> California made it illegal to charge the real risk adjusted price for insurance

I'd like to know more about this. Do you have a reference?

California is a great example of direct democracy being a terrible idea in most cases.

California is a great example of being terrible in most cases.

No, it’s a great example of demographics is destiny. It’s filled with old rich people who struck gold (prop 13, tech, show biz etc..).

But also the most beautiful state, if you get off on that sort of thing.

I think there was another HN thread the other day saying this is how CA can depopulate the risk-prone regions - CA refuses real risk pricing yet carriers refuse uncovered risk, so high risk areas become depopulated as they can't be insured, and thus, not in compliance with loan requirements.

Once this is accomplished (as ugly as it might be for the residents) then you can possibly do some forest management and fire control.

This same thing is playing out in FL, but over there the insurance commission isn't as stringent so insurers are just flat out not paying claims.

How does that actually get people to stop living there?

Suppose you can't get insurance and you can't get a mortgage without insurance. The house still exists. Its value will crash. But having crashed, now someone can afford to buy it without a loan. Meanwhile there is still a massive housing shortage, so somebody will.

And that's the thing that caused this, and the only way out of it. You have to build enough housing in the areas that aren't in the direct path of wildfires that nobody is being forced by those high prices into the housing that is.

A house without any neighbors, in a bankrupt city or unincorporated area that's also a food desert sounds like a non-starter to 99% of the people on the plant.

Meanwhile CA also recently revamped how local regulators are allowed to regulate things like more duplexes and multiplexes in all residential areas.

But the neighboring houses are still there too, and as long as people live there, so will there be grocery stores etc.