Thelife- Bill Ross moved from the mountains of Silicon Valley to a city half an hour north of San Antonio.
- He said moving to Texas was like a weight lifted off his shoulders due to the lower cost of living.
Bill Ross, 65, worked in high-tech for four decades — three of which were spent in Silicon Valley. But California didn't have the same charm for Ross any longer, and he decided he wanted to move.
The school system in his area worsened, he said, and he didn't want to deal with natural disasters that often impacted his area. He settled on Boerne, Texas, a city of under 20,000 residents about half an hour northwest of San Antonio.
Boerne — and more specifically the smaller city of Fair Oaks Ranch where he lives, which is part of the Boerne Independent School District — was culturally and politically diverse, always had something going on, and had a much cheaper cost of living than Silicon Valley. The move, he told Business Insider, was refreshing and well worth it.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, around 102,400 left California for Texas from 2021 to 2022. By contrast, nearly 42,300 former Texans moved to California during the same period.
Many former Californians who made the move to Texas said they were motivated by cheaper housing and living costs, a better work-life balance, and communities with more political diversity. Still, some say Texas is still quite expensive depending on the city, and some have moved back to California citing the weather, longer commutes, and lifestyle changes.
Leaving Silicon Valley behind
Ross was born in Philadelphia and was raised in northern New Jersey. After attending Northeastern University, he stayed in Boston for a few years, though he took the opportunity to move to his company's Silicon Valley office in 1990.
He worked at large companies and startups in Silicon Valley, and he tried starting his own company. He got married, had kids, and raised them in a home 20 minutes from the heart of Silicon Valley in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
At first, he said he loved the school system where his kids went, though he said the quality of his kids' education worsened especially around the start of the pandemic. After a few months of remote learning that left him angered, Ross and his wife made the decision to move away.
Within a week, they got their home ready for sale, found a spot in Texas, and left the state for good. He also left his high-tech job and decided to become a realtor.
This wasn't the only impetus for moving — Ross said over the years, he's experienced "all of mother nature's rage." He experienced earthquakes, landslides, wildfires, and power outages while living in Silicon Valley, and he knew he wanted to move to a safer area.
They knew they wouldn't be able to get an affordable home for their whole family and stay in their area. They found a marginally nicer home nearby, though it would have cost $2.5 million with a $25,000 yearly tax.
Ross bought his home in the 1990s for around $365,000 with a tax of $6,000 a year, and due to California's Proposition 13, property tax increases were limited. However, by the time he sold it, the tax jumped up to over $18,000 a year.
"One of the problems that people have in California is that when they sell their house to move into a nicer one, the amount that they have to spend to get into a marginally nicer house is ridiculous, but when they sell their house, they move into a higher tax bracket," Ross said.
He also said he didn't feel comfortable living in the area where he said politics are "very homogeneous." He said he often felt out of place and couldn't openly express his opinions without getting immediately shot down.
'Our only regret is not doing it sooner'
Ross said Texas was one of a handful of states he was considering, including Florida, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Still, he and his wife didn't want to deal with hurricanes, so after some consideration, this left only Texas in the running.
He said Dallas was too flat, Galveston was susceptible to natural disasters, and Austin was too pricey. San Antonio, though, immediately stuck out to him due to its history, hilliness, and series of downtowns that gave it both a metropolitan and small town feel.
Though he didn't want to live in the heart of San Antonio, he and his wife narrowed it down to the smaller towns in Texas Hill Country around 30 miles from downtown. While exploring the area, he stumbled upon a home listing on his phone near Boerne, a city of about 19,000 residents. The home had everything he was looking for: four bedrooms, three baths, a former dining room, a pool, and around 0.8 acres. They got the home within a day and moved in the next month.
"People in the San Francisco-Bay Area have sufficient equity in their houses to buy newer, nicer, and bigger homes in Texas outright, negating the entire notion of high interest rates," Ross said. "Government regulations aren't preventing construction from keeping up with demand."
According to Realtor.com, the median home price in Fair Oaks Ranch in September was $749,000. By comparison, a study by Joint Venture Silicon Valley released in October found Silicon Valley's median home price was $1.53 million in 2022.
Still, he said he didn't know anyone in the area and anticipated a long adjustment period. They had gotten rid of much of what they owned and didn't even have furniture at first. But he said he felt at home immediately.
"We had barely any place to sit here, but we felt like there was this weight lifted off of our shoulders, and we felt at ease here," Ross said.
He said many of his preconceived notions about Texas were quickly proven false. He said his area was very culturally diverse, the culinary scene was better, road infrastructure was higher quality, and his community was on the whole much friendlier than in California. He also said the school district where his kids go is growing every year.
He also said San Antonio has become a manufacturing hub, attracting a more educated workforce with zero personal income tax and lower regulations. The area is particularly becoming a hub for aerospace, cybersecurity, and information technology companies.
He still misses the cooler summers and overall beautiful weather of California, though the tradeoffs were much better.
"Now that we're here, our only regret is not doing it much sooner," he said.
Have you recently moved to a different state? Reach out to this reporter at nsheidlower@insider.com.