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Comment by godot | Hacker News Reader

I did this and completely agree. I lived in the bay area since high school, more than two decades ago. Last year I finally moved away from it for good. Not far, just to the Greater Sacramento area. (I've been working remotely for a couple years, well before COVID) Qualify of life improvement is huge. Weather and cultural are important reasons for me to stay in California (plus family and friends), and I still get that here. (in fact, I prefer weather in Sac -- real summers/not chilly, and winters are similar to the bay area). My house now is easily 1/3 the cost of a similar one in the peninsula or 1/2 the cost of a similar one in east bay.

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I moved to Sacramento for all the same reasons, and I also love it here. I remember a lot of people talked down on Sac when I lived in the Bay. It feels like I’ve discovered a secret by moving here.

EDIT: Here are a few more things to like about Sacramento.

There seems to be a large population of highly educated ex-military types concentrated here. It’s been an unexpected source of high quality hires. I never saw these people in the Bay.

I’m in an international marriage. We were worried we wouldn’t be able to find our people upon moving here. That hasn’t been a problem at all. Fellow expats are everywhere. It’s a fairly diverse area.

My problem with Sacramento is 1) crime in Sacramento proper (I have friends in the Sac DA's office, so maybe I am biased by hearing the worst of the worst), and 2) the summer weather. The suburbs of Sacramento, especially to the north, are very attractive to my wife and I and I think that if we do stay in California long-term we will be heading to Sacramento to make it happen.

> real summers/not chilly

I mean, it's not cold once you get outside of SF/San Bruno. If you're in the peninsula or south bay, it's really fucking hot during the summer. Uncomfortably hot because no one has AC and many of the homes don't have insulation still.

I think you built my case for me. Sac is consistently hot (90s every day for at least 4 months in the summer) and so, basically every house has AC. Many have solar panels (mine does) because of the available sunny days, for sustainability. It makes for a way easier summer than in bay where you get 2 weeks of dreadful summer (because no AC) and then the week after that is in the 60s-70s and you bring out the jackets again.

I wouldn't say the inconsistency in weather is the issue... It's that the homes are ancient and landlords don't want to update them. Why update when you'll not get significantly more money for it (and then have to pay lots of property taxes)? It's why many of the homes that are bought in my neighborhood are completely torn down by new owners and rebuilt. Every single street in my neighborhood with a recent sale has a tear down + rebuild happening.

I'm sure the renter to owner market in Sacramento is different than the bay area...

If this year's summer becomes the norm I think it may be a bit too hot for places like Sacramento. And all the places I lived in SV so far have had A/C so that hasn't been an issue. But what's great about being near the bay is that at night, most summer nights, it still cools down way below 20C so it's easy to simply keep doors/windows open after sunset and close them in the morning to have cool air inside the house, without an A/C, almost every day. There are exceptions of course like we had this summer where there were 2-3 days long heatwaves with no drop below 25C at night, A/C helped with that.

It can hit 100 these days in San Francisco itself in summer, but there is still this weird sanctimonious attitude about air conditioning. We asked some landscape designers about leaving room for a unit in the yard and more than once got a huffy "People don't use A/C in San Francisco" sort of answer. It's extra miserable if the windows have to stay shut due to wildfire smoke.

Don't know about peninsula but in south bay tons of old homes have AC. And more importantly, dry hot feels very comfortable to me personally.

I ended up leaving SF and moving to Austin, but Sacramento was really high on my list as well. It's a very nice town, and being half-way between SF and Lake Tahoe is pretty hard to beat :)

If by real summers you mean multiple days over 100F then count me out. Enjoy your heat stroke. It gets hot enough in South Bay even near the water.

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