Report: Thousands of Californians Flee to Mexico in Search of More Affordable Living

Housing prices and rampant inflation under the leadership of President Joe Biden and Gov. Gavin Newson (D-CA) are driving thousands of Californians to search for a more affordable life in Mexico.

“I would say at least half are coming down from California,” Darrell Graham of Baja123 Real Estate Group told CNBC. “Suddenly the cost of taxes, the crime rates, the politics, all the things that people are unhappy with in California are coming down to Mexico.”

Roughly 200,000 people commute between California and Mexico every day because “many of them work in California and live just below the border in Baja California due to its proximity,” according to the report, which called the phenomenon: the “California exodus.”

“It’s a lot of people commuting who actually live in Mexico who actually work in the states. So it’s like thousands and thousands of people just crossing daily. It’s a lot of people,” said Toni Smith, a coach and personal trainer at Southwestern Community College who works in San Diego and lives in Tijuana.

Besides high housing costs, which reportedly average around $800,000 in the state, remote work has given Californians the opportunity to seek out cheaper places to live in Mexico while reaping the financial benefits of working in the United States.

Travis Grossi, a content creator for Café con Leche Travels, said he was able to slice his budget in half by moving across the border.

“We were able to cut our budget in half, which allowed us to really focus on our careers and the things we wanted to do artistically without the just hustle and hustle every day, every week, every month, to just meet the bare minimum,” Grossi told CNBC.

Critics argue that the trend is making homes in Mexico unaffordable for Mexican citizens.

“Certain neighborhoods are now becoming too expensive for Mexican citizens to live in because most of the time people that are actually buying the property developments are being able to do so because they either make money in US dollars, or because they are working remotely,” said policy analyst at the Migration Policy institute Ariel Ruiz Soto.

Overall, more than 367,000 people left the state in 2021, many leaving for states like Arizona, Washington, and Texas. The state’s one percent population decline was among the largest in the nation.