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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”

#181

Post by microcolonel »

kelnos wrote: post #139
Sharlin wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

800 square meters????

This is something I still don't get, even as an American. I live by myself in a 950 sq ft (~88 sq m) apartment, and that's already more space than I know what to do with. Sure, add a spouse and 2 or 3 kids and my space needs would increase, but I can't imagine needing 8-10x as much space, ever. Maybe 3x, at most 4x. I grew up in a fairly large house (I don't recall the size, but two floors, 6 bedrooms, kitchen, forma…

I know people who don't have the discipline to keep spaces open, but large open spaces can be wonderful (and easy to maintain). The tough thing is maintaining large arrays of intricate special-purpose rooms which you don't need and which are full of stuff that makes it feel small nonetheless.

Space is wonderful for doing things like dancing, hosting guests, exercise, communal/family cooking (sprouting many kilograms of chickpeas, fermenting 40+qt of kimchi).

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

#182

Post by pascalxus »

kevinburke wrote: post #111
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 P…

Everything you said is true, except one thing. You assume that the supply can increase if there's more money for rent. But, that's not entirely true. As you said, NIMBYs are blocking developments at every turn. The supply is not being allowed to increase. And by hamstringing developers with affordability requirements, that's going to decrease supply even further.

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

#184

Post by kevinburke »

coltalk wrote: post #179

I hear this sort of thing a lot and I have trouble reconciling it with my experiences. I live in SF and my total expenses (rent, food, entertainment, etc.) were ~$15,000 in 2016. I don't feel like I live a life of great deprivation. I get that the article is talking about a family of four, but even if we assume there are no economies of scale, my costs would work out to $60,000 for a family of four. I also get that I…

Among other things, childcare is wildly expensive. Throw in life insurance, and you want your kids to live in a good school district, right?

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

#185

Post by zrail »

santaclaus wrote: post #171
ryanSrich wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I dunno, developers were snapping up lots in our hood in Albina for 750, demoing them to lower the tax burden, and letting them sit empty to appreciate. Long term residents who had been renting for 30 years were getting chased out and moving to the numbers... those don't seem like great situations.

> moving to the numbers

I lived in Portland for six years and never once heard this expression and yet I know exactly what you mean.

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

#186

Post by loeg »

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.

Still not as bad as Seattle, though here the rental market has started to slow, while the house market is super hot.

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

#187

Post by mr_tristan »

And this is why tech jobs are going to continue to lead the charge to being mostly remote workers. Major tech hubs are crazy expensive, and the jobs are pretty amenable to remote work.

At some point, there's going to be another inflection point where a lot of people making comfortable upper middle-class incomes move out to, well, anywhere. Basically, someone's going to do the math, and recognize that remote workers are just as productive, and are a little cheaper then having a bunch of 20-somethings in the office physically. And the incentive for anyone who wants to have kids to work remote is just going to be really, really high.

We may also see more software engineers sticking around as engineers instead of becoming managers as well. Because the incentive to grow your income via management may be relieved.

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

#188

Post by ryandrake »

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…

I used to live in south Florida (Ft. Lauderdale) and would move back in a heartbeat if I could find steady remote work. It's great, and still relatively cheap!

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

#189

Post by kevinburke »

grandalf wrote: post #180

Why doesn't someone just buy up most of Detroit and create a massive campus with affordable Victorian homes everywhere.

No one wants to live in Detroit. Uber couldn't even convince its workforce to commute to Oakland; they backed out of a deal to move their office there a month ago.

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

#190

Post by mrweasel »

sampo wrote: post #157
mrweasel wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. In Denmark the following costs are cheaper or entirely nonexistent: Paying for health insurance (for every member of the family), saving for retirement, saving for sending kids to college, kids daycare, kids school fees, and also rent or cost of buying a house is cheaper than in t…

While you partly right, you do need to pay for at least daycare, and retirement. It varies, but around 15% of your salary should go towards retirement and even if you employer pays part of you retirement that normally include in the statistic for house hold income.

The four zip code, with the higher average income also have an average price per square meter of 7000USD, so that's of cause a little less than in the Bay Area, assume the 8000USD per square meters I saw a while back is correct.

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