Prosper resident and real estate agent Marie Bailey knew when she created her “Move to Texas from California!” Facebook page last year that she’d catch grief from local folks. But she doesn’t shy away from her page’s mission, which proudly reads, “Welcome to the movement.”

“These people are going to move here either way,” Bailey told me earlier this week. “I’m not convincing them to come here. I’m just helping them be smart about it.”

The native Californian has facts on her side: The Texas Realtors’ most recent report shows more than 63,000 people moved to the state in 2017 from California. That’s about double the influx from Florida, the next closest state. From 2012 to 2016, an average of 8,300 Californians relocated to the Dallas-Fort Worth region each year, according to a NerdWallet analysis released in April.

But those same numbers stoke the “Don’t California My Texas” backlash brewing in North Texas, primarily among long-timers already riled up about skyrocketing growth in their once-sleepy communities. From their seat at the local coffee shop — or more likely, on their social media platforms — they lambaste what they label as incoming West Coast liberals likely to destroy everything they love about the Lone Star State.

Earlier this month, a KERA Radio report about the California migration, which referenced Bailey's by-invitation "Move to Texas from California!" Facebook page, again sent the outrage meter through suburban roofs across North Texas.

Scott and Marie Bailey, with their daughter Alexandra, in front of their home at Windsong Ranch in Prosper on Tuesday, They moved in just two weeks ago. (Vernon Bryant / Staff Photographer)

But here’s what the “liberal Californians, go home” crowd misses: The vast majority of West Coast dwellers who make up Bailey’s more than 11,500 Facebook followers lean conservative.

And after spending a few days perusing Bailey's page, I’d say this comment best sums up its audience: “We fell in love with Texas immediately ... we’re conservative Christians who love God, country, freedom, family, gun rights and barbeque.”

Bailey said cost of living and taxes are hot buttons for commenters, but so are gridlocked roads, the homeless and illegal immigration.

The Realtor welcomes people of all political stripes onto her page — after all, she’s in this to make money. And she and her husband, Scott, identify as libertarian.

The political climate in Prosper and Texas suits the Baileys. “The standard in California, especially in Los Angeles, is very liberal, and we didn’t feel comfortable even sharing that we were libertarian,” Marie told me.

Bailey said she hears the “Don’t California my Texas” battle cry from both ends of the political spectrum. She also talks to both conservative and liberal Golden Staters who want to relocate for many of the same financial and quality of life reasons.

The Bailey family lives just across the street from the Crystal Lagoon, which is just about to open at Windsong Ranch in Prosper. (Scott Bailey)

“Everyone in California is nervous about taxes and prices,” Marie said. “We became much more calm when we came here. You are in a constant rat race in California to afford it.”

Scott and Marie both had dreamed of a life in Texas before they even met and, during their first date 13 years ago, they discussed relocating. Their breakup with California came in the mail: what they considered an exorbitant car registration fee. Bailey recalled telling her husband, "We better do it now, or we are never going to do it."

In July 2017, they made the move after selling their 1950s-era 1,500-square-foot Orange County house for $800,000. With that nest egg, the Baileys built a two-story, five-bedroom, 4,890-square-foot dream home in Prosper. “My husband, he went a little nuts with the big house,” Marie said.

Scott, an IT professional and gun enthusiast, is a bit sheepish about the house, but maintains that they didn’t come for that reason as much as “for the people, the culture, the small-town feel, and the great schools.”

Scott, Marie and their young daughter Alexandra moved into their new home two weeks ago, just across the street from the-first-in-North-Texas Crystal Lagoon water park, which is about to open in their resort-like Windsong Ranch neighborhood.

Beyond such amenities, Marie’s perpetually changing Facebook page aims to help aspiring transplants know what real life in North Texas looks like — the malls, the nail salons, the Walmarts, produce prices in the grocery stores.

The page buzzes with postings from West Coast residents — some wistfully looking east, others counting down the days until the moving truck arrives and the luckiest posing for the requisite family photo at one of the state’s “Welcome to Texas” signs.

Practical concerns also are a big part of the conversation on Bailey’s Facebook page, which she started in January 2018: Is the tick problem bad? What about snakes and fire ants? Are people with skills in steel and iron work likely to find jobs? How do you acquire Texas teacher certification? Which parts of the state allow you to shoot your gun in the backyard? (My favorite answer: Oklahoma.)

Commenters are often funny, if harsh:

“Thank goodness, people still want to live in California. I need someone to buy my overpriced home.”

“Get the CA plates off your car as fast as possible,” one transplant advises. Another responds: “No, people here say own it. At least you were smart enough to get out.”

“After a while, when people talk to you out of the blue, you finally realize you aren’t about to be robbed.”

One of the couples whom Bailey has helped relocate to Texas is Gabrielle and Michael Hall. To afford to live in Orange County, which they had called home their entire lives, they rented a single room in another family’s house.

Gabrielle said Texas offered good job opportunities, affordable homes, family values and a relaxing, almost rural, lifestyle. “The values that Texans hold are the ones we want to uphold,” she said. “We were raised in Christian and Republican household that honored Second Amendment rights.”

They closed on their house in the Savannah community in Aubrey on the last day of 2018. She now works with special needs children, and her husband works for Lowe’s.

One of the many recent online discussions about the Cali-to-Texas migration took place on the Frisco Politics Facebook page, which aims to be a virtual community square for local issues.

Dawn Sample, one of the page’s moderators and a native Californian herself, said that Cali-to-Texas migration is among the most contentious issues her group has debated. She and the other informal leaders of the page try to limit the name-calling and attacking, but it’s not easy.

Sample describes herself as a moderate who leans Democratic, but she assesses the newcomers similarly to the libertarian Baileys. Many of the people arriving in North Texas are Republicans from Orange County — “and they are excited about living in a red state.”

Nonetheless, growth — especially from California — “upsets a lot of the people on the page who are still worried that Texas might become less red,” Sample said.

Sample and her husband at the time, who was originally from North Texas, moved to Frisco more than nine years ago from the pricey Santa Monica area. For years they had visited family here and over time she said she began to realize, “Are you kidding me? You get all this for this price? You can’t even buy a garage for that in LA.”

The cost of living was a huge draw for Sample, and she felt sure Frisco was the ideal place to raise a family. Now the mother of two young children, she hasn’t been disappointed.

The annual neighborhood barbecues and picnics and moms’ nights out “are just so different from California, which is so transient,” Sample said. “Here people get settled and want to plant their roots.”