Page 29 - Bloomberg Businessweek-October 29, 2018

Bloomberg Businessweek October 29, 2018
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C California

E ● High prices have pushed also highlighting political divides as conservatives
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from the blue state seek friendlier areas and lib-
homebuyers to Boise, Idaho,
and other Western cities. It’s eral transplants find themselves in sometimes hos-
tile territory.
not always an easy fit California’s history of booms and busts has
fueled exoduses before, but its soaring real estate
costs have made living there ever more difficult for
Julie D’Agostino spent 15 years in the San Francisco people who don’t earn big salaries. In the second
Bay Area working in tech and considers herself quarter, only 26 percent of homebuyers in the state
decidedly liberal. Still, she ended up buying a home could afford to purchase a median-price single-
in a surprising place: deep-red Idaho. The 51-year- family house, which was almost $600,000, accord-
old moved to Boise two years ago, attracted to its ing to the California Association of Realtors.
walkable downtown, lively arts scene, and, most Almost 143,000 more people left the state than
important, cheaper housing. She’s happy there, arrived from elsewhere in the U.S. in 2016. Trump’s
even though her first winter in 2016 and Donald tax overhaul, which capped some mortgage interest
Trump’s election were a shock. and property tax deductions, has probably added
“It was like, ‘What have I done?’ ” D’Agostino says, “gas to the fire,” says Glenn Kelman, chief executive
sitting at the kitchen table of the three- bedroom officer of Redfin Inc., a national real estate broker-
home she bought in May for $259,000. But staying age that recently opened a Boise outpost.
in the Bay Area long-term wasn’t an option finan- But mostly it’s the prices. “Eventually the laws
cially. “I was already priced out. I didn’t see myself of supply and demand are going to drive people to
miraculously, suddenly being able to afford it.” other parts of the country,” Kelman says. “Boise isn’t
For some Californians, the state’s punishing five times worse than California as a place to live. PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDY ANDERSON FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK
housing costs, high taxes, and constant threat But places in California are five times more expen-
of natural disaster have all become too much. sive.” Boise is becoming an alternative to traditional
They’re making their escape to Boise, Phoenix, havens for Californians such as Portland, Ore., and
Reno, Nev., and other areas, fueling some of the Seattle that also have gotten too pricey, he says.
biggest home-price gains in the country. While the About 29 percent of the Idaho capital’s home-
Edited by
Pat Regnier moves are motivated mainly by economics, they’re listing views are from Californians, according to