Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

wolframalpha.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 76 posts

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#41

Post by _delirium »

dylanz wrote: post #39

Weather. I'm a Californian who grew up in a "sunny" California city, and I've been living in Seattle for the last year. I've also spent a lot of time in San Francisco in my lifetime. I, miss, the, sun. Every time I go back to California and visit family/friends, I start to realize how depressed I am up in the Pacific North West. I've had more that one person recommend that I take Vitamin D supplements, which is suppo…

Here's some data, fwiw: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/pctposrank.tx...

Looks like SF is about 66% sunny, while Seattle is 43%. I imagine the bigger contrast is Seattle vs. Silicon Valley or East Bay, though, since SF itself isn't all that sunny (especially the western parts; I'd be surprised if the Sunset District were any sunnier than Seattle).

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#42

Post by ahi »

RK wrote: post #31
asnyder wrote: post #27

Compare to New York, http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+fra... . Amazing how much more expensive living in New York is.

I've been thinking about moving to Houston. Imaging the difference if you had been in NYC: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+new+yor...

But then you'd be in Houston. NYC is expensive because people want to live there.

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#43

Post by adolph »

RK wrote: post #31
asnyder wrote: post #27

Compare to New York, http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+san+fra... . Amazing how much more expensive living in New York is.

I've been thinking about moving to Houston. Imaging the difference if you had been in NYC: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+new+yor...

I did the comp of Houston to San Francisco: 20 degrees over 4 months makes a big difference! I'm glad I like to sweat.

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#44

Post by philwelch »

dylanz wrote: post #39

Weather. I'm a Californian who grew up in a "sunny" California city, and I've been living in Seattle for the last year. I've also spent a lot of time in San Francisco in my lifetime. I, miss, the, sun. Every time I go back to California and visit family/friends, I start to realize how depressed I am up in the Pacific North West. I've had more that one person recommend that I take Vitamin D supplements, which is suppo…

Living in various places in Washington, whenever there is a sunny day, I don't want to work. I just want to go outside all day because I haven't had a sunny day in weeks and won't have another one for weeks either. In eastern Washington summers though, it stays sunny for days or weeks, and I get over it. (Though working in a dark cubicle across the room from the nearest window all summer was depressing.)

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#45

Post by phr »

dylanz wrote: post #39

Weather. I'm a Californian who grew up in a "sunny" California city, and I've been living in Seattle for the last year. I've also spent a lot of time in San Francisco in my lifetime. I, miss, the, sun. Every time I go back to California and visit family/friends, I start to realize how depressed I am up in the Pacific North West. I've had more that one person recommend that I take Vitamin D supplements, which is suppo…

Take a weekend and check out Central or Eastern Washington. Lots of sun here, though not much of a tech startup scene.

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#46

Post by nostrademons »

dylanz wrote: post #39

Weather. I'm a Californian who grew up in a "sunny" California city, and I've been living in Seattle for the last year. I've also spent a lot of time in San Francisco in my lifetime. I, miss, the, sun. Every time I go back to California and visit family/friends, I start to realize how depressed I am up in the Pacific North West. I've had more that one person recommend that I take Vitamin D supplements, which is suppo…

I've had a coworker who used to work at Microsoft say the same thing. She liked Seattle, but when it came down to not seeing the sun from Nov-Mar in Seattle vs. not seeing a cloud in the sky from May-Oct in Silicon Valley, it was a pretty easy choice.

I'm curious how both compare to Portland, which has been a popular destination for burnt-out Bay Area hackers of late. I've heard it's somewhere in-between. The one time I visited it was nice and sunny, but then again, it was August.

I'm also wondering how they compare to the east coast. I was born & raised in the Boston area, which has a reputation for terrible weather. But Boston is highly seasonal: you get to May, when you have wonderful 70-degrees sunny days, and think "This is what I shoveled all winter for." I almost think that's nicer than the Bay Area, where you get inured to the nice weather after a while and start to take it for granted.

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#47

Post by squidbot »

dylanz wrote: post #39

Weather. I'm a Californian who grew up in a "sunny" California city, and I've been living in Seattle for the last year. I've also spent a lot of time in San Francisco in my lifetime. I, miss, the, sun. Every time I go back to California and visit family/friends, I start to realize how depressed I am up in the Pacific North West. I've had more that one person recommend that I take Vitamin D supplements, which is suppo…

I grew up in Berkeley and lived in the Bay Area until I was 27. I moved to Seattle 13 years ago and have no plans to return. I don't miss the weather at all, in fact I enjoy the generally cooler summer and actually having some variation (I lived in Boston for a year and actually like having more defined seasons, but the cold and heat did get to me.)

Anyway, I can't ever see myself moving back to CA. The cost of living is definitely better, I find people much less self absorbed up here, and I love the scenery. The latter is probably the biggest factor, it's so incredibly beautiful up here I couldn't bear to leave the trees, mountains and islands.

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#48

Post by MartinCron »

_delirium wrote: post #41
dylanz wrote: post #39

Weather. I'm a Californian who grew up in a "sunny" California city, and I've been living in Seattle for the last year. I've also spent a lot of time in San Francisco in my lifetime. I, miss, the, sun. Every time I go back to California and visit family/friends, I start to realize how depressed I am up in the Pacific North West. I've had more that one person recommend that I take Vitamin D supplements, which is suppo…

Here's some data, fwiw: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/online/ccd/pctposrank.tx... Looks like SF is about 66% sunny, while Seattle is 43%. I imagine the bigger contrast is Seattle vs. Silicon Valley or East Bay, though, since SF itself isn't all that sunny (especially the western parts; I'd be surprised if the Sunset District were any sunnier than Seattle).

That chart doesn't take into account the difference in latitude, it gets dark pretty early up here in Seattle, and while it stays light later in the summer, it is more than some people can bear.

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#49

Post by natrius »

ahi wrote: post #42
RK wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been thinking about moving to Houston. Imaging the difference if you had been in NYC: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=relocating+from+new+yor...

But then you'd be in Houston. NYC is expensive because people want to live there.

If you only look at the central part of the city instead of the entire sprawling metro area, Houston isn't so bad.

Re: Relocating from San Francisco to Seattle: cost comparison

#50

Post by tzs »

gvb wrote: post #15
tzs wrote: post #11

OK, Wolfram Alpha kicks ass. Here's the most interesting part: | San Francisco, California | Seattle, Washington total sales tax rate | 9.5% | 9.5% When people from California tell me it must be nice to live in a state like Washington, that doesn't have a state income tax, I like to torture them by pointing out that the lack of a state income tax is made up for by a high sales tax. Then they ask what the sales tax is…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_State... "At 8.25%, California has the highest state sales tax, which can total up to 10.75% with local sales tax included." "Washington has a 6.5% statewide sales tax." What am I missing???

The point is that although our sales tax is high in Washington, partly because we do not have in income tax, it's still not as high as California, which DOES have an income tax--and a pretty hefty income tax at that.

Hence when we tell Californians that not having an income tax is not as great as it sounds because it means we pay an outrageously high sales tax, and then they realize that our outrageously high sales tax is lower than theirs, it is funny.

No ones pays as low as 6.5% here, though, because there are county and local taxes. The state is divided into a bunch of small regions for tax purposes (about 2.6 million locations), roughly corresponding to zip+5 regions, not not exactly. I've got a database giving the rate in each of these locations.

Checking that database, the minimum actual sales tax is 7%, the maximum is 9.5%, and the average (giving equal weight to each location) is 8.6%.

Here are all the rates, and how many locations have each rate:

  +---------+----------+
  | rate    | count(*) |
  +---------+----------+
  | 0.07000 |    22526 |
  | 0.07500 |    12404 |
  | 0.07600 |    38365 |
  | 0.07700 |   172606 |
  | 0.07800 |   258871 |
  | 0.07900 |   174886 |
  | 0.08000 |    65948 |
  | 0.08100 |   118239 |
  | 0.08200 |   148568 |
  | 0.08300 |    43973 |
  | 0.08400 |   115138 |
  | 0.08500 |   131129 |
  | 0.08600 |   224180 |
  | 0.08700 |   210720 |
  | 0.09200 |    41020 |
  | 0.09300 |   282441 |
  | 0.09500 |   622649 |
  +---------+----------+
Post reply on HN