While on vacation with their three young sons last January, Mark and Ellen Kiely made their decision. Like many people, they had talked about moving out of Southern California for some time. They wanted to be closer to their family on the East Coast and to nature, get more home for their money and be near better public schools.
"On that trip, we were all together enjoying life and the outdoors, and it clicked," Mark Kiely said. "Ellen and I looked at each other and said, 'What are we waiting for?' "
Nine months later, the Kielys had sold their Studio City home and were living on a saltwater inlet in Rhode Island, fishing and kayaking from their frontyard.
"Though the effort was Herculean," said Kiely, an actor who grew up in Rhode Island, "the payoff is seeing my kids so happy in this environment. I'm now able to give them the boyhood I know how to give. I couldn't do that in Los Angeles."
Although not everyone would trade the West Coast for the Northeast, the Kielys are part of a quiet trend fueled by home equity and technology, such as the ability to telecommute, that is making it possible for more families to move out of state.
In a statewide survey of 2,500 California residents issued last month, one in four respondents said they were seriously considering leaving the state or moving to another part of the state to find cheaper housing. Of adults under 35, one-third were considering moving somewhere more affordable, according to the Special Survey on Californians and Their Housing, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California.
"Up until two years ago, California had always been a net inbound state," said Doug Hill, president of the California Moving & Storage Assn., meaning that more households moved into the state than moved out to other states. That shifted in 2002, when California became a net outbound state. This year about 55% of all domestic moves that crossed the state line were households moving out; 45% were moving in. States with large populations, such as Florida and Texas, are drawing the most Californians.
"People in hot markets like Southern California look at their equity and think: 'Gee, if I sold, I could get a lot more house in another area, or a better quality of life, or I could retire,' " said Bert Sperling, author of "Cities Ranked & Rated: Your Guide to the Best Places to Live in the U.S. and Canada" (Wiley Publishing, 2004). And this line of reasoning makes sense for some residents of the Southland, where the median home value was $410,000 in October, according to DataQuick Information Systems, more than twice the national median price.
