The average County Board of Supervisor’s (BOS) annual wage in Shasta County is $54,600 per year for representing over 180,000 people, compared to Humboldt County BOS pay of $77,000+ representing 132,000 people.
According to the Humboldt Association of Realtors, the Median Household Income for Humboldt as of March 2009 was $41,328 and the average home is $264,950. Only 23% of residents in Humboldt Qualify to buy a house.
Redding's housing affordability in the first quarter reached its highest level in 10 years, a national index reported this week. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index showed that nearly two-thirds of all homes sold in the first quarter were affordable to families earning Redding's Median Household Income of $55,700. The median sales price in the first quarter (January through March) was $180,000.
Area affordability in Shasta hasn't been so high since the first quarter of 1999, when it hit 67.6 percent and the median sales price was $105,000. The area's median income 10 years ago was $37,500. At the same time in Humboldt median home sales price were at $121,420 and median wages $31,300. The affordability index was 49%.
Affordability in Redding reached its low during the second quarter of 2006, when a mere 11.3 percent of the homes sold were attainable to residents. Back then, the median price was $280,000 and the median income was $49,000. Compare that to Humboldt at a home median price of $312,333 at the same period in 2006, and the median income was $38,222. The affordability index was 12%.
What exactly does Shasta have over us? We do have a port, timber, dairy and fishing? We have agriculture lands and lots of pot growing? Where is the Humboldt County missing link? Why does Shasta seem to support 2 huge Wal-Mart’s, Home Depot and other big box chain stores? And chain restaurants? Red Lobster, Logan’s Roadhouse, In and Out Burger, Cattleman’s, Outback, Dairy Queen and the list goes on.
How come the average household in Shasta makes over $14,000 more than a family in Humboldt? And they don't even have a State University! Why do we have a 1% population growth and Shasta nearly 8%? What are your takes?
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Just off the top of my head with out thinking to much about it. The one thing I can see Redding does have is I-5.
We're pretty insular here, too. I don't think many of the stores/restaurants are something that Southern half of Humboldt would be very excited about.
hey the other Richard, they have I5and are not a shelterd community like we are..
And to top it all off we have a very small "Core" of industry
such as the County, colleges, hospitals, and many non profits who always rely on state and federal funding to survive...
Our county is a dying breed of individuals who just love to hang out, be broke, enjoy Gods country, and well---just be humboldtans...
So, are we happy---for that has always been the question...
Redding has I-5, the sac river,Lake Shasta and is within a quick drive to some amazing places.Lots of them.
Sunshine
and a great trail system!
And it's a red county.
Since the fact is that well over half of the county residents live in the greater Eureka area, I would suspect that the colleges artificially drive up housing prices and rents.
Coastal communities tend to have higher property values. Redding and Shasta are on the I-5 corridor which makes it easier for uppliers to deliver their goods.
Just hard to make sense of housing to be so much cheaper, but wages so much higher than Humboldt. And we have the Ocean, many rivers, redwood trees and Angelo's and Big Louies Pizza!
If you were from Shasta County you would know that unless you live in Redding the BOS don't represent you. Your BOS are much more "user friendly" from what I've seen. That great attitude toward business has given us terrific industries like Knauf, Wheelabrator and a Gravel Pit on the beautiful Sacramento River on the old paper mill toxic dumping site with a statement by our EDC head that "We don't consider pollution when we look for industry to bring in," and a rubber stamp from the BOS. Most days now you can't even see Mt. Shasta and many days my car is covered in a fine grit.
As for that great growth... you can have it. It has destroyed what was once a clean, relatively crime free farming and recreational community and turned it into a polluted, grid-locked cookie cutter I-5 clone city.
The wages here are poor with high unemployment, 15.4% compared to 11.6% for Humboldt, 4-2009.(http://www.calmis.ca.gov/file/lfmonth/countyur-400c.pdf) There are enough high end professional people here to raise the median income enough to reflect a much rosier picture than is reality.
The housing market should also show that every fifth house is for sale or in foreclosure with no buyer so many houses are being dumped at far below value. Also, many of the houses being bought are
by transplants moving in to take advantage of this situation with the cash from the sale of their homes from else where.
Nearly everyone I know is either out of work, experiencing some form of layoff, cutbacks, or forced early retirement.
It will be interesting to see these numbers next year, however, my experience with Shasta County has been less than forthright and they can say the cloud are cotton candy, but I will still know they are moist air.
i think it is the retired peoples that sell their hugely expensive SoCal home and move to Humboldt that drives up the price.
Fred says because it's a red county? I can show you red county's that are doing very poorly Fred. You need to get out more, you are sadly stunted in your view of the world and your little mush brain can't handle much complexity.
11:18am-Interesting that both of you posted at the same time with the same observations of transplants! And 1st 11:18am, that makes sense that the (Medical?) professionals have driven up the median household averages.
But this is one thing I just don't get: Why do the Shasta Supervisors make nearly the same as the Median Household average in Shasta? (Around $55,000) In Humboldt our Supes make nearly twice the Median Household Average! ($77,000)
Shasta doesn't have dead end laidoff losers who want to run for office because they need a paycheck.
In this state, the porrer the county the more likely to vote with the GOP. The richer your county, the more likely to vote Democrat. This hardly squares with the liberal picture of republicans sitting aroung country clubs plotting their next screwing of the poor and handicapped. I also can't wait to see the liberals blame the Republicans when they start slashing programs. It will never be a spending problem but will always be a Republican lack of compassion problem to liberals. I know, I know....if the rich only paid their share. There were 28,000returns filed by taxpayers reporting incomes of $1 million or
more in 2003. Those returns represented just one-fifth of 1 percent of California's 13.5
million taxpayers, yet their income was about 11 percent of the
total. And their taxes represented 24 percent of all the income tax paid in the state. This why we are in the position we are in.
9:18pm-You mean the Bonnie Neely manuver? Bonnie asked me for an endorsement at the Mike Thompson fund raiser. I told her I was running against her so I could not do that. I told her if she wanted me to reconsider, she would need to re-register as a Democrat. If I find out she had already done that before I asked this of her, all bets off. If she done it afterwards, I will not run against her.
Rich,
My apologies, should not have said what I said but I saw red with what my wife was called. I will try to restrain myself on here and my apologeys to YOU.
No comment, look for me in mid aug when i am there for ehs 30 year reunion and we can continue this then
Well, I noticed part of this issue deals with supervisor salaries. Have you ever looked more closely at some of the staff salaries, particularly some of the department heads and their assistants? Some of those salaries well exceed $100,000, and are more then some county department budgets?!? Check it out, it will blow your mind.
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