Welcome to the Twilight Zone

The Twilight Zone (marketed as Twilight Zone for its final two seasons) is an American anthology television series created and presented by Rod Serling, which ran for five seasons on CBS from 1959 to 1964.^[1] Each episode presents a stand-alone story in which characters find themselves dealing with often disturbing or unusual events, an experience described as entering "the Twilight Zone," often with a surprise ending and a moral. Although predominantly science-fiction, the show's paranormal and Kafkaesque events leaned the show towards fantasy and horror. The phrase “twilight zone,” inspired by the series, is used to describe surreal experiences. (Wikipedia)"

That, I think, aptly describes our situation regarding the current pandemic.  We have experienced disturbing and unusual events that have put us in a surreal state-of-mind.

Let us review these issues to date:

"California Love it and Leave it!" This was from an Opinion section of the Monday, November 11, 2020, Wall Street Journal.  It was written by Joe Lonsdale, a general partner at Venture Capital firm 8VC.  Joe grew up in Fremont, went to Stanford and spent most of his adult life in San Francisco and the Bay Area.  He decided to leave, citing the following reasons: California is in disrepair, has bad policies, discouraged businesses and innovation, public safety issues, ill-conceived justice reforms and radical district attorneys, electricity is a series of power outages equal to a Third World country, the lack of responsiveness to the pandemic, housing is full of restrictive zoning that makes it nearly impossible for many low and middle-income workers to live anywhere near major cities, the state is beholden to public-employee unions and spending is out of control, and a broken environmental review process that takes decades for lawyers to build anything.

Summing it up, Mr. Lonsdale has moved to Texas and states that the California Technology motto of "The Word is Broken, Let's Fix it" now applies to California.

WOW. We see much of what has been stated in my blogs, but from a person of authority and in a full article in the Wall Street Journal.

Mr. Lonsdale passed over the fact that back rent in California is nearing $1.7 billion.  Nearly 240,000 renter households have fallen behind in rent with the average per household at $6,953 per household. A study by UCLA and USC found that 80% of LA County tenants Homeowners have turned out better as they were allowed "forbearance programs" that added the missed payment to the end of their mortgages. paid their rent on time since the pandemic hit but were forced to rely on savings, credit cards, loans from family and friends to stay current.  California is calling out to the US Government for help.  That may be a useless call, as the Senate may not pass such a bailout.

The Exodus from the State of California has dropped 5.4%, the first since 2011.  Despite all the complaining about costs, crowds, and politics, Californians seem to be a stable bunch.  California did have the #1 count of residents who changed residence, both interstate and intrastate; those shifts translated into 88.7% of the population remaining in place.  Compared to the national average of 86.9%, Californians remained stable in their location of choice. More information can be found here: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/29/good-riddance-techs-flight-from-san-francisco-is-a-relief-to-some.html?__source=sharebar|email&par=sharebar

So where did the immigration go?  If out of state immigration has declined, the choice many seem to be to small towns and rural communities.  According to Louis Hansen of the Bay Area News Group, the pandemic lockdowns and months of remote work indicate that homebuyers are feverishly looking for properties in small towns and rural communities.

Interest in country life and small town homes more than tripled in October 2020 from the previous year.  Following the Coronavirus trend, big-city residents are looking for more space, and a cheaper and lower stress option for remote work according to Redfin.  

We live in one of the priciest areas in the U.S.  During the recent several months since the pandemic, areas like Atherton, Woodside, Portola Valley, Palo Alto and Menlo Park have seen homes sales change hands at seller-dominated markets in days on the market, but only after 10% price cuts.  Just a few minutes to hours’ drive from Silicon Valley, home prices have been rising to the extent that Lake Tahoe and neighboring rural areas, such as Pescadero, have approached record levels. An example of this shift is a sale of 180 acres in Pescadero for $5 million. The new owner feels that, if we are stuck in place, we’re going to have some land around us.

In June 2020, I put four parcels for sale in the Middleton Track, part of La Honda and on the edge of Portola State Park.  Three lots, 18 acres and wo 3 acres lots, and one 6-acre lot with two housing units, plans for a large home and back up water and power for $650,000.  Multiple offers in less than 30 days and 23 disclosure documents were requested.  The fires were all around the property in a much-protected forest the residents call the Asbestos forest. It sold for $650,000 and appraised at $1.25 million.  The owner would not listen to my recommendations on pricing and after retirement and commuting from LA, she just wanted out to travel.  This is a fortunate example of rural locations being targeted by buyers and their interests.

The Sunday, November 29, 2020, edition of the SF Chronicle Home Section supports "Where buyers can score big homes for less money" and Featured Homes in Santa Cruz and Sacramento.

Zillow will send out yearly estimates going forward.  They are going from 6-8% with the largest estimated gains in Aptos and La Honda.  Just substantiating the growth will go to the rural and small towns.