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$100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

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Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#91

Post by dragontamer »

hanniabu wrote: post #44
dragontamer wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Median household income in USA is $59,039. That's both the mother AND father working to bring home $59,039 on the average (before taxes and other costs). Its clear you live in a rich area where $100k isn't much. But that's also why a large chunk of Americans think that "city-folk" are disconnected from reality. $100k is a lot for many people. My sister lives in an area (in USA) where a 2-bedroom apartment is just $50…

> Its clear you live in a rich area where $100k isn't much You mean he doesn't live out in the sticks or a run-down city like Detroit (MI), Gary (IN), or Paterson (NJ). You don't need to live in a rich area for $100k to not be that much.

All $Dollar values are 2013 Census values taken in 2017 dollars.

* NYC median household income is $57k

* Philadelphia median household income is $40k

* Washington DC median household income is $77k

* San Francisco median household income is $96k

* Austin Texas is $63k.

Stats from: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/austincitytexas...

So even in San Francisco, the most expensive city I'm aware of, the average HOUSE brings in $96k. A single man (or woman) bringing $100k working in San Francisco is decidedly well-above average.

Bring in $100k in San Francisco, and your wife (or husband) doesn't even need to work to live like the median.

Other cities, a $100k job (with a stay-at-home wife / hosband) will be 30% to 100% higher than the median. $100k is a lot.

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#92

Post by elicash »

RHSeeger wrote: post #72
elicash wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Median household income in NYC is $57,782. (Individual is $50,825.) And yeah, NYC is a huge, diverse city but even Manhattan's median income is $79,781 in 2017. (Corrected figure)

The census data [1] seems to indicate it was $79,781 in 2017 (in 2017 dollars, so $83,569.23 today). Not a large amount, but still 25% higher than the 66.7k number [1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcountyma... ]

Thank you for that correction. I had taken what Google spits out in that top box and didn't bother to look at the date of the article they were scraping from.

Overall point remains, but accuracy matters.

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#93

Post by ed312 »

thrower123 wrote: post #86

The issue is less about the dollar cost of housing in most places, than the opportunity cost and closing of flexibility in getting into a long term mortgage. In all but the most obnoxiously over-priced areas, if you make $100k, you should be able to buy something on a low down-payment FHA loan, and your total mortgage payment should be less than you'd pay in rent. PMI sucks, but it's not terribly difficult to refinan…

Struggling with rent vs buy right now for this very reason. I know financially it would be better to buy, but then you lose the flexibility to go after a great opportunity in even another part of a major city.

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#94

Post by sudosteph »

ed312 wrote: post #23
Tehchops wrote: post #10

There's very few places where there is an overlap of "jobs that pay $100k" and "homes that can be afforded at $100k salary".

If you find one, please share :) Less sarcastically: is there an index for this kind of thing? E.g. cost of living for an equivalent neighborhood plotted against median salaries for tech jobs?

There are a few different rankings that sort of assess this.

There's a CompTIA "Tech Towns" report[1] from last year that does a good breakdown of salary + job opportunities vs CoL by city.

Anecdotally, I think it was right to rank Charlotte NC at the top. It's easy to find 100k+ salary jobs there if you have experience (avg is a bit lower though) - and median housing prices are like 230k. But the big downside is that you pretty much have to be cool with working for a bank.

[1] https://www.aitp.org/blog/aitp-blog/2018/10/23/tech-town-usa...

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#95

Post by em3rgent0rdr »

aledalgrande wrote: post #52
justinzollars wrote: post #9

$100,000 still a lot of money. You can buy a beer in Vietnam for 20 cents. The problem in the Bay Area, where I live, is we artificially limit the amount of housing. So prices move to infinity.

I would say that is a problem in any place where it is desirable to live these days. Locations I've experienced first hand: London, Sydney, Bay area, Los Angeles, Vancouver... and I'm sure there are many more where you can't buy on that salary.

Not in all desirable players. Only ones that limit construction. Meanwhile in desirable places which allow more construction, like Tokyo, housing prices have stabilized [1].

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/scottbeyer/2016/08/12/tokyos-af...

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#96

Post by sjdb77 »

skybrian wrote: post #90
uwuhn wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It was surprising to learn that below like $50k you basically pay 0 in income tax in California. Not if you're a contractor without a full-time employer. In college I did freelance work, and I lost nearly 30% to taxes despite making less than $5k a year from my work. Having your social security responsibility doubled is brutal.

The original post was talking about income tax. There are plenty of other taxes on making money by working . But, if you're living solely off investments you don't pay those. I was surprised to see that capital gains tax is zero below a certain income. It seems rather unfair, since you can choose when to sell.

Yeah...seems to incentivize day trading.

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#97

Post by itsbenweeks »

g2ah5z wrote: post #51
dfxm12 wrote: post #19

I'm behind a paywall, so I'm sure they pick up on this, but the biggest problem I ran into when I thought I could afford a house was the down payment. You can make $100k (or less!) and quite easily afford a monthly mortgage payment, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have enough saved up for a down payment.

You only need 3.5% down with an FHA loan. To put that in perspective, a $300,000 home would only require $10,500 down.

Sort of. You'd be left paying the difference of 3.5% to 20% (16.5% or $49,500) in a FHA Mortgage Insurance Premium (MIP). This means another loan that you need a 1.75% down payment for (making your downpayment ≈ 3.8% or $11,400) that adds another payment (≈ $400) in addition to the mortgage. MIPs last the entire life of the FHA loan, too.

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#98

Post by jriot »

I am 34 years old working remotely as data scientist, making $107k TC. My wife who I've been married to for 13 years is a stay-at-home mother as we have two children in grade school. Since they are in the school she is turning in our half-acre into a sustainable garden with chickens. We own our home, are financially comfortable while saving $1500 a month, and travel. We were planning a 2-month trip to Japan this upcoming summer until we realized the Olympics are held there in 2020. In the end we will shift dates around to make it work.

Aside from being active duty for 11 years which allowed me to complete through two graduate degrees without any student debt, was taking my first role after the military in a small town one and half hours from the nearest city; a small city at that. I stayed there for four years to get comfortable enough to work on my own without any oversight; soaked up all possible learning opportunities. When switching roles to my current job, I negotiated to work remotely, now I live 2500 miles from my employer. Cost of living is the same, but now I don't have to purchase airline tickets to see family.

The number one advantage I see compared to others comes from the military. I complete all tasks asigned without complaining, and get them down without bothering those above me. Doesn't matter the task, if it is assigned and needs to be completed, I do it. Sometimes these are trivial, others would say beneath them, others are writing patent paperwork with the co-founder. This mindset has worked two-fold, I touch numerous areas of the business so my skill-set is well rounded, and my bosses are happy; work gets done without their involvement.

Live below your means, take advantage of where you live, and maintain a simple life. Good things come to those who wait.

Re: $100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home

#100

Post by tathougies »

dbtqgoat wrote: post #99

> “I can’t think of anyone we’ve rented to recently who didn’t make $100,000,” said Bruce McNeilage, who owns 148 rental homes around the Southeast and is building 118 more. Well there’s your problem. Quit building unaffordable housing.

I mean if there are still renters able to pay then it's not unaffordable.
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