Don't Buy Property Here: 10 California Towns Locals Are Quietly Leaving

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:03]You know that dream.

[00:00:04]Buying a home in California, living near the beach or the mountains, soaking in that famous golden sunshine.

[00:00:11]For decades, people from all over the world packed their bags and headed to the Golden State, chasing that dream.

[00:00:17]And for a while, it worked.

[00:00:20]California was the place where you built your life, raised your family, and watched your property value climb every [music] single year.

[00:00:30]But something has changed. And the people who actually live there, they already know it. They're not making big announcements. [music] They're not posting angry rants online.

[00:00:40]They're just quietly loading their moving trucks and driving away.

[00:00:44]Sometimes to Texas, sometimes to Nevada, sometimes just anywhere that isn't where they are right now.

[00:00:51]Here's the thing nobody tells you when you're browsing Zillow at midnight dreaming about California real estate.

[00:00:57]Some of these places are traps. [music] Cheap prices, pretty pictures, and a whole lot of problems hiding just below the surface.

[00:01:04]Today, we're counting down 10 California towns where locals are quietly packing up and leaving.

[00:01:10]We're going from bad to absolute worst, so stay [music] till the end because the last few might genuinely shock you.

[00:01:21]Number 10, Marysville, Yuba County. Most people outside of California have never heard of Marysville, and honestly, even a lot of Californians would struggle to point to it on a map.

[00:01:31]>> [music] >> It sits in Yuba County, a small river town with a population of around 12,500 people.

[00:01:37]On paper, it sounds kind of charming.

[00:01:40]A quiet little historic town, affordable homes, slower pace of life.

[00:01:44]>> [music] >> And yeah, that part is real. But what the real estate listings won't tell you is what comes along with those cheap prices. [music] Marysville has a crime problem that is completely out of proportion to its size. For a town this small, the violent [music] crime and property crime rates consistently rank above the California state average, which is already not a low bar to clear.

[00:02:06]Burglaries, vehicle thefts, and street-level crime have made many neighborhoods feel unsafe, and residents who've been there for years will tell you that things have gotten noticeably worse, not better.

[00:02:17]The economy is another issue. There are not a lot of job options in Marysville itself. Most people who live there are either commuting a long way to find decent work or just scraping by on limited local options.

[00:02:29]And when a town doesn't have jobs, it doesn't have money. And when it doesn't have money, the schools suffer, the infrastructure suffers, [music] and the services that make a community feel like home slowly start to disappear.

[00:02:41]The people who are leaving aren't dramatic about it. They're just done.

[00:02:46]They've watched their neighborhood get harder to live in year after year, and at some point the calculation changes.

[00:02:53]Staying stops making sense.

[00:02:55]The homes there may look like a bargain when you check the price tag, but what you're actually buying into is a community that's slowly hollowing out.

[00:03:04]And that's never a good investment.

[00:03:10]Number nine, Ukiah, Mendocino County.

[00:03:13]Ukiah is the kind of town that California forgot.

[00:03:17]>> [music] >> Tucked up in Mendocino County, about 2 and 1/2 hours north of San Francisco, it's surrounded by gorgeous wine country and redwood forests.

[00:03:25]>> [music] >> The scenery is legitimately beautiful, but beauty doesn't pay the bills, and in Ukiah's case, it definitely doesn't solve the very real problems dragging the town down.

[00:03:35]Here's a number that should make any potential home buyer stop and think.

[00:03:39]Ukiah is projected to see one of the steepest home value declines in all of California, with drops of up to 7.6% expected by 2026, [music] according to Zillow's forecast data.

[00:03:52]In a state where property values going up is basically considered a law of nature, that kind of decline is a serious red flag.

[00:04:00]When home values fall, equity disappears, resale becomes harder, and the whole reason most people buy property in the first place just evaporates.

[00:04:09]The local economy leans heavily on two industries, so cannabis and timber, both of which have been struggling. The cannabis market in California [music] got flooded and prices crashed. Timber work has been shrinking for decades. So, what you're left with is a town that doesn't have a lot to offer [music] someone looking for stable employment or long-term economic growth. Homelessness is visible and persistent. Services are stretched [music] thin, and younger people who grew up there have largely made the decision that there's simply more opportunity elsewhere.

[00:04:44]What's left is a slowly aging population, declining property values, and a real estate market that looks cheap until you realize it's cheap for a reason. If someone shows you a house in Ukiah at a price that seems too good to be true, ask yourself why so many locals have already decided to leave.

[00:05:05]Number eight, Hemet, Riverside County.

[00:05:08]There's an old joke that Hemet's unofficial nickname is Meth Met, and unfortunately, that nickname didn't come from nowhere. Hemet [music] is a small city in the Inland Valley of Riverside County, and while it's been trying to shake its reputation for years, the numbers keep telling the same story.

[00:05:25]Unemployment here regularly climbs as high as 15%, which is just a brutal number for a community to deal with.

[00:05:33]When that many people are out of work, the ripple effects touch everything.

[00:05:37]More poverty, less spending at local businesses, more crime, and a general feeling that the place is treading water rather than moving forward.

[00:05:48]About 15% of Hemet's population lives with disabilities, which puts even more strain on the limited social services available.

[00:05:56]These aren't problems that get fixed quickly or easily. The drug crisis in Hemet has been well documented locally for years. Law enforcement has made repeated efforts to crack down, [music] and community groups have tried hard to turn the tide, but these things take time.

[00:06:12]A lot of time. In the meantime, families who have options are exercising [music] them. Younger residents, especially, are looking at Hemet and deciding they'd rather start somewhere with better job prospects [music] and safer streets.

[00:06:26]What makes Hemet tricky from a real estate angle is that the prices can look genuinely tempting compared to the rest of Southern California. And some parts of town are perfectly fine to live in.

[00:06:37]But when you zoom out and look at the economic trajectory, the employment picture, and the crime trends, it becomes clear why so many long-time residents have quietly made their exit.

[00:06:50]Buying cheap in a town that's losing its working-age population is a bet that rarely pays off.

[00:06:56]If you're finding this video useful, go ahead and hit that like button.

[00:07:00]It genuinely helps more people find information like this before they make a decision they regret.

[00:07:10]Number seven, Barstow, San Bernardino County.

[00:07:15]Barstow sits right in the middle of the Mojave Desert, about halfway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas on Interstate 15.

[00:07:23]For most people, it's a pitstop, a place to get gas, grab some fast food, and keep driving. [music] But roughly 25,000 people actually call it home. And the data on what daily life looks like there is pretty alarming.

[00:07:35]>> [music] >> This is a town that is more dangerous than 96% of cities across the entire United States.

[00:07:42]Let that sink in for a second. The total crime rate sits at 3,401 incidents per 100,000 residents, >> [music] >> already 46% above the national average.

[00:07:55]But the violent crime rate, that's 194% higher than the [music] rest of the country. And this is a small desert town with military facilities nearby.

[00:08:05]Despite that presence, the crime numbers remain stubbornly high, fueled largely by drug trafficking and transient populations that flow through the major highways running [music] through Barstow.

[00:08:17]The economic picture isn't great, either.

[00:08:19]Barstow's identity has always been tied to its location as a crossroads, [music] a service town for travelers and a logistics hub. But that kind of economy doesn't build generational wealth for residents.

[00:08:31]Jobs are often low wage, [music] the opportunities for growth are limited, and anyone with a college degree or professional ambitions is typically going to outgrow Barstow pretty quickly.

[00:08:41]The housing might look cheap, and it is cheap relative to most of California.

[00:08:46]But cheap housing in a town with shrinking population and persistent crime is not the deal it appears to be on the surface. Property values don't grow when people are leaving. And in Barstow, people are leaving. The ones who stay often do so out of necessity rather than choice.

[00:09:03]That's not the foundation you want when you're making a long-term property investment.

[00:09:10]Number six, Vallejo, Solano County.

[00:09:14]Vallejo has a story that should serve as a warning to anyone thinking about buying property in a struggling California town. It's located in Solano County, right on the San Francisco Bay.

[00:09:26]And for a long time, it had a lot going for it. Waterfront access, proximity to one of the most economically powerful metro areas in the world, and a diverse [music] working class community with real character.

[00:09:40]Then in 2008, Vallejo became the largest city in California history to file for bankruptcy. The city was spending way more than it was bringing in and the collapse was dramatic.

[00:09:51]Years of financial mismanagement, bloated public contracts, and a shrinking tax base all collided at once.

[00:09:58]And while Vallejo has technically recovered from bankruptcy in a legal sense, >> [music] >> the scars are still very visible.

[00:10:06]The violent crime rate in Vallejo sits at around 10 incidents per 1,000 residents, well above the state average.

[00:10:14]Gun violence is a persistent [music] issue. The police department has been chronically underfunded and understaffed, which means response times are longer and patrol coverage [music] is thinner than a city of 121,000 people should have.

[00:10:29]Residents have been vocal about feeling like public safety just isn't where it needs to be. [music] And yet, the waterfront, the location, the relatively lower home prices compared to the rest of the Bay Area, these things keep attracting buyers who think they're getting a hidden gem.

[00:10:47]Some of them are right. There are pockets of Vallejo that are genuinely nice and improving, but the overall picture is of a city [music] that has been structurally struggling for a long time, where the residents who can afford to leave often do. Before buying in Vallejo, you have to be honest with yourself about what you're walking into because the charm of the location doesn't cancel out the reality of the challenges.

[00:11:14]Number five, Paradise, Butte County.

[00:11:17]Paradise is the most heartbreaking town on this list because what happened there wasn't anyone's fault in the way that crime or economic mismanagement is.

[00:11:26]In November of 2018, the Camp Fire swept through Paradise and destroyed nearly everything. Homes, businesses, schools, churches, almost all of it gone in a matter of hours. Before the fire, around 27,000 people lived there.

[00:11:40]>> [music] >> Today, the population is estimated at around 4,500.

[00:11:45]That means more than 80% of Paradise's population simply never came back.

[00:11:50]Some couldn't. Their homes were destroyed and they had no way to rebuild. Some chose not to. The trauma of losing everything and the genuine fear of it happening again was too much.

[00:12:02]And honestly, that fear isn't irrational.

[00:12:05]The same conditions that made Paradise so vulnerable in 2018 still exist. It sits in a high-risk fire zone surrounded by dry vegetation and hillside terrain >> [music] >> that lets wildfires move fast.

[00:12:18]Climate patterns aren't improving. The insurance situation makes it even more complicated. For a long time after the fire, insurers simply wouldn't write policies [music] in Paradise.

[00:12:29]The town has made progress.

[00:12:31]Fire-resistant building standards have been mandated for new construction [music] and some insurers have slowly returned.

[00:12:37]But coverage is expensive, hard to get, and the broader California insurance crisis means that even modest homes can come with staggering annual insurance costs.

[00:12:47]>> [music] >> For some people, Paradise has become a passion project. A chance to be part of rebuilding a community from the ground up.

[00:12:56]And that's genuinely admirable.

[00:12:58]But if you're thinking about buying property there as a financial investment, you need to go in with your eyes wide open.

[00:13:05]>> [music] >> The risk is real, the insurance costs are real, and the town is still working out whether the rebuild will truly stick. Most people who lost everything in 2018 chose not to gamble again.

[00:13:20]Number four, Red Bluff, Tehama County.

[00:13:24]Red Bluff is a small town of about 14,000 people in Tehama County, sitting on the Sacramento River in the northern part of California's Central Valley.

[00:13:33]It's the kind of place that looks perfectly normal on the surface. A quiet main street, some local restaurants, a historic downtown area. But look at the crime statistics and you'll understand pretty quickly why the locals who have somewhere else to go tend to take that option. For a town this size, the crime rates are genuinely startling.

[00:13:54]Red Bluff has a violent crime rate of about 1 in 102, meaning 1 in every 102 residents can expect to be a victim of violent crime in a given year. The property crime rate is even more striking, 1 in 22.

[00:14:10]That means your odds of having something stolen or your property broken into are remarkably high for what looks like a sleepy rural town.

[00:14:19]Burglaries and home invasions are common enough that residents talk about them the way people in bigger cities talk about parking tickets, cuz they're just part of life.

[00:14:28]The police force is underfunded, understaffed, and stretched thin trying to cover a town where crime has become embedded in the social fabric. [music] Part of the issue is economic. Red Bluff doesn't have a thriving job market. The opportunities are limited, wages are low, and the people most likely to bring investment and growth to a community are also the most likely to look at the situation and decide to set up somewhere else.

[00:14:54]What really makes Red Bluff a concern for property buyers is the combination of all these things together. Crime, limited economy, underfunded services, and a population that keeps shrinking as residents quietly seek better situations elsewhere.

[00:15:10]When you lose the working age population, the tax base shrinks, services get cut further, and the cycle just continues. [music] It's a slow grind that's hard to reverse without major outside investment. And Red Bluff hasn't attracted that.

[00:15:28]>> [music] >> Number three, Adelanto, San Bernardino County.

[00:15:32]Adelanto is the town that High Desert, California, quietly pretends doesn't exist. Located in San Bernardino County, it's a place most people have only ever seen from the freeway, if they've seen it at all.

[00:15:45]And there's a reason it doesn't get much attention. Adelanto has been struggling so consistently and so deeply that it's hard to find a positive spin to put on [music] it.

[00:15:55]The unemployment rate in Adelanto sits at around 16.7%.

[00:16:00]The median income is approximately $41,047 per year.

[00:16:06]In California, where the cost of living is among the highest in the nation, those numbers represent real, grinding and financial hardship for most people who live there.

[00:16:15]Families are not comfortable.

[00:16:18]They're surviving.

[00:16:19]And when surviving is the best case scenario in a community, the people who find a way out tend to take it. [music] The crime situation is bad, worse than nearby Victorville, which is already considered one of the less desirable [music] places to live in the region.

[00:16:33]The area around Adelanto has developed a reputation for being genuinely unsafe.

[00:16:39]And it's not a reputation that came out of thin [music] air.

[00:16:43]It's backed up by crime data that consistently [music] puts the town above state and national averages.

[00:16:51]There's also very little to do in Adelanto. [music] No strong commercial center, no vibrant local culture, nothing that draws people in or gives residents a reason to feel connected to the place.

[00:17:03]The city is home to a detention center.

[00:17:05]That's probably what most people outside the area know it for, if anything.

[00:17:10]That's not the kind of economic driver that builds community wealth or attracts the kind of investment that lifts property values.

[00:17:18]Here's the thing about places like Adelanto.

[00:17:21]The homes can look almost impossibly cheap, and people see that price and think they're being smart. But cheap property in a town with nearly 17% unemployment, high crime, no real economy, and a population that's been quietly heading for the exits is not a deal. It's a warning sign dressed up as an opportunity. If you want to keep learning about the California real estate market, the good parts and the parts the listings won't tell you about, subscribe [music] to this channel. We dig into this stuff so you don't have to find out the hard way.

[00:17:54]>> [music] >> Number two, Victorville, San Bernardino County.

[00:18:03]Victorville is a bigger town than most of the others on this list. Around 134,000 people, which is exactly what makes its situation so worth paying attention to.

[00:18:13]>> [music] >> This isn't a tiny rural community being left This is a substantial high desert city that has been consistently ranked among the worst places to live in California for years now.

[00:18:24]And the reasons are piling up rather than clearing up.

[00:18:27]The unemployment rate in Victorville sits at around 10.3%, which is significantly above the California average and well above what you'd hope to see in a community of this size.

[00:18:38]The median income of roughly $65,746 sounds [music] okay until you remember that California's cost of living is brutal.

[00:18:47]And that income level puts most families in a genuinely tight spot when it comes to housing, health care, >> [music] >> and day-to-day expenses.

[00:18:56]The crime numbers are persistently elevated. Victorville deals with gang activity, property crime, vehicle theft, and violent incidents at rates that make many residents genuinely nervous about their safety. [music] There have been ongoing efforts from local government and community organizations to address it, but the underlying economic conditions that [music] drive crime haven't meaningfully improved. So, the results have been limited.

[00:19:21]What's particularly concerning about Victorville from a property investment standpoint is the overall trajectory.

[00:19:27]The town expanded rapidly in the 2000s with lots of new housing developments built on the promise that the high desert was an affordable alternative to the LA Basin. And for a while, people bought into it, literally. [music] Then the 2008 housing crisis hit and Victorville got absolutely crushed. Home values collapsed. [music] Foreclosures were everywhere.

[00:19:50]The recovery has been slow and uneven, and the fundamentals that created those problems, >> [music] >> over-dependence on commuters, limited local employment, distance from major economic centers, haven't been solved.

[00:20:02]People who bought in Victorville expecting steady appreciation have often been disappointed. And the ones who've been there long enough to remember the crash are increasingly [music] asking themselves whether this is a place they want to stay long-term.

[00:20:16]Many of them are answering no and acting on [music] it. The moving trucks heading out of Victorville toward Nevada and Arizona are not an accident. They're a pattern.

[00:20:29]Number one, Clearlake, Lake County.

[00:20:31]And here we are, the number one town on this list. And if you've never heard of Clearlake before, that's actually part of the problem.

[00:20:39]It's a small city of about 16,500 people in Lake County, sitting on the shores of California's largest natural freshwater lake.

[00:20:48]If you saw a photo of the lake on a clear day, you might think it looked genuinely beautiful.

[00:20:54]And there was a time, [music] decades ago, when Clearlake was a real tourist destination. You know, people came for the fishing, the water, the pace of life.

[00:21:01]>> [music] >> Locals were proud of it. That version of Clearlake is largely gone. Today, Clearlake holds the grim distinction of being one of the most dangerous cities in the United States for its size.

[00:21:13]The violent crime rate is 128.8% higher than the national average.

[00:21:19]Property crime is 8.7% higher than average. The poverty rate is 29.4% nearly double the national figure.

[00:21:28]Unemployment sits at around 16.9% A former school teacher who spent 32 years educating children in Clear Lake described the county as having the highest arrest rate in California and the worst health [music] outcomes and said she felt terrible for the children she taught because so many of them were born into poverty with a very little chance of breaking the cycle.

[00:21:51]Those words hit hard because that's not just a statistic.

[00:21:55]That's a generation of kids growing up in conditions that make it very difficult to build a better life.

[00:22:01]The city government is financially struggling, too.

[00:22:04]For the 2024 to 25 fiscal year, projected revenues were $43.2 million million.

[00:22:16]That's a massive gap and it's being bridged by grants rather than real economic growth.

[00:22:22]>> [music] >> There have been controversies, mismanagement of federal funds, legal setbacks on development projects, and a chronic inability to attract investment that could actually change the town's trajectory.

[00:22:35]The lake itself, the one thing that should be Clear Lake's greatest asset, has become a liability.

[00:22:42]Harmful toxic algae blooms in the summer make the water unsafe. [music] The smell alone drives people away during the months when tourism should be at its peak.

[00:22:52]The very thing that put Clear Lake on the map has turned into a seasonal health hazard. Long-time residents describe watching a once thriving community get laid to waste.

[00:23:03]More like People who grew up there, who have genuine love for the place and real memories tied to it, are the ones saying, "Don't come here. Don't buy here. If you're not already rooted in Clear Lake, there is no good reason to plant new roots there [music] right now.

[00:23:19]And that might be the most powerful warning you can get. Not from a chart or a crime statistic, but from the people who actually lived it, loved it, and still chose to leave.

[00:23:29]When the locals themselves are the ones telling you not to buy, it's probably time to listen. If this video saved you from making a costly mistake, or if it just opened your eyes to the reality behind California real estate headlines, share it with someone who needs to see it.

[00:23:45]A friend who's thinking about moving there, a family member shopping for investment property, anyone who's been scrolling through California listings dreaming about that golden state life.

[00:23:56]The dream is real in some places, but in others, the people who know best have already packed up and moved on.

[00:24:02]>> [music] >> And that's information worth having before you sign anything.