LAS VEGAS, Nev. (FOX5) – Las Vegas is a top destination for Californians, and while that’s no surprise, the latest migration numbers are eye-popping.
Of the roughly 4,000 people who moved to Las Vegas in October, most of them came from Los Angeles, according to real estate brokerage Redfin.
“I recently took a position with a tech company that deals in turf grass sports field management,” Alex Opgenorth, who’s moving to Las Vegas in January after spending three years in Los Angeles, told FOX5 Thursday. “Las Vegas is just a really good central location for the southwest region that I’m going to be covering.”
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau, which tracks state-to-state migration, backs up the idea behind an increasing tide of Californians moving to Nevada.
Of the people moving out of California, about 7% settle in Nevada. The share of Californians moving to Nevada out of all in-state migrators to the Silver State is a whopping 40%.
A big incentive to make that move is that it’s a lot less expensive to live in Las Vegas.
“Cost of living in Los Angeles kind of got to a point where it was hard to justify staying there,” Opgenorth said. “So I started to look elsewhere.”
Redfin’s numbers show the average cost for a home in Las Vegas is about half as much as a home in Los Angeles.
The ease of getting back home to Wisconsin, where Opgenorth is originally from, was another factor.
“Actually, moving to Las Vegas is going to make it easier for me to get back to Wisconsin and see family,” he explained. “There are direct flights out of Las Vegas, whereas LAX didn’t have those. So that’s a huge plus for me.”
Arts and entertainment were also big attractors for Opgenorth, but the surrounding landscape was what ultimately sold him on the area.
“Really, the big thing that’s attractive to me in Las Vegas is the outdoor community,” he explained. “I’m very involved with backpacking, camping, hiking, rock climbing.”
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