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Photos of items from families in different countries with different incomes

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Re: Photos of items from families in different countries with different incomes

#31

Post by jltsiren »

onraglanroad wrote: post #6
qurren wrote: post #3

It's interesting that $14000/month is "rich" on this website, and some people earning $100/month actually own houses. Meanwhile people making $50000/month in San Francisco can't afford a house because half of it is taxed away and housing is astronomically expensive.

If your net pay is $7000 per month you absolutely can afford to own a house, you're just being fussy about the house you want.

Its more about where you want to live.

I'm not familiar with the situation in San Francisco. But in Santa Cruz, the cost to own with a 20% down payment is ~50% higher than the rent for the same unit. If you can't afford a substantially higher down payment, you're not really in the market for a home.

With $7k/month after tax, you would probably be renting an 1br, or maybe a cheap 2br. But your income is not high enough to buy anything, unless you start looking for homes well outside the town.

Re: Photos of items from families in different countries with different incomes

#32

Post by qurren »

onraglanroad wrote: post #30
jt2190 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The housing market is highly dependent on the job market so no, it’s not “being fussy”, it’s “I need to live here so I can have a job and income”. Unless you’re suggesting that people should quit their jobs and go get that cheap house in the middle of nowhere?

What does the person who fixes your toilet do? Or prepares your meal? Or basically lives the Fight Club life?

If they didn't tax everyone so damn much, it would work out.

They fix the toilet for $200, I need to earn $400 to have that $200, and the toilet repair person gets to keep $100 after their taxes.

$400->$100 in one go. Government keeps $300. Make that make sense.

Re: Photos of items from families in different countries with different incomes

#33

Post by arjie »

onraglanroad wrote: post #8
qurren wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I promise you not. Houses here cost $2M+ for something livable and $1M for something with mold and other safety issues. When half that $50K gets taxed, half of what's remaining has to be saved up for retirement in a place that deeply discriminates against age, you don't have much left to save up for buying a $2M house.

Ok, I made my other comment before seeing this but I find it very difficult to believe you can't find something reasonable for far less.

It’s untrue. Unstated assumptions are the quality of housing desired and location desired. In practice, because of the rent/price ratio being low here in SF most people will be taking a downgrade when going from rent to 1.25x that as mortgage after putting down $300k for a $1.5m.

It is true that the marginal rate can be very high, though, so heuristics based on pre tax income break down at these numbers. The place we live in costs $7k/mo but to buy it we’d have to spend $450k and then $9.5k/mo.

Re: Photos of items from families in different countries with different incomes

#34

Post by Symbiote »

nostrademons wrote: post #27
polairscience wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In every thread about housing people on HN post wildly outlandish claims about expenses that belie their totally out of touch perspectives. If you make 100K a month (the lower bound of what you just wrote). Let's say you put 25K into retirement. You eat out every meal so 4K food/living budget. That leaves 60K (I'll give you 10K slush fund for savings money or as a general keeping-up-with-the-jones' fund). 60K per mon…

Don't forget taxes. In that bracket, in California, you're paying 50% of your income in taxes, and so $100K/month is actually $50K/month. I think OP is overselling the point, but not by nearly as much as people think.

That's not how tax brackets work.

The effective tax would be about 26%.

Re: Photos of items from families in different countries with different incomes

#35

Post by aianus »

onraglanroad wrote: post #30
jt2190 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The housing market is highly dependent on the job market so no, it’s not “being fussy”, it’s “I need to live here so I can have a job and income”. Unless you’re suggesting that people should quit their jobs and go get that cheap house in the middle of nowhere?

What does the person who fixes your toilet do? Or prepares your meal? Or basically lives the Fight Club life?

Depressingly, they bought a house in 1995 before the prices exploded. You need a 94th percentile income in Toronto to barely qualify for the average house.

Re: Photos of items from families in different countries with different incomes

#36

Post by Pooge »

onraglanroad wrote: post #23

To give context on my other comments, where I live in Scotland, median full time wage is around $55k. You can live a perfectly comfortable life on that; you don't have to worry about bills or medical expenses, and you can afford to get a mortgage and buy a house (probably costing around $300k or so) That's why I'm surprised about people from a richer nation saying they can't afford things.

> That's why I'm surprised about people from a richer nation saying they can't afford things

If you had the same salary in Switzerland or Luxembourg which, believe it or not, is not impossible, there would be a lot of items that you can't afford. Salary is important but cost of living matters as well. Granted, inside the same country, figures could change drastically but people tend to live where there are lots of job opportunities where it's more expensive.

Re: Photos of items from families in different countries with different incomes

#37

Post by DontchaKnowit »

qurren wrote: post #29
polairscience wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In every thread about housing people on HN post wildly outlandish claims about expenses that belie their totally out of touch perspectives. If you make 100K a month (the lower bound of what you just wrote). Let's say you put 25K into retirement. You eat out every meal so 4K food/living budget. That leaves 60K (I'll give you 10K slush fund for savings money or as a general keeping-up-with-the-jones' fund). 60K per mon…

> 60K per month will pay a 4.5 million dollar mortgage A mortgage is NOT owning! So many people are poisoned by this propaganda promoted by American society and banks. They prey on the masses by infiltrating the public with this live-on-borrowed-money ideology. Your 60K/month may end NEXT month and become 0/month if you are subject to the next round of Zuck's layoffs, or you end up stack ranked and PIPed at Amazon du…

Pretty sure lending is common thw world over

Re: Photos of items from families in different countries with different incomes

#38

Post by DontchaKnowit »

onraglanroad wrote: post #23

To give context on my other comments, where I live in Scotland, median full time wage is around $55k. You can live a perfectly comfortable life on that; you don't have to worry about bills or medical expenses, and you can afford to get a mortgage and buy a house (probably costing around $300k or so) That's why I'm surprised about people from a richer nation saying they can't afford things.

How can you afford a 300k mortgage at 55k a year. That would be a very large percent of monthly pay right?

Re: Photos of items from families in different countries with different incomes

#39

Post by toasty228 »

nostrademons wrote: post #27
polairscience wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In every thread about housing people on HN post wildly outlandish claims about expenses that belie their totally out of touch perspectives. If you make 100K a month (the lower bound of what you just wrote). Let's say you put 25K into retirement. You eat out every meal so 4K food/living budget. That leaves 60K (I'll give you 10K slush fund for savings money or as a general keeping-up-with-the-jones' fund). 60K per mon…

Don't forget taxes. In that bracket, in California, you're paying 50% of your income in taxes, and so $100K/month is actually $50K/month. I think OP is overselling the point, but not by nearly as much as people think.

It's 2026 on a self proclaimed big brain forum and people still don't understand basic things like tax brackets... A sight to behold
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