The wildfires that ravaged portions of Los Angeles in January 2025 altered the calculations of those who had been secretly thinking about moving away for years. It was the last practical argument for some. For others, it validated a feeling they had been developing: that the city’s constant dangers were no longer just hypothetical. Since then, the luxury real estate market in a number of other states has responded, and the trend has persisted into 2026 with such volume that real estate brokers in Nevada, Texas, and Florida are now specifically monitoring California-origin purchasers as a significant market sector.
The most obvious example of this change is Mark Wahlberg. He moved to a private community in Summerlin, on the western edge of Las Vegas, after selling his Beverly Hills estate, which had been listed for $87.5 million. There is no state income tax in Nevada. The expanding entertainment infrastructure in Las Vegas is ideal for someone working in Wahlberg’s field. In addition to being a lifestyle choice, the relocation was, by most accounts, financially significant. The difference between Nevada’s zero and California’s top marginal rate is not a rounding error at his income level. Compounded over years, it’s a significant figure.
A particular type of celebrity mover is drawn to Las Vegas, one who needs to be close to entertainment and media opportunities while avoiding the tax structure associated with living in California. The city has presented itself as an approachable option, sometimes on purpose and other times by accident. It is feasible to drive the distance from Los Angeles. The connections to the airport are first-rate. Additionally, Summerlin and Henderson’s residential communities no longer feel like compromises because they have developed enough infrastructure, including restaurants, schools, and private facilities.
A different profile has been drawn to Texas. Austin’s cultural legitimacy as a place that serious creatives choose rather than settle for has been bolstered by Matthew McConaughey, who has lived there for years and been outspoken about it. It is also home to Glen Powell, whose fame has grown dramatically due to his recent success in movies. In 2020, Joe Rogan moved his podcast business to Austin, which had a quantifiable impact on real estate interest as well as the city’s overall reputation as a destination for those seeking solitude, scale, and space without the expenses of California. Elon Musk brought a completely other level of wealth and power to Texas by creating his personal residence and relocating SpaceX and Tesla’s corporate headquarters there.
Miami and the Gulf Coast of Florida have seen a different kind of migration, one that is more closely linked to sports riches, finance, and the tech money that moved to Sarasota, Naples, and Tampa during the epidemic and hasn’t quite returned. Gisele Bündchen’s purchase of a Surfside property in Miami and Tom Brady’s relocation to the Tampa area are examples of the celebrity layer of a larger demographic shift of wealthy people who decided that Florida’s climate, tax structure, and relative privacy made more sense for their situation than California.
Perhaps the most emotionally understandable choice was made by Aaron Paul. Citing the wildfires as his breaking point, he sold his Los Feliz house and relocated his family to Paris. That isn’t an optimization of taxes. That’s someone concluding that their home had changed into something they didn’t recognize. It represents something genuine about how the wildfires impacted people’s relationship with Los Angeles beyond the immediately useful, and it’s a different kind of departure.
Santa Barbara functions as a compromise: it’s close enough to Los Angeles to keep up business ties, yet it’s far enough away from the urban core’s density and obvious danger to feel like a different place. Instead of traveling across a state line, a number of individuals who have openly distanced themselves from Los Angeles have arrived there. It is difficult to determine whether that is a true alternative or a position of transition. It most likely ends up somewhere else for some people.