Escalating Housing Prices Causes Out-migration

" Last year, a half million people left California for other parts of the United States, while fewer than 400,000 Americans moved there. The net outflow has risen fivefold, to more than 100,000, since 2001, an analysis by Economy.com, a research company, shows, although immigration from other countries and births have kept the state's population growing.

The number of people leaving Boston, New York and Washington is also rising, and skyrocketing house prices appear to be a major reason, said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com. From New York, the net migration to Philadelphia more than doubled between 2001 and 2004, with 11,500 more people leaving New York for Philadelphia last year than vice versa. "

"In a survey of 2,500 Californians last year by the Public Policy Institute of California, a research group, about a third of residents under 35 said the cost of housing was making them consider moving to a less expensive area. Two-thirds of those people said they were thinking of leaving the state."

Thanks to Mark Boshnack