8 Californians who left for Texas share ideas 1 year later

This is California and to some it is no longer their home I did think that I was going to stay here forever every single one of these houses was completely burnt my California Dream is it's done in the span of two years really it's moving its headquarters to Austin Texas and New this morning Tesla.

Says it's officially moved its corporate headquarters from just outside of Austin there's a good chance you may know someone who left the state over the past two years a golden state Exodus and a Lone Star State explosion but is it true join us as we meet some Californians making the move to see if the grass in Texas is really greener I was assaulted.

Twice on the park never had a house this large in my life it is definitely a lower cost living in Texas the home that I once remembered and knew back in the 1980s in the 19 th a lot of that's gone now baseball Texas from California foreign Anova California Dreaming is all about.

Looking at the challenges facing the Golden State and the people trying to come up with potential Solutions we all know our state faces some major challenges and those may not be solved overnight for most Californians the positive aspects of our state far outweigh the challenges we face but for a small group of Californians the.

Problems are enough to push them to leave the state they love making things better often takes some critical self-reflection So today we're going to do that with these former Californians in an effort to learn how we might be able to make things better for the rest of us foreign.

Whether it's people moving or companies moving it feels like there are more people trading the Golden State for the Lone Star State but is that really true the short answer is yes the number of Californians moving to Texas has gone up in the past few years but actually it's been steadily increasing since 2009 and in 2018 that number jumped if you added.

Up all the people who moved to and from Texas within the United States 34 percent came from California now people from Texas have also been moving to California but that number has stayed about the same over the past 10 years so when we compare the estimated net flow of people Between the States from 2017 to 2019 Texas has a two to one advantage.

For the last three years we had to turn to other sources that helps us fill in the blanks move Buddha is a relocation website it calculates costs for people planning to make a move from state to state and gives site into moving Trends before they happen their most popular searches over the last few years were from cities in California to Texas and.

That's not all looking at Texas driver's license applications where people listed California as their last residence the numbers have been steadily increasing for the last 10 years okay so I think it's safe to say that Californians are moving to Texas but let's put the numbers in context of the almost 40 million people living in California the.

Total number of people leaving the state each year makes up less than one percent but it's true the majority of those people are indeed heading to Texas let's meet some of them I think Texas is attractive for the same reasons that Arizona and Nevada are attractive which is that home prices are.

Lower and there's plenty of job opportunities when I was the mayor of Ventura the thing that I treasured the most was that most of the people who lived in town also worked in town it was a complete community and one of the things I tried to do as.

Mayor was to protect that and ensure that that could continue that requires building more housing so that young families can afford to live there and that really hasn't happened so one of the things I greatly fear about Ventura and elsewhere in coastal California is that it's not a place for everybody anymore and especially not a.

Place for young families it's a place basically we're older affluent people now live and and I think something has really been lost there those are the people who are moving to places like Texas generally speak I says in Texas cost less than half of homes in California U.S Census Bureau.

Numbers show that the middle and lower classes are leaving California at a higher rate than the wealthy many who have left in recent years say they simply couldn't afford to stay thank you my name is Jennifer balick and I am from Ventura County I am the mom to six kids we are a blended family a big balic.

Bunch and we moved to Texas in April of 2021 to try to um live the American dream we were not doing that in California being a big family we really needed the space um to house everybody comfortably without you know being super squished so it was really um.

Not even a thing for us to be able to buy out there what we needed to provide for our family so I feel like the California Dream was the American dream in my grandparents and my parents era um that's just not possible for Our Generation to live that American dream in that state anymore it's so expensive.

That you're struggling every month just to get by and you know pay your rent and your mortgage and put food on the table um so I really just feel like it's unattainable there right now foreign welcome back we've heard how housing affordability is closely tied to more.

Californians leaving the Golden State but when you combine housing goods and services altogether into real purchasing power for people California is 15 percent more expensive to live in than the overall United States I have my own food truck unfortunately it was getting too expensive the reason why I left California honesty.

Is just the cost the cost of living the cost of running a business regulations it is right now it's 3 A.M in the morning I gotta check in by four o'clock our plane leaves at five and this week where we are going to find out is number one is location where we can park our food truck.

We're in San Antonio Texas right now we came to this food Park to come and check it out it's called the point uh it's pretty neat honestly so far our move has been excellent um I can't complain we did the move from Paris California to San Antonio Texas in 26 hours I lived two hours away from Disneyland I used to go to Disneyland one day and.

Spend fifteen hundred dollars and I was already nervous the next day because I spent too much money how is it that I see families coming from Texas from uh other states and they're spending a whole week in Disneyland imagine what the cost it is to stay at the hotel and they can afford to stay there for all week and I live 60 miles and I can.

Barely afford to go there once a year so there's obviously there's something wrong there you know so that's the reason why I saved my California Dream is it's done hey uh it's Marie here and it is Friday February 11th and I'm here to meet clients that are just about to go under contract they've been waiting a few.

Weeks they've been on the waiting list for several weeks and the Builder actually is locking the doors because so many people want to come in because they've heard that they're Contracting so it was a big deal to get my clients in here today um and all the construction going on you guys can see.

Just everywhere hey there it is Thursday February 3rd very cold today in Texas it's one of those days where it's snowing um so when I start working I usually go and check the Facebook group move to Texas from California and we add members into the group we actually don't add.

Every single person to the group the reason that we do that is because we've had a lot of trolls in the past there's actually like people that tried to get our group taken down because some people think that Californians are here to change Texas and that's actually not the case.

With so many Californians moving to Texas some worry the political makeup of the state is going to change but maybe those worries are overblown in fact some people are moving to Texas because of their conservative values my name is Simon black and this is my wife Brigitte black and we were originally from California.

We had lived there our entire lives 46 years I was born in Berkeley and my wife here was born in Walnut Creek it seems that the environment politically in California has just been a one-party rule Republicans have done absolutely nothing to change anything in any way it seems to me they've been cowardly about it I I joined a.

Conservative group and I I I'm meeting a lot of like-minded people and new friends and it's very sad in Contra Costa County you can't even be conservative you kind of have to hide if you're conservative almost I mean my friend just joined a group in Contra Costa County and she said it's literally a secret group.

From politics to housing prices to safety another reason why some people say they are leaving the Golden State the family is originally from South Korea and we immigrated in 1972. when I was a baby and we lived in Los Angeles most of our life foreign markets uh unfortunately my parents.

Grocery stores were burned down in the LA rights two of them near Korea Town and so that was um you know quite a traumatic experience for my family you know a lot of things happened in between but you know we stayed true to California the Golden State California is you know a utterly beautiful state I mean there's.

No denying that everybody that I know that has moved from from California to Texas they all say yeah we missed the beach we miss the scenery I I used to go camping I I think I've hit almost every National Forest um in California and and so you know it it was hard to give that up so with that said you know I I definitely think that.

The state is um is mismanaged we moved primarily because of the crime and uh for me it was not only the crime but also um you know the amount of homelessness needles I was assaulted twice on the BART those particular assaults I really do think it it had to do with the same kind of violence that I saw in the Bay.

Area towards Asian Americans what's the uh what's the filming about what's going on right now they're covering stories of people who are moving to Texas yeah a friend of mine moved there just a few years ago um due to the fires landlord wanted to take over the rental that he was running to him because his house burned down so.

My friend was forced out and done with California so he picked Texas you know I think the fires you know was just the the first inkling that something was like not perfect about Sonoma County day five working in triple digit heat surrounded in dense black smoke frightened residents rushed to escape.

The Firestorm sweeping through California's Wine Country tens of thousands of Acres have been devastated by the fires I've had to evacuate my parents you know up in wikiup for several Fires for one of them they had to come stay with me for about 10 days before they could go back home.

That part kind of wears on you after a while I did think that I was gonna stay here forever and I actually thought like I would die in my house you know or something like I was never gonna leave after the campfire after doing some volunteer work up there.

Um that was very hard for me I just couldn't bear the grief anymore it it really broke my heart it um it totally shook my sense of having grown up in this really Safe Community all of this has been rebuilt all of this was Berlin every single one of these houses was completely burned.

I'm a sucker for old houses so I level victorians this is like probably what I'm going to miss the most is the JC neighborhood with all these beautiful old homes um the the brush has gone up so much it's just like another fire hazard waiting look at all that.

There's one that's totally scorched so we know they're moving we know why they're moving but as the grass in Texas really greener is that big move paying off or are these former residents having buyer's remorse we circled back to them a year later to see how they're feeling.

so is the grass in Texas really greener we talked to everyone a year later to see how they're feeling I miss my friends and my family that's the main thing I mean I miss I miss the ocean a little bit I.

Miss the ocean but not enough to move back yeah I do miss um I do miss a little bit being able to drive Torino now we do have Oklahoma which has a couple of big casinos but it's not quite the same as it is going to Reno because there is a main strip there there's lots of other casinos.

Uh South Shore Tahoe is very beautiful I do miss that a little bit also as a 49er fan die hard since I was eight um you know I I have met I've got some other friends here that are also 49er fans but of course that's not that's not the majority and I knew that from the beginning I do miss uh being in a place.

Where everybody roots for the same team for the most part and of course the sun sets over the bay are very beautiful you know I I I kind of enjoyed Highway 24 a little bit driving through Renda and Lafayette I do miss that but again we'd have the same house the 1600 square footer that we had in Concord and that's you know I I think about that.

And then while I miss those other things it doesn't bother me quite as much when I think about it I do also miss uh I I do miss um Togo's restaurants they don't have any out here and uh there was a restaurant there was this restaurant talking to all the uh the back 40 Texas.

Barbecue which is actually really good and it's kind of hard to find a balance uh if I would ever move back to California it's very very small small open-ended number one the whole state would have to clean up get some of those rotten politicians be tough on crime again like you should.

Um people's attitudes would just have to change but for the most part I really am happy here I don't have very I have very very little desire to move back as a whole we're a little afraid that we weren't going to make good friends here but uh you know I have 14 people coming to my birthday party this weekend so we were.

Able to make friends a lot quicker here yeah we've been here like a year and eight months now my my commute is seven minutes to work I have plenty of time to spend with my wife and you know help her with her business my wife feels completely safe here and that really was the the major criteria.

For moving here the things that I missed about California I miss my mom the most uh my mom's there in Riverside California honestly uh my daughter I have a daughter there as well too in California being so close to to Tijuana Baja California and be able to take off for two days me and my wife.

Go go get our fix on different food that we're missing from there already and unfortunately I'm 1300 miles away now and it's not that easy the only way that I would go back is if my mom wouldn't want to come here to Texas with me so depending if my mom really likes it here and we can make life um.

I would stay here in Texas but if not I would move back to California or if there's a right business opportunity back in California so it could be a maybe girls are doing choir and art and uh my son has totally picked up fishing loves fishing wants to go to the pond to go.

Fishing every single day um so that's kind of cool off the video games doing something outside I love it um so yeah they're super happy too they're all doing really well in school um yeah we definitely have not even concentrated moving back we are just really happy out here we don't mind at all if people talk about regretting.

Moving not everyone is going to be happy moving across country most people will talk about the weather because it's definitely hotter in the summer they will talk about um you know we do have higher property tax percentage rates it doesn't always mean that the amount they pay is going to be more but we do have higher.

Property tax percentage rates and then of course people miss their families now I've lived in Texas for 14 months outside of Houston I really miss the beauty the natural beauty of Sonoma County I'm going to really make an effort this year to try to meet more people so that I you know I really give give it my best shot there but if I.

Don't end up making more friends there I probably will come back just because um I care so much about the people who are here um I did not sell my house here so I left that option open but I think that this will always feel like home to me I've.

Only been in Texas for 14 months so we'll see it might go back and I might stay there Texas and California are both great places and they have different pros and cons I might I might stay here I might go back if you define the American dream as living in a big house on a Big Lot.

Yes it's easier to to live in Texas but California is still a great place for people to pursue their dreams depending on what they're looking for we've heard the reasons from housing to politics to safety as to why people are leaving California it's still not what those headlines are claiming a mass Exodus no California is still a place where people.

Are choosing to call home yeah foreign

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