More Americans leaving California to move to Mexico, amid inflation and soaring home prices

To Americans leaving California, Mexico has become an attractive option – according to a recent report.

Though a high percentage of the 360,000 Californians who migrated from the West Coast went to such states as Arizona, Texas, Florida and Washington, real estate professionals in Mexico say that "at least half" of the U.S. ex-pats moving across the southern border are from California.

"Suddenly the cost of taxes, the crime rates, the politics, all the things that people are unhappy with in California are are coming down to Mexico," said Darrell Graham of the Baja123 Real Estate Group.

The median price of a California home in 2021 was just under $800,000, which only one quarter of the state's population could afford. The state consistently ranks as one of the most expensive in which to live – frequently coming in second, just behind Hawaii. With inflation soaring and the cost of gas skyrocketing – to as much as $7-$8 per gallon in some parts of California – those numbers are not looking likely to change any time soon.

Roughly 800,000 Americans now live in Mexico, most of them Mexican-Americans who shift residences between the two countries. But now, Americans with no concrete connection to Mexico are moving for financial reasons and embracing what is considered a slower pace of life. Some critics of the trend say that Americans with U.S. dollars to shell out are gentrifying parts of Mexico and pricing out locals. 

"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 Ariel Ruiz Soto, a policy analyst at the Migration Policy institute.