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Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

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Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#201

Post by crusso »

monksy wrote: post #162
mjfern wrote: post #117

I'm in Raleigh/Durham, NC. You have great universities here (UNC, Duke, NC State, etc.), nice weather with 4 seasons, blossoming startup culture, Research Triangle Park with Red Hat, SAS, and a variety of other big tech companies with a significant presence, and relatively inexpensive housing! I moved here 3 years ago from the Bay area for quality of life reasons. It's worth a serious look. :)

> You have great universities here (UNC, Duke, NC State, etc.), That information is only important if the individual has kids, and is within 2+ years of going to either UNC or NCState. (Also, assumes that they'll get in)

Meh, you say "within 2+ years", but I've learned the hard way that you have to think further ahead than that. I'd say that by the time my eldest turned 12, it was way too late to think about moving short of a job crisis situation. They have friends and track records with a ballet school, a softball team, etc.

Whenever I even halfway get the itch to move and propose it to the family, I am heartily disabused of the notion.

Luckily, I'm in Atlanta which is a fairly good all-around place to be: weather isn't too extreme, healthy tech scene, convenient to some good schools, good in-state lottery-funded scholarships, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#202

Post by whitegrape »

grimberg wrote: post #149
bkjelden wrote: post #25

Seattle's housing costs are definitely rising but Washington's lack of an income tax is a boon for software engineers. Also, many of the big players in tech will pay within 10-20% of their bay area total comp packages in Seattle, so your take home pay might be almost the same, but of course your dollar is going to go a lot further. I ran some numbers comparing Seattle, Denver, and Minneapolis, and found the descendin…

They say Seattle is like a beautiful women (or man) who is sick 9 months of the year.

They say that just to keep the bastards out.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#203

Post by cscharenberg »

Salt Lake City. Tons of jobs with expanding companies, both big old ones and hungry new ones. Beautiful scenery, low cost of living, pleasant people.

I just moved here 4 months ago and it's great. If you like hiking, national parks, outdoorsy stuff, Utah is almost unmatched for beauty and nice climate.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#204

Post by rpedela »

shostack wrote: post #141
rrival wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's kidding... You must not live in CO? It's the line out here. Anti-town building, too many people are moving here already because it's so great, so spread the word that it's buried in snow, full of potheads and hippies. These are not the towns your looking for. Move along, move along.

What are the best areas to live in these days if you want a smallish downtown in walking distance and a decent commute to the most job options? I hear Boulder home prices rival the Bay (while pay does not), but not sure about the surrounding areas.

Boulder city home prices are ridiculous however the surrounding area (Louisville, Broomfield, etc) is more reasonable especially when compared to the Bay Area. However home prices along US-36 (main corridor between Boulder and Denver) are starting to increase rapidly.

In my experience, software engineering pay is plenty if you factor in the cheaper cost of living compared to Bay Area.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#206

Post by swozey »

edwhitesell wrote: post #148
swozey wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Austin stumbles and our market isn't based on Oil/Banking like Houston/Dallas then I'm not sure that bodes very well for either of those cities, unfortunately. I think our failure if any will be due to poor public transportation and traffic.

> If Austin stumbles and our market isn't based on Oil/Banking like Houston/Dallas then I'm not sure that bodes very well for either of those cities, unfortunately. Dallas is not based on Oil/Banking. Tech is leading (depending on where you look) [0]. Then there are the lists of companies with headquarters in Dallas [1]. And the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex [2]. Those lists also don't include State Farm (8,000 employe…

The majority of the 18, including its #1 (which is #2 on the overall list), Fortune 500s in DFW are Energy/Oil (Exxon #1). There's definitely TI and a bunch of Airlines and Healthcare (which I totally forgot about). I'm not putting down Dallas, I just hope it doesn't get really hurt by whats going on in with energy/oil.

Houston is in a pretty scary position right now. When I drive through it, it's absolutely insane how much development they've had over the last 5 years that are Oil/Energy companies that you can see right off the highway.

Maybe you don't consider F500 the market, not sure that I do, but those companies do employ a huge number of people. Austin only has HQs for 2, Dell (44) and Whole Foods (264) but Austin is a very different market. People absolutely loathe large chains here.

2 Exxon Mobil (Irving) * 12 AT&T (Dallas) 112 American Airlines Group (Fort Worth) 124 Fluor Corporation (Irving) 130 Kimberly-Clark (Irving) 143 HollyFrontier (Dallas) * 146 J.C. Penney (Plano) 175 Texas Instruments (Dallas) 203 Dean Foods (Dallas) 205 Southwest Airlines (Dallas) 262 GameStop (Grapevine) 266 Tenet Healthcare (Dallas) 292 Energy Future Holdings (Dallas) * 351 Energy Transfer Equity (Dallas) * 361 Commercial Metals (Irving) 341 Affiliated Computer Services (Dallas) 388 Celanese (Dallas) 404 Dr Pepper Snapple Group (Plano) 473 Atmos Energy (Dallas) * 492 RadioShack (Fort Worth) 493 Wistron (McKinney)

Houston

4 Phillips 66 45 ConocoPhillips 64 Enterprise Products Partners 65 Sysco 77 Plains All American Pipeline 106 Halliburton 135 Baker Hughes 136 Fluor 144 National Oilwell Varco 167 Apache 174 Marathon Oil 200 Waste Management 233 EOG Resources 265 Kinder Morgan 310 Cameron International 334 KBR 343 Group 1 Automotive 344 CenterPoint Energy 381 Enbridge Energy Partners 397 Quanta Services 417 FMC Technologies 435 Targa Resources 451 MRC Global 459 Calpine 475 Spectra Energy Not known Buckeye Partners Not known Noble Energy Not known PVF Resources LLC

edit: Damn, the formatting is terrible. Sorry.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#207

Post by drblast »

shostack wrote: post #125
bkjelden wrote: post #25

Seattle's housing costs are definitely rising but Washington's lack of an income tax is a boon for software engineers. Also, many of the big players in tech will pay within 10-20% of their bay area total comp packages in Seattle, so your take home pay might be almost the same, but of course your dollar is going to go a lot further. I ran some numbers comparing Seattle, Denver, and Minneapolis, and found the descendin…

And how do you cope with the weather and lack of sun? One big draw for me about the Bay Area is the weather. I realized how important nice weather was for me to be happy, so I consider the sunshine tax a sunk cost for my mental and physical well-being.

Seattle weather is horrible. Traffic is horrible. Housing prices are rising to insane levels. Everyone is depressed.

Please don't come here.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#208

Post by AnimalMuppet »

codecamper wrote: post #151

Maybe everyone leaving should just agree to locate somewhere that isn't some major city. We can all go there & start a new tech scene. How about Wyoming? Or Montana? Utah? What I mean is we should go somewhere beautiful. Somewhere we can take walks outdoors in between coding sprints. Why walks? It's been scientifically shown that walking helps you remember things better. Also sitting too long shortens your lifespan.…

Utah already has a tech scene - not as happening as SV or even Denver, but there is one, in Orem and Salt Lake.

You've got ski resorts 45 minutes from town - or hiking, fishing, and mountain biking in the summer. The quality of snow makes most other ski places look pretty bad, too. (They call it the greatest snow on earth for a reason.) You've got pretty sane living expenses, including housing, at least compared to SV/SF. And you've got... uh...

Well, you've got a rather dominant religious culture, especially in the Orem area. (Most everywhere has coffee available in the lunch/break room. That existed in Orem, too, but in Orem, it felt like religious tolerance.) Forget smoking a joint; you can have trouble finding a stiff drink.

Oh, and if you like rain, this may not be your place. 15-20 inches a year, counting the water equivalent of snow in the winter.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#209

Post by whitegrape »

kelukelugames wrote: post #173
calbear81 wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you going for Indian and Chinese food? There's Din Tai Fung / Facing East in Bellevue and some of my old haunts in the International District are passable. Not as familiar with the Indian food scene outside of some places in East Bellevue/Redmond but you should also try Edmonds/Lynwood for Korean food.

hello fellow Cal Alum. Go bears! DTF is overpriced. Facing East is standard Taiwanese which means tons of sugar. I used to drive to Lynwood and Federal Way for Korean, but my girlfriend doesn't really eat meat so we don't eat Korean as much. The only good Indian restaurants are in Renton.

Sichuanese Cuisine in Redmond near the Sears / Overlake Fashion Plaza is the best I've had in the area. Health code violation shutdowns of the past just make it more delicious.

Re: Ask HN: Moving Out of Silicon Valley because of housing? Where to?

#210

Post by AnimalMuppet »

Apocryphon wrote: post #80
jerf wrote: post #20

As you point out, there's a lot of options; you've only really even scratched the surface. Some guidance on your interests (both professional and recreational/social), skills, and desires would be helpful. I sometimes wonder, do people think that the rule is that you have to post an Ask HN, then you're not allowed to interact? Go ahead, interact! For that matter, if you've got a similar question but you're not the OP…

Thanks for the consideration! Right now I'm mostly curious than actually planning on moving anytime soon, so I was asking for general recommendations. I'm in mobile development and I'm a single twenty-something male. I think generally any city with a mature enough software industry that has need for app developers would be acceptable. For the sort of "hacker environment", it's good if there are meetups/local dev scen…

Salt Lake City has 1, 2, and 3. 4, not so much.
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