. After the months of winter 40° days are barbecue outdoors and go for hikes weather.

[fortuna86]

While people remain in denial about how nice it is to only have 2-3 months of livable outdoor weather a year, housing prices will always tell the truth

[disgruntledphd2]

I think that property prices in Ireland, the UK and the Netherlands provide a neat counter example to your point.

[vineyardmike]

Obviously not a fair example.

Housing isn’t really a “market” that can be efficient at pricing in all information because it’s different for everyone (relatives, taxes, jobs, immigration, race, etc).

The places you listed have milder weather, and far less sunshine than most of the US but they also have hundreds of years of extra history and development. Moving from the US to there has far higher friction cost than moving between states.

[fortuna86]

Housing prices everywhere have gone up, just not at the same rates. You can still find reasonable housing outside London, Dublin, etc.

[disgruntledphd2]

Outside London yes. Outside Dublin not so much, unless you want to live on the other side of the country.

[TheCoelacanth]

All three of those have much milder winters than the US Midwest does.

[tshaddox]

People hike a lot in California, if you can believe it.

[vineyardmike]

So you don’t have nice weather, you have Stockholm syndrome?

[reaperducer]

We moved back in 6 months.

That must have been expensive!

You had to eat the second six months of a year lease on a house, maybe lost your deposit, too; plus you paid to move an entire family from California to Texas; then paid again to move from Texas to California. Then had to find another place to live in California and pay another deposit there.

Having helped a friend move from California to Texas recently, it sounds like at least a $40,000 mistake.

[random314]

Typically, you can break your lease with one month payment. And you don't lose your deposit. That's not how deposits work.

Probably cost 4K, not 40K.

[reaperducer]

Typically, you can break your lease with one month payment. And you don't lose your deposit. That's not how deposits work.

Actually, it's how many of the leases I've had worked, and I've lived in dozens of states.

Probably cost 4K, not 40K.

It cost my friend $11,000 to move his one bedroom apartment from Southern California to Texas last year using Mayflower. And he was just one person, not a family.

Moving an entire family from California to Texas and back costs a minimum of $20,000; unless you're traveling like the Beverly Hillbillies.

[dragonwriter]

> Actually, it's how many of the leases I've had worked, and I've lived in dozens of states.

In the majority of states, the landlord has a duty to mitigate losses, which means you are only on the hook as long as the landlord is unable, making a reasonable, good-faith effort, to rent the unit.

And usually any part of a deposit not used to pay for damages beyond nornal wear and tear or rent for which the tenant was legally liable must be returned.

(The lease may assert something else, but where these laws are in place such terms have no legal effect.)

[random314]

Funnily enough, lots of folks have moved states. I moved my family from Washington to California.

Lease - 2K. 3rd party Furniture transport - 2K. 10 day hotel stay 1.5K. 5.5K total cost.

You have already admitted that the 40K was double what it would have supposedly cost your friend. Time for you to divide it by a further 50%. Also, the statement that you would have to pay out your entire lease cost is, frankly speaking, ridiculous.

Congratulations on having signed leases in dozens of states. How many dozen states would that be? 2 dozen? 3 dozen?

[inferiorhuman]

$150/night is about as cheap as you'll find in the Bay Area. It'll be too small for a family, probably in a shitty area. A few years ago you might've been able to swing that, but now? No.

[random314]

When you are moving, you don't have to stay bang in the center of bay area. You can stay in Dublin or Morgan Hill while you look for a year long lease in the bay. Also, I moved 10 years ago. 20K to move is an absurd number that the poster pulled out of his ass, along with "living in dozens of states".

Btw, I did manage to find a 180$ per night deal in the bay area at Hyatt house, complete with a kitchenette and utensils recently for a friend.

[trzy]

I routinely travel to South Bay and 150/night is absolutely a reasonable estimate for a hotel.

[xnx]

Wow. I haven't researched moving costs at all, but I'd probably buy all new stuff and still save money at those prices.

[klardotsh]

These numbers are from /dev/urandom or perhaps /dev/null, or maybe they hired white-glove movers and car transporters and flew first class to their destination or something. I moved Chicago to Seattle for like $2-3k all-in (counting plane tickets) in 2017, leaving only couches and beds behind (just wasn't worth bothering to move the cheap Ikea-grade stuff I had). Seattle-Vancouver in 2018 and, a year later, back, were each ~$1-2k all-in by U-Haul and elbow grease, discarding almost nothing either direction.

Moving isn't cheap, but on even relatively junior tech salaries, provided some savings or access to credit, it's truly not a life-altering event the way $40k would be.

[notwhereyouare]

Like everything else, moving has gotten more expensive. But I did manage in June of 2022 manage to move from Boston to outside Atlanta for maybe $2500 -$3000 between the hotels, food, shipping my stuff down, gas, etc

[kube-system]

If you’re in the position to do the work yourself, then yeah, it can be done cheaper. Just like anything is cheap if you do it yourself.

But it’s easier said than done for those with a sizable family, more possessions than fits in 26’ truck, a lack of time, or lack physical strength.

If you hire someone to do it, it’s expensive.

[hadlock]

Moving a true household worth of stuff, good quality furniture, then paying people a living wage who won't treat your stuff like ikea garbage, yeah it's very expensive. My wife got a relocation package that paid for the movers and packing, car shipping, plus $20k cash on top for incidentals, and we burnt through every dollar. I have no idea what the company paid Allied to pack and move all our stuff but it probably wasn't cheap. $40k seems very realistic.

In comparison I moved Dallas to SF as a single guy in a 26' uhaul truck and I think my costs all-in were $5000 for truck/gas/incidentals plus another $5000 for first and last months rent, utility deposits and all the random stuff that comes with relocation. So $10k to move all-in as a single guy.

[random314]

Except that the expenses are all made up. I have moved my family for about 4K

[pragmatic]

You didn’t visit or research local climate before moving?

[khazhoux]

It occasionally happens that even research does not prepare you for an actual experience.

[fundad]

I decide to summer someplace rural in summer 2021 to see how I would do. It was a 5 week rental, nice vacation.

It’s not just being indoors more but also being uncomfortable indoors. Boo

[fzeroracer]

I moved to Texas from VA and absolutely hated the area. The state politics, the weather, the layout. Lived there for four years and only just recently moved back to Seattle where I can actually have reasonable public transit and weather.

I feel like most of the people that leave for Texas will end up feeling the same.

[jimbob45]

>the bugs

Which US state doesn't have problems with bugs though? I know none hold a candle to Australia but it seems like each has its own unique problem with bugs.

[vineyardmike]

Honestly? California.

The entire western coast of the US (cali to Washington) has far less bugs than the east or Midwest. I assumed it was the drier climate but Seattle area doesn’t have a lot of bugs either.

After moving west, I found in identical weather conditions, the west is better to be outside because it will have less bugs.

[sangnoir]

Ah, I see you're yet to encounter Texas roaches. Additionally, Texas is number 2 on mosquito prevalence after Florida, along with other biting insects. As a bonus, Texas is also home to recluse spiders, whose bites can cause necrosis.

Texas is no Australia when it comes to dangerous critters, but of all the American states, it's in the top 2, and gives Florida a run for its money.

[xwdv]

Should have moved to Florida instead.

[29athrowaway]

High temperatures? Air conditioning.

Low temperatures? Heating.

High humidity? Dehumidifiers.

Low humidity? Humidifiers.

Particulate matter? Air filters.

Bugs? Pest control. Bug screens. Traps. Mosquito treatments.

High energy use? Solar.

Lack of density? Sign me up. More privacy, less noise, lower crime rate, and fewer problems in general. No rude people constantly in a hurry.

The stuff there are no solutions for: hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, and natural disasters in general. Except for insurance, that is.

[fortuna86]

Being outside most of the year? Overrated.