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In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

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Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#81

Post by cmdrfred »

sigstoat wrote: post #49
davidw wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Boulder managed to copy a lot of the good stuff about Silicon Valley - but also seems to have copied the brutal, rampant NIMBYism https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/business/how-anti-growth-... Great place, and I understand not wanting sprawl, but... build up and in?

it's probably worse, in a sense. you can't build up in boulder because there are height restrictions on buildings.

Philadelphia used to have those. It used to be that you weren't allowed to build any taller than William Penn's hat[0]. Now it has a population of 1.56 million compared to boulders 105,112.

[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_City_Hall

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#82

Post by archeantus »

Sharlin wrote: post #30
archeantus wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We moved to Utah where the tech scene is actually quite strong, and the cost of living is significantly less. We bought an 8k sq ft house for the price of many 1,500 sq ft town homes we had been putting offers in on in California. It can be such a rat race down there, it is refreshing to remember that it doesn't have to be that way. Life exists outside of The Valley, and it happens to be a pretty darn good one (and a…

800 square meters????

Yes, I guess 8,000 sq ft translates to 743 meters :)

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#83

Post by parthdesai »

archeantus wrote: post #20
gshulegaard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, as an engineer finding myself thinking along similar lines, where did you end up moving?

We moved to Utah where the tech scene is actually quite strong, and the cost of living is significantly less. We bought an 8k sq ft house for the price of many 1,500 sq ft town homes we had been putting offers in on in California. It can be such a rat race down there, it is refreshing to remember that it doesn't have to be that way. Life exists outside of The Valley, and it happens to be a pretty darn good one (and a…

Would love to move to Utah for couple of years one day, just because of skiing.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#84

Post by nojvek »

ransom1538 wrote: post #46
archeantus wrote: post #6

Wow, this resonates with me. In 2013 my wife and I were living in the Bay Area and had just welcomed our third child into the family. I was making 105k/yr at Apple (which seemed like a ton at the time!) but I felt like I was saving very little of that. I was approached on LinkedIn to take a job with matching pay but that was fully remote. I could live anywhere I wanted in the entire country. I jumped at the chance an…

Did the exact same thing this year. Moved to Oviedo, FL from SF: 1) no state income tax, 2) public schools in my neighborhood are equivalent to a private school in sf [i] 4) weather is great 8 months out of year, 5) beaches you can swim in, 6) rent is ~1/4 of what it was in SF, 7) cuban food, 8) as a resident, kids have year round disney passes [i] http://school-ratings.com/Florida/schools/Carillon_Elementar... WARNI…

Very tempted to visit Florida

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#85

Post by ig1 »

mtkd wrote: post #66
calvinv wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed that won't make you rich in London but you can very easily buy a house outside of London or a 1-bed in London. I have friends who are on less than that and are buying in decent zone 2/3 areas. Mortgages are actually pretty cheap if you can save up the 10% deposit and live with a 10/15 min walk to a station.

but you're one child or a 1% increase in interest rates away from being in trouble

You won't get a mortgage if you're that close to struggling. Lenders will generally stress-test affordability at between 5%-6.5%

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#86

Post by santaclaus »

ryanSrich wrote: post #39
gshulegaard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, as an engineer finding myself thinking along similar lines, where did you end up moving?

Just remember that you'll want to select a city that has a decent economy and tech scene in the event that you lose your job and need to take a location dictated position. So long as you and your partner are both making 6 figures you should be able to afford any of the following cities: - Seattle - Portland - Austin - Denver

> Portland

Rents in Portland are skyrocketing (I had friends whose landlords were pulling out 30% rent increases). I went from Portland to Oakland and my rent isn't that much more.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#87

Post by kevinburke »

A lot of the unaffordability is due to the high price of housing in the area. Here are some concrete steps you can take to help lower the price of housing:

- The Brisbane City Council is deciding whether to build 4400 units of housing on 600 acres south of San Francisco, about the same number of units SF built in total last year. The Brisbane Planning Commission recommended building an office park instead. Contact them and ask them to build the housing version of the project.

- The Mountain View City Council is deciding whether to build 2000 units or 8000 units of housing next to Google. They are leaning toward the low end - 2000 units would be tough to support a grocery store or frequent transit. Contact them (or show up to their board meeting - tonight!) and ask them to build the high-housing version of the plan.

- The San Francisco Board of Supervisors is considering a plan to require 28% of all new developments to be below market rate. When you consider the unit costs to build in SF, that would make it _extremely_ difficult to justify new housing starts here. Please contact your Supervisor and ask them to oppose the Peskin/Kim Prop C plan.

- Call your CA State Assemblymember and ask them to oppose AB 915 (makes it harder to build affordable units)

- Call your CA State Assemblymember and ask them to support AB 71 (higher property taxes on second homes, money goes to affordable housing)

- Call your CA State Senator and ask them to support SB 167, which would put teeth in the state's Housing Accountability Act. (for more on this see carlaef.org)

- Call your CA State Senator and ask them to support SB 35 (would remove the ability of local government to block projects that meet certain criteria - near transit, have a high % of affordable units, use union construction labor)

- Email your VC's and C-level executives and tell them how hard it is to find housing in the area. Tell them about your awful commutes and the difficulty of finding good school districts for your kids. Ask them to get more involved politically in pro-housing causes. Ron Conway is a good example here.

NIMBY's are really well organized and things don't change unless we do something about them. All of these changes listed above will go a long way to support the development of housing in the Bay Area, which should help lower prices, and help keep families here and teachers in our neighborhoods.

https://kev.inburke.com/kevin/sf-housing-politics/

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#88

Post by bonzini »

danharaj wrote: post #57
bonzini wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That did not last for long though, maybe forty years from after the second world war till the early 80s. The model that did last for centuries had families of 8-12 people, with men working in the fields and women looking after children and grandchildren.

That's inaccurate or incomplete. Women shared a significant portion of agricultural labor throughout history and on top of that maintained the household and performed auxiliary labor.

Yes, I was simplifying a lot. The point still stands, in that except for a short period of time it has never been "one person working", because maintaining the household and looking after all the young in the extended family is a job of its own. It was not at all like having two kids, who spend half the day or more at school.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#89

Post by xweb »

ryanSrich wrote: post #39
gshulegaard wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, as an engineer finding myself thinking along similar lines, where did you end up moving?

Just remember that you'll want to select a city that has a decent economy and tech scene in the event that you lose your job and need to take a location dictated position. So long as you and your partner are both making 6 figures you should be able to afford any of the following cities: - Seattle - Portland - Austin - Denver

I would strike Seattle from this list. Just over the last couple of years, home prices are up 50% or more. It's not SF/SV prices but it's 80-90% there...unfortunately. It is, however, easier to build in Washington, so hopefully this will be a bubble and not a permanent trend.

Re: In Bay Area, six-figure salaries are “low income”

#90

Post by quietmonkey »

ransom1538 wrote: post #46
archeantus wrote: post #6

Wow, this resonates with me. In 2013 my wife and I were living in the Bay Area and had just welcomed our third child into the family. I was making 105k/yr at Apple (which seemed like a ton at the time!) but I felt like I was saving very little of that. I was approached on LinkedIn to take a job with matching pay but that was fully remote. I could live anywhere I wanted in the entire country. I jumped at the chance an…

Did the exact same thing this year. Moved to Oviedo, FL from SF: 1) no state income tax, 2) public schools in my neighborhood are equivalent to a private school in sf [i] 4) weather is great 8 months out of year, 5) beaches you can swim in, 6) rent is ~1/4 of what it was in SF, 7) cuban food, 8) as a resident, kids have year round disney passes [i] http://school-ratings.com/Florida/schools/Carillon_Elementar... WARNI…

Isn't Disney pretty much the same thing as SeaWorld these days?
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