The Real Reason I Left California

What's up, guys? It's Graham here. So, as some of you know, after spending my entire life in California, one year ago, I decided to leave. It was a difficult decision, but ultimately we felt like the increased cost of living, decreasing quality of life, traffic, crime, and other conditions made it very hard to call it home. After seeing other locations, we quickly settled on a suburb in Las Vegas, where we've been happily living now for the last year.

But recently, it's been hard not to notice the headlines about California's declining population, high crime, even higher tax proposals, and stories with images that you wouldn't expect from a state with the GDP equivalent to the fifth-largest economy. So, I'd like to share my experience firsthand in terms of why I left California, my thoughts on the new proposed tax changes, and give an update on my overall experience moving and living in a different state. Because so far, I keep seeing videos from people announcing that they're leaving California, but very few people ever follow up afterward. So, this is that video.

As with all of my other videos, I don't get into politics, I don't take sides, and I do my best to look at every situation objectively and fairly. Because it's been really eye-opening to see just how many people are leaving and how the pandemic has shifted the way we all live. But before we start, since I left California, it would mean a lot to me if you left a like on the video for the YouTube algorithm. Doing that helps up my channel tremendously, and it pushes the video to a brand new audience who could also leave a like on the video for the YouTube algorithm. So, thank you guys so much. Now, with that said, let's begin.

To bring some of you up to speed, up until a year ago, both my girlfriend and I had spent our entire lives in California. For a while, I thought that we would never leave. I was raised in Los Angeles, I went through the LA school system, I made lifelong friends, and I built my real estate business there. To be honest, I don't think that I would have the same perspectives as I do now had I grown up anywhere else. However, the breaking point came when we went to visit some friends in Las Vegas. Jeremy decided to surprise us on a mini-home tour exploration across the Henderson and Summerlin areas. In that afternoon, we were able to see a completely new side of Las Vegas that was really nice.

The pandemic also made the choice that much easier because when everything was shut down and both of us worked from home, there was the realization that we didn't have to be anchored in one city to lead a happy and successful life. Not to mention, on paper, I'm not oblivious to how much I'd be saving by moving to a no income tax state. And that's a number that's grown to a point where I could no longer ignore the cost-benefit of moving. Like, just to put things into perspective, this house was 2.1 million dollars. It's 2,000 square feet, built in 1924, and the property tax is 24,000 a year. But for six hundred thousand dollars less in Las Vegas, I was able to buy a brand-new construction with more than double the square footage, a backyard with a pool, a dedicated office with an attached garage, a separate office for my podcast, and a guest bedroom anytime somebody needs to spend the night. So, in terms of how far your money goes, it was way more significant than I thought.

Now, I'll admit my initial resistance towards moving was at least due in part to the opportunity cost of leaving California. That largely kept me from going anywhere else because I felt like if I did leave, I'd be giving up a long-standing career at the Oppenheim Group, and that would be an income source I'd lose. I'd also be giving up all the local connections with other YouTubers. I'd lose out on the potential networking with new people, and that doesn't even account for the difficulties of moving away from family and friends and with a partner who also has lifelong ties to California.

Now, I'm not gonna lie and say it's been easy because it's been a struggle to see my girlfriend not see her family as much as she did before, or miss the occasional night out with old friends and family. But over the last year, I'm happy to say that we have built a real sense of community here in Las Vegas. It's a lot different from what we've had in California. In fact, if anything, a change of scenery really helped spark a new sense of creativity, and we've been able to meet some great people along the way.

So from an opportunity cost standpoint, I'm actually really surprised to say that, if anything, there are more creators in Las Vegas than in Los Angeles. It's been easier to meet and network with new people. If we invite a guest on the podcast, everyone loves to take a weekend trip to Las Vegas and talk business. However, it's also worth acknowledging that, of course, it's sad not to be able to see your friends and family as often as you did when it was a 20-minute drive away. But we've also made some very close friendships here, so it's a bit bittersweet but overall positive.

Next, since this is a finance channel, we should talk for a moment about money and taxes. Now, for those who don't know, California has one of the highest state income taxes throughout the entire U.S., as high as 13.3 percent. Now, throughout my entire 13-year-long career, I've always been supportive of paying my fair share and doing my best to give back to the state that's allowed me so many opportunities to begin with. But throughout the last few years, I began to feel like the overall quality of life began to deteriorate.

So when I thought about the future, eventually wanting to start a family and wanting to use that money towards a much bigger purpose throughout the world, taxes are something that I'd have to take into consideration. On the surface, from a number standpoint, since Las Vegas doesn't have a state income tax, moving from California saved a lot of money. This is the point that I began to realize that it's up to me to closely monitor where my money is allocated and decide if it's worth it or not to move to an area where that goes a lot further.

Since moving here, I've reinvested a lot of those savings back into the business. I've hired a full-time assistant and editor, we've started new channels, launched a coffee company, I've donated to several organizations that I care about, Go Team Seas, and I'm expanding on everything that I want to do while having more free time in the process. But Los Angeles, on the other hand, taxes everything. They have one of the highest sales taxes in the nation at 10%, and the city also has a business tax on top of everything else that you're required to pay into every single year if you're self-employed or a sole proprietor.

There's so much to keep track of that it makes it very difficult to see where your money is going or how it's being spent. It's also not a situation that seems to be getting any better either, with a new proposal that could double their state income tax rate to a staggering eighteen percent impacting anyone who earns more than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year. Unfortunately, I'm worried that if this were to pass, the ultimate outcome would be that more people leave and, as a result, less money is generated in the first place.

As proof of this, the Tax Foundation found that in 2021, high-income tax states saw net migration loss of residents while low or no-income tax states saw a rather significant boost. The trend seems to be that the pandemic has really shifted the way people view their work, and with remote employment becoming a lot more common, people are choosing to leave for places where their money goes a lot further.

The other difficulty is that property values in California were quite high, to the point where if you wanted to live in the city, it was going to cost you a lot. Now, granted, you do get access to one of the most desirable and consistent climates in the world that's pretty much always 72 degrees and sunny. But when 54% of renters and 38% of homeowners have to pay more than 40% of their income towards housing, people begin to ask themselves, is it worth it?

The issue is that even though California could certainly be location-based in the sense that no more land could be developed, at the core, one of the reasons why California is so expensive is because of zoning. Like right now, to build the property, there's exclusionary zoning, harmful land use policies, a minimum lot size, mandatory parking requirements, and prohibitions on multi-family housing. But the fact is, single-family zoning means that no more units could be built within the same amount of space. Prices continue to increase, and when a large portion of the city is not designed for more than one unit, it's going to create an affordable housing crisis.

Now, the go-to solution seems to be so far just stricter rent control, allocate a small portion of the building towards low-income residents, and then tax the people who make more than 150,000 even higher. But that doesn't solve the root cause of the issue of adding more units. See, in large California cities, much of the zoning requirement is entirely dictated by parking, where every unit has to have its own dedicated full parking space. So if you want to build a 600 square foot apartment, you have to add on another 300 square feet for that person to park their car. Now, if you build that on ground level, that's going to take away from the space that you could build for a living area.

But if you dig below ground for that parking space, well, that requires a lot more money, and then you have to charge more for the unit itself. All of a sudden, the cost of building that 600 square foot apartment is now costing you the equivalent of what it would to build an 1100 square foot apartment. Here's another example: two years ago, when I bought my home in Los Angeles, I would have loved to have added on a second story to the guest house. But if I wanted to add on any extra square footage, I would need an extra parking space on site that I didn't have.

To me, it's a bit silly, given how close it is to public transportation. But you know what? It is what it is. I think easing up on zoning can be a great thing for cities experiencing a housing shortage, and I think we need to update the zoning requirements to account for the fact that not everybody needs a car for their day-to-day life. Las Vegas, on the other hand, has an abundance of land, but they have a different problem: too many people are moving in, and they don't have the supplies to build houses fast enough, causing prices to rise 23 percent over the last year.

But between the two, the difference between Los Angeles and Las Vegas is staggering. Just to consider this: here's an 850,000-dollar home in Los Angeles, and here's a home for the exact same price in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, it just seems as though until the zoning requirements are updated, housing will continue to be unaffordable throughout most of California.

And finally, because it seems like everyone is talking about it, I think it's worth addressing this picture here. It's recently come to light that California rail theft is up 356 percent while people steal medical equipment, designer handbags, luggage, airline parts, artwork, and even a new wine fridge, with many of them disregarded across the tracks. The state says that it's the railroad's responsibility for protecting their cargo, while Union Pacific says that Los Angeles crime is a spiraling crisis that needs to be addressed.

Now, to be fair, crime is going to be everywhere, no matter where you go, but there does seem to be the narrative that California crime is getting worse. And when you look at the statistics, well, they're not exactly wrong. And the sad outcome is that it's turned into a political back and forth without much advance, even when other areas like Las Vegas are seeing something similar. So, to me, it's not just a California issue; it's an everywhere issue, and crime is something that we will all need to pay attention to regardless of where we live or what we believe in.

So overall, in terms of what it's like after a year of moving from California, I have to say it's been nice. We've been really fortunate to have built a strong community of close friends. There are so many places that are open around the clock that we could go to. I've got extra space to build out another studio in the second garage, which, by the way, is coming very soon. And unlike what I initially thought, there are just as many opportunities here in Las Vegas as there were in Los Angeles.

Of course, that does come at the expense of being further away from family and friends, and that's not always easy. But in the big picture, after a full year of living here, it's been enjoyable. It's certainly bittersweet. Although at the end of the day, it's been the right decision for a multitude of reasons, and it's opened the door to so many new opportunities and experiences that never would have existed otherwise.

However, it's also sad to see so many other people leave exactly as I did for the city to degrade so quickly and the quality of living to go down that fast without feeling like there's any sort of solution to work towards. I understand it's a very complex problem far beyond myself, but throughout the last year, I've been shocked by how many of my other friends have packed up to leave for other parts of the U.S.

But one year after moving, I could confidently say that it has been the right choice, and I hope this helps add some context for anyone who's curious about what it's like or my own experience. So, with that said, you guys, thank you so much for watching. Also, make sure to subscribe, hit the like button, feel free to add me on Instagram. Thank you so much for watching, and until next time!