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Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

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331–340 of 694 posts

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Portland. A house down the street was purchased for 180k 2 years ago and recently sold for 520k. And that isn't some outlier. It seems all anyone wants to talk about is how quickly home prices have inflated.

Can confirm. I both recently sold my home, and used to be a licensed real estate appraiser before switching to Software Dev. Our house in the not-super-desirable area of NE Portland was worth ~$265k when we looked at the data in late February/March of this year (strong data supporting that number). When we finally put it on the market in the beginning of May, it sold in 1 day, with multiple offers, for a sales price…

We bought a small one-bedroom condo in downtown PDX for my brother to live in ~3 years ago b/c it seemed like a better investment than random stocks/ETFs. He lived there for a year, and we rented it part-time for another four months.

Purchase price was $145k. Sale price (after only 16 months) was $190k.

We used to proceeds from that sale to buy a two-bedroom house for my parents move into for their retirement. Paid $250k last October; recent sales in the neighborhood suggest it's worth $310-325k now.

So yeah, agreed re: bonkers Portland housing price inflation.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4k? The usual fundie lunatic number is 6k. Oh, well, Sumer don't real, I suppose.

Probably just a reference mismatch: instead of the age of the universe, they might've meant its birth/inception around ~4k B.C. (E.).

Hey when you're off by 7 orders of magnitude it doesn't matter so much!

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#333
post #16

Most of the bay area employees are divided into 3 categories from anecdotal experience: young rockstars that are willing to live in relative squalor for a chance to prove themselves, vested and moneyed elites (CEO's, presidents, VC funded overlords) who are so out of touch with the average employee its best they not show up to the office that frequently, and H1B visa recipients that endure the soul-crushing San Jose…

Why didnt a similar issue arise with housing during the first SV gold rush (Intel, Fairchild, etc)?

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#334
post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fairly early in my career at a company ( 80-10-10 mortgage on a 1mil home is only 100k down. And the monthly payments split by 2 people (aka a couple) is ~2k / person / month. That's 4k/month all in once you include the tax rebates.

100K down but the average salaried offer appears to be 140K? 140K, 40% for taxes, leaves with 84K, 3K a month for housing (assuming you don't want to shack up with some rando Craigslist'er), leaves 48K. Another 20K for food and booze, and you're left with 28K.

Where did you get 3k a month for housing?? Remember, this is an 80-10-10 loan which means you have two loans. I have a 80-10-10 loan for a roughly $900k house and the first mortgage is $3400/mth (30 year fixed at 4.15%) and the second loan is $600/mth (same but around 6% interest). $4000/mth just for the mortgages, property tax is about 12k for the year, which means you pay $5000/mth on housing. For reference, this is San Jose.

So with your estimate, you're actually left with $4k saved for the year..

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#335

38, two kids and a wife. Have been living in a 900SQ/FT apt, I don't know how much longer I can take this before rage quitting and relocating somewhere else (don't know where). The sad part, as a ethnic-minority, I have just found our community for my kids, etc. It would be really tragic if I have to tear my kids away from that. Don't get me wrong, my daily 30 minute commute on BART isn't the worst. The worst part is…

As someone who's originally from California (not the Bay Area, though), let me tell you this: the cost of living, for what you get, is astronomically high compared to other places. Here in North Texas, I make around 100k/yr, and due to cost of living I can squirrel a lot of that away. We have no state income tax, and our property tax, while high, isn't nearly as high as California's (and will vary depending upon whic…

I have lived in Texas. It absolutely sucks in many ways. No real cities (yes, I have been to Austin, doesn't count). Nothing compared to California when it comes to recreation, vacations, day trips, road trips etc. Acceptance of LGBT lifestyles. Very church oriented (I am a non believer). Low salaries, tech opportunities in Dallas and Houston are not comparable to the Bay.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#336
I'm under thirty and bought a place in San Francisco this year using my own savings from my paychecks. No, I'm not being crushed by my mortgage either. It's definitely achievable, just need to work hard and save your money. Costs are higher here but wages are almost much higher than anywhere else so it's not as terrible as it seems. The Mercury News publishes this same article every 5 years despite home prices continuing to push higher over the long-term.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I wish more would come to Phoenix and drive up our real estate prices more. I left California right before the last housing bubble burst to take advantage of the real estate arbitrage. I'd love to do it again.

There are no hard rules, but very few of my non-white friends are OK with Phoenix or most other red states. AZ especially given the papers-please laws employed 'randomly' on brown people. Besides jobs, California offers open minds and much a much friendlier atmosphere for brown people.

That's a mighty broad brush you're painting all your brown friends with.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#338

38, two kids and a wife. Have been living in a 900SQ/FT apt, I don't know how much longer I can take this before rage quitting and relocating somewhere else (don't know where). The sad part, as a ethnic-minority, I have just found our community for my kids, etc. It would be really tragic if I have to tear my kids away from that. Don't get me wrong, my daily 30 minute commute on BART isn't the worst. The worst part is…

Why not switch to remoting? At that salary you are probably quite senior in your organization.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#339
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll go to cities like Denver and Austin and promptly get to work turning them into the only thing they know, SV.

Live in Denver. This is a little too real. There's a very real irony to the people that move here that "hate the bay" then act, vote, and do everything in their power to make it exactly like SF.

Have to agree. I've lived here just over 11 years now and watching the rate things have changed and how fast people are moving here is insane. Funny I moved here from the middle of nowhere and now it is turning into one of THE hot places to move to. Just glad I bought my house back in 09 before shit got stupid...

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#340
post #125
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get out, man. The region isn't trying to help people like you, with families, it's trying to help the entrenched who bought 20 years ago. You may make less money in terms of income in most other cities, but your retirement savings will grow a lot faster regardless. I work on a traveling/remote team. One of my teammates lives in Chattanooga. His 3 bedroom house with I think 2 or 3 aces of land put him back a whopping…

Lots of places like this. Check out this 3-bedroom with front porch, backyard, for $70,000 in Iowa: https://www.zillow.com/homes/for_sale/IA/pmf,pf_pt/87001013_...

Ugh, look at the school ratings on that house, though. :-(

Not that there aren't a lot of places in the country with good schools and affordable housing prices, but for a lot of people with kids schools matter as much or more than housing prices.

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