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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”

#111

Post by kevinburke »

pascalxus wrote: post #95

Section 8 is destroying our housing market. All these subsidies just encourage people to stay in CA/Bay area and push up the cost of housing for everyone else to unsustainable levels. Of course the solution is to have a massive increase in the supply of housing. That will never happen. The next best option is to have mass exodus of people leaving the bay area.

> Section 8 is destroying our housing market.

That's flagrantly false, and a dog whistle. If anything, the existence of Section 8 should encourage more housing supply, since there's more money for rent.

NIMBY's have an unusually large say in the approval process here, and we've been underbuilding for decades. NIMBY's are very well organized and they have huge incentives to invest tons of money in their homes due to Prop 13, and to block new housing development so existing property values keep going up. CEQA gives NIMBY's and environmental groups wide latitude to file lawsuits to block projects they don't like, and they succeed in about half the lawsuits they file. Cities prioritize office building over residential due to Prop 13.

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

#112

Post by stevenwoo »

wehadfun wrote: post #54
BadassFractal wrote: post #22

Let's set aside cost of living in the Bay for a second. Here's a completely taboo subject. At what point do we hold people accountable for their reproductive choices? You want to have 2, 4, 6 children in the most expensive slice of land in the US? Great, but please bear in mind that choice comes with real financial consequences to your lifestyle and you should not expect the state to bail you out of it.

I have mixed feelings about this. People say that state shouldn't have to pay for your kids, but the state can send your kids to war. If the state sends your kids to war and they get killed who reimburses the parent for $100K they invested in the kid?

it looks like the default death benefit for the US Army serviceman or woman is $100K. http://myarmybenefits.us.army.mil/Home/Benefit_Library/Feder...

There were additional sums added for those who died in the Iraq War, with a range from 250K to 800K that varied depending upon the rank and dependent family members. http://articles.latimes.com/2003/apr/05/news/war-benefits5

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

#113

Post by ryanSrich »

santaclaus wrote: post #86
ryanSrich wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You can still buy a house in Portland for $500k. I live here. Bought in 2015. It's more expensive in 2017, but not 100% more. Once 1000sqft houses hit a $1mm average Portland will be too expensive. Until then we're doing just fine.

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

#114

Post by mrweasel »

ShakataGaNai wrote: post #2

For a family of 4. That's the critical bit left out of the article title. 104k is low income for a family of 4, in some areas. Which makes sense when it's hard to find somewhere to live alone, in SF, even at 100k. Finding a place big enough for a family of 4 plus all the costs related to 4 humans? Not surprising in the least.

There's only four zip codes in Denmark that have a higher average income per household, and Denmark is a pretty expensive place to live.

It seems obvious to move that some tech companies would move away from San Francisco, offer lower wages, but still manage to give their employees a better deal.

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

#115

Post by freyr »

baddox wrote: post #94
ransom1538 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That sounds great, but one of the common rebuttals is that the job market (remote or otherwise) may be more challenging outside of the Bay Area.

What good is a "hot job market" that can't keep up with the housing market or cover the costs of raising a family?

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

#116

Post by mahyarm »

base698 wrote: post #98
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…

What's the power bill? I have considered doing the same but seems like you almost have to buy a house that big or live in a non-desirable area.

Another good thing about not living in the bay area is you dont have to pay pg&e rates for electricty. Us avg is 0.12/kwh while pge quickly gets up to +0.30/kwh

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

#117

Post by caseysoftware »

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…

Btw, I run https://twitter.com/SLCTechEvents which is a great way to plug in and see what's going on around Salt Lake City.

Not sure if it will be helpful to you but I hope so. :)

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

#118

Post by ryanSrich »

juliangoldsmith wrote: post #79
ryanSrich wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>So long as you and your partner are both making 6 figures That's a pretty high bar for cost of living. Here in Charlotte, NC, I make half of that, and could support two people without any difficulty.

Yeah. There's definitely a culture tax in the NW. I can freely enjoy the virtues of legal cannabis, frequent the best coffee shops in the world, and hike the glacial peaks all in the same day. To me that's worth the cost.

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

#119

Post by closeparen »

spoonie wrote: post #42
dllthomas wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ratio is probably better, but also misleads if my income isn't close to the cost of maintaining my lifestyle. If I am able to save, and I move to make 2x in a place that costs 2x, I am saving 2x as much! If I am stuck drawing down savings, and I make the opposite move, I have doubled my runway.

Yeah what's probably best is some number closer to "monthly net after taxes, rent, insurance".

If I take home $2500/mo and pay $1000/mo rent and $500/mo expenses, it takes 9 months to save a six month emergency fund.

If I take home $5000, pay $3500/mo in rent, and spend $500 on everything else, it takes 24 months to save a six month emergency fund.

Yet my monthly net is the same. Ratio matters a great deal. Maybe less so after you've established savings.

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

#120

Post by will_brown »

cylinder wrote: post #75
s3r3nity wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sidebar / off topic: highly recommend the cuban espresso in Florida if you're into coffee...blew me away when I had it for the first time, and is one of the top reasons I look forward to travelling there.

To me it's just a poorly pulled espresso with a ton of sugar...

Not sure the down votes because you just perfectly described a bad colada. But there is hope they can be delicious, it's the only coffee I drink, and I even wanted to bring Cuban coffee in a can to market cubanshot.weebly.com of course months after contacting coffee canners Starbucks came out with their doubleshot cubano which is terrible.

Basically the difference between a real/good colada and what you described is whipping and creation of a paste in the beginning before the pull.

Remain open minded

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