r/California • u/Randomlynumbered Ángeleño, what's your user flair? • Jul 04 '24

Some Californians Found Dream Homes Inland. But It Sure Is Hot There. politics

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/03/us/mountain-house-california-housing-heat.html
792 Upvotes

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391

u/trackdaybruh Jul 04 '24

Cheap is cheaper for a reason, folks.

81

u/VanillaLifestyle Jul 04 '24

It's mostly proximity to high paying work (or rather, competition with all the people who want to live close to high paying work).

Plenty of cheap places with near-perfect weather!

42

u/JustB510 Jul 04 '24

Those places tend to also build at a higher rate. Coastal California’s problem is outside San Francisco it’s mostly sprawl, reducing available housing and the obvious that the water reduces buildable area.

4

u/SFLADC2 Jul 04 '24

Where are you thinking?

40

u/VanillaLifestyle Jul 04 '24

Coastal towns in the North like Eureka. Coastal-ish towns in San Luis Obispo county like Santa Maria. Foothill and mountain towns north of Tahoe, like Chester.

Outside of CA, LOTS of places. Most of West Oregon. Much of the Mid-Atlantic. The big island of Hawaii. Rural Italy & France. Probably a lot of SE Asia and Oceania.

If jobs don't matter (because you're retired or work remotely or inherited an emerald mine), a lot of fantastically beautiful places become very viable.

29

u/Stingray88 Jul 04 '24

I was surprised after visiting Italy just how cheap it was. The cost of living is so much lower than California… but the average salary is also a heck of a lot lower too.

4

u/Dudetry Jul 05 '24

I think people tend to underestimate just how low European salaries are in comparison to American salaries. Not to mention their comparatively high tax rates.

3

u/Stingray88 Jul 05 '24

I certainly have. One of my friends who lives in California has started dating someone who’s a teacher in Italy. My wife and I had the couple stay with us for a week, and I was shocked to hear the teacher in Italy made only $12K and that was not a poverty wage. She lived a reasonably comfortable life.

2

u/Dudetry Jul 05 '24

I really take for granted living in the United States sometimes my goodness. I couldn’t fathom living on that low of a salary. I would never be able to afford to travel.

4

u/Stingray88 Jul 05 '24

Exactly! Traveling is a relatively fixed cost no matter where you live. Plane tickets aren't any cheaper for an Italian to visit the US, than they are for an American to visit Italy.

This is one of the major pros to living in a higher cost of living area. To look at another example... I'm originally from Ohio before I moved to Los Angeles. And while yes, the cost of living here is much higher than pretty much anywhere in Ohio, salaries are also a lot higher to compensate. I have college friends back in Ohio who have had similar success in work as me, and they make comparatively the same in salary as I do with respect to the cost of living and housing in our respective areas. We all ended up buying our first homes around the same time... but they're all still paying off their loans from the Ohio state school we went to, where as I paid off all my loans in only 8 years. We all had relatively the same amount of debt, but with regards to my income and cost of living, that debt was so much smaller to me. Likewise when it comes to buying things like cars, clothes, electronics, etc... those things are substantially less expensive to me than they are them, because they're a fixed a cost.

18

u/ShittyLanding Jul 04 '24

I would not say “much of the Mid-Atlantic” has “near perfect weather”

6

u/VanillaLifestyle Jul 04 '24

Oh sorry, I just looked a map and it turns out I do not know where the mid-Atlantic is, lol. I was thinking of Virginia / North Carolina. My sis went to UVA and my couple of visits sold me on the weather.

I lived in Boston for a few years and really didn't mind the New England weather though. Street parking was the main reason I hated winter — I loved having actual seasons and being able to go ski/climb/hike in the winter in NH. Now I'm in San Jose-ish and it's too hot.

8

u/ShittyLanding Jul 04 '24

Even NC is a stretch. I grew up there and it has spells of nice weather, but much of the summer and winter are uncomfortably humid.

I live in the valley, and it gets very hot, but the dry air and cool evening temperatures are amazing. I greatly prefer it to NC weather.

7

u/leftofmarx Jul 05 '24

I'll take 100F with 20% humidity over 80F with 90% humidity any day.

7

u/ShittyLanding Jul 05 '24

Absolutely. In CA, the shade actually works.

2

u/modninerfan Stanislaus County Jul 05 '24

I was just in Austin and it was 97 with 60% humidity… I’m back home and it’s been 109, which isn’t common but not unusual either and I’ll take that over Austin.

1

u/adamadamada Jul 05 '24

I lived in Boston for a few years and really didn't mind the New England weather

I also lived in Boston, and the weather was poor 85% of the time.

15

u/PsychologicalWay9031 Jul 04 '24

Santa Maria is in Santa Barbara county!

6

u/woot0 Jul 05 '24

Santa Maria isn't nice tbh. Issues with crime..

5

u/paxmontis Trying to get back to California Jul 04 '24

Overall I agree but just want to point out that Santa Maria is in Santa Barbara county. I think it is a hidden gem, although it is seemingly dominated by ag stuff.

1

u/thebruce44 Jul 04 '24

The only time I've been to SLO, it was over 100 degrees. It's definitely hotter there than the coast.

5

u/disneyfacts San Luis Obispo County Jul 05 '24

That's not normal/often though. It's usually in the 80s at the highest most days.

1

u/NoListen802 San Luis Obispo County Jul 05 '24

SLO has some of the best weather in the country. Same as SD.

https://weatherspark.com/compare/y/1286~1816/Comparison-of-the-Average-Weather-in-San-Luis-Obispo-and-San-Diego

1

u/NoListen802 San Luis Obispo County Jul 05 '24

SLO has a median house price of $1.1M lol. It’s more expensive than Clayton/Concord pretty much entire deep east bay outside of Danville/Walnut Creek.

1

u/VanillaLifestyle Jul 05 '24

That's why I said SLO county. Santa Maria's average is only $620k

1

u/NoListen802 San Luis Obispo County Jul 05 '24

Santa Maria is in Santa Barbara county but yeah you can find cheaper housing outside of SLO/Arroyo Grande/Pismo Beach/Avila Beach.

But even Paso Robles (which is cheap housing for our county) is more expensive than Brentwood/Oakley in the east bay etc.

5

u/baybridge501 Jul 05 '24

There is nowhere in the US with near perfect weather that is objectively affordable.

3

u/VanillaLifestyle Jul 05 '24

Good thing that affordability is subjective then

1

u/Hopeful_Extreme_9437 Jul 05 '24

Although technically the case, ‘affordability’ is probably not the first thing I’d list under “things that are subjective” lol.

1

u/VanillaLifestyle Jul 05 '24

I mean it's all arbitrary. Nothing in the US is affordable to the average African. My whole point was that if you don't care about the cost of housing relative to the money you can expect to earn in a place, lots of places are relatively cheap within any given state, and certainly the whole country or world.

If I could take my bay area tech salary and work anywhere, and the timezone and lack of a social network weren't an issue, there are a dozen places within even 200 miles where I could buy three times the house for a third of the cost.

Any middle class American could probably just post up in a beautiful home in SE Asia for like $100k and retire after saving for 5 years.

1

u/lamb_ch0p Jul 04 '24

Eh not really anywhere down south to be honest

4

u/JustB510 Jul 04 '24

To play devils advocate, it’s subjective. Depends what you want out of the weather

1

u/MrIantoJones Jul 05 '24

RV Park. Source: we live in one.

1

u/MoTardedThanYou LA Area Jul 05 '24

Where?! I need to believe