Nov 21, 2021
The state’s Inland Empire tied the Phoenix region for 2020’s biggest gain in households from migration nationwide, taking in newcomers from pricier locales
The migration is shuffling California’s demographics. Increasingly, the state’s middle class is moving to inland desert and mountain communities. Its coastal cities such as L.A. and San Francisco are housing more of its affluent residents and low-income people who can’t afford to move.
Nearly a half-million California households—both individuals and families—moved from one metropolitan area to another throughout the state, and many left coastal regions, where home prices have jumped to new highs.
The median price for existing single-family homes in California hit a record $827,940 in August, more than 17% higher than a year earlier, according to the California Association of Realtors. In Riverside County, where the Flukers moved, the median figure in August was $570,000, compared with $830,070 in Los Angeles County and $1.85 million in San Francisco.
“People say over and over again, ‘Oh, the millennials are going to stay in the cities.’ They are not,” said Doug Shepherd, a real-estate broker based in the city of Riverside.
Most Californians aren’t fleeing the Golden State, said D.J. Waldie, a cultural historian who has written extensively about Los Angeles. Instead, residents are spreading out.
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