One thing he mentioned was that everything was cheaper in Texas. Real estate, property taxes, gas prices, food prices, no personal income tax. He said it was like getting a 50% raise just moving here from California.
Of course, land prices have been rising here pretty steadily for a couple decades or more. Some politicians have been talking about reforming the property tax system. I hope that works out. Schools are funded by the state now so there isn't a good reason to have that come from property taxes anymore.
Stuff being cheaper than CA is a major shock to Californians moving to the red. I remember when I switched my auto insurance to Idaho - with Farmers, the same place I had in CA, and with identical coverage - I called my agent and told him he made a mistake and left one of my two vehicles off the policy. Nope - it is actually over 50% cheaper here for car insurance. Auto insurance is one of the more prominent examples, but there's a ton of stuff like that.
As to land prices, that's a big problem here too, and I suspect in all the "conservative" states that are getting the influx. Locals are for real priced out of the market. At this point, I would not be looking in Idaho at all. My place has more than doubled since I bought it, and there is no way I would pay today's prices for it. Properties are being snatched up at these ridiculous prices though, which is greatly contributing to the hate for CA transplants, as well as Portland and Seattle hipster transplants.
The article rings somewhat true though, that californiacation, at least from the purely political side, is not really happening right now (though we know it happens with CO seeming to be one of the best (or worst) examples in recent years). It seems that currently, for every lefty, two very conservative people are moving in. I guess that is happening in other red states as well. It doesn't seem that in Idaho at least, the state legislators believe it. I am seeing lots of legislation this session that seems designed to get out ahead of a hippie influx. Stuff like stronger 2A protections, keeping CRT out of our schools (even though it hasn't infiltrated here yet) and similar stuff. If it's happening in a blue state, we seem to have legislation going forward to not allow it here.
I don't know about other states, but I'm still afraid that ID is getting too many big tech employees that can now work from anywhere, and we know what 99% of the politics from that crowd is.
