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San Francisco

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Re: San Francisco

#31

Post by neilk »

charliepark wrote: post #3

Is it a common experience that, as a single person in SF, you'd make $100K and end the year without any money saved? I'm not asking with any judgment or critique implied. I'm genuinely curious if that's normal in SF.

It is very common.

But it's also the lifestyle that forces this. I was continually perplexed at how all of my colleagues seemed to be able to afford to go to all these conferences (not always on company dime), buy the most expensive coffee, upgrade their bleeding-edge laptop the moment Apple puts out a new one, and so on. I figured out later that they just weren't saving or investing any money, and often were even accumulating debt despite their high salaries.

The culture of always being at work (or at least seeming to be) is a factor too. More and more of your meals are eaten outside the home. A lot of people use cleaning services.

Some people feel they need to do all this to keep up. I'm not sure they're wrong. When I pulled out a three-year-old iPhone, people gawped at it, like it was the Ark of the Covenant or something. I lived in a district which was not the Mission or SOMA and people acted like I lived off the edge of the world.

Re: San Francisco

#32

Post by encoderer »

bherms wrote: post #10
bifrost wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I've heard this from just about everyone. If you're making $50k in this city, you're basically working poor. With the average 2 bedroom condo renting for $2500+ and houses renting for more, you're dropping a ton of your income just on a place to live. Its not uncommon to see a single bedroom renting for $1600+ in the city.

Avg 1br prices are up to over $2500 now. Granted depending on area and quality, you can get down to $1600, but a majority are mid to high $2ks.

Citation? We're in the SF rental market and I work for a real estate start-up. I see 1br's in desirable neighborhoods available for $1.5-2k all day long.

A look through Craigslist gives you an idea: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/sfc?zoomToPosting=&qu...

But note that there are many 2+ BR's in the search results so skim the list with some scrutiny. Also there's a lot of spam in the "$1200 4br" listing that appears a thousand times. Sort ascending by price to get an easier look.

Re: San Francisco

#33

Post by antirez »

stefantalpalaru wrote: post #30

Sounds like a guided tour with no real exploration of the city.

Well it is, in the sense that, no exploration is really possible in three days full of meetings, but something can be captured walking on the street, talking with many people, most also not native of SF exchanging stories. I just tried to turn my feelings into a blog post without any special goal.

Re: San Francisco

#34

Post by steveklabnik »

bherms wrote: post #7
charliepark wrote: post #3

Is it a common experience that, as a single person in SF, you'd make $100K and end the year without any money saved? I'm not asking with any judgment or critique implied. I'm genuinely curious if that's normal in SF.

Yes. Taxes are pretty high, so making $100k w/ benefits, you take home roughly $63k/yr. Then factor in rent and utilities: 1br ($2500+/mo), 2br w/ roomie ($1800+/mo), 3br w/roomies ($1500/mo). So let's assume 2br. You walk away with around $40k/yr. Then take out transport, cell phone, random monthly bills like student loans, etc and you're down to $28k disposable. Take out food and random living expenses and you don'…

> $28k disposable... don't have much left.

For some context:

> In 2010, in the United States, the poverty threshold for one person under 65 was US$11,344 (annual income);

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold

and

> Half of Americans live below or at the poverty line

http://www.salon.com/2013/05/30/half_of_americans_living_bel...

Now, I know that SF is one of the more expensive places to live in this country, but still.

Re: San Francisco

#35

Post by jamesaguilar »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #12
jamesaguilar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can certainly save money if you make that much living in sf. Your take home would be about 65k. A very nice apartment shared with one roommate should not cost more than 2k a month, leaving you with 40k for food, entertainment, and travel. If you can't save some of this that is a comment on your priorities, not the fundamental difficulty of living in sf.

Is your estimate of 65 including state (10%) and city (1.5%) taxes?

Yes. It might actually be a bit conservative, since the overall burden for a single person making $100k with 10% state taxes is around 20% for federal taxes. And the CA overall burden is going to be more like 8.9% (marginal is 9.3% below $1M).

So, let's do the numbers to be sure.

      100 000
    -   7 009  (2013 CA on 100 000 -- not sure if std deduction should be factored in)
    -  17 820  (2012 Federal on 87 000 -- GI - state - std deduction)
    -   7 650  (Soc sec + Medicare)
      =======
       67 521

Re: San Francisco

#36

Post by gkop »

aaronblohowiak wrote: post #12
jamesaguilar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can certainly save money if you make that much living in sf. Your take home would be about 65k. A very nice apartment shared with one roommate should not cost more than 2k a month, leaving you with 40k for food, entertainment, and travel. If you can't save some of this that is a comment on your priorities, not the fundamental difficulty of living in sf.

Is your estimate of 65 including state (10%) and city (1.5%) taxes?

The city 1.5% tax is paid by employers and has no bearing on the $100K base salary or take home pay.

Re: San Francisco

#37

Post by cmccabe »

spikels wrote: post #14
bifrost wrote: post #5

> The coffee is very different than the Italian one I've heard this many times :) His point about SF lacking children is very very accurate. SF basically forces people with families out because its so expensive and the school situation is bad (your kids don't get to go to the neighborhood school). One of these days SF will wise up and at least fix the school problem, but until then the peninsula will get families and…

Not a great place for raising a family: expensive, bad schools, disfunctional government, drugs on streets, and lots of crazies[1]. Pretty much everyone I have ever know who had kids in SF moved away within a few years. The demographics always reminded me of China where you did not see as many girls because of the one child policy. In SF children of both sexes (10% of population) are just missing: Persons under 18 (2…

I agree, SF is a fun place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there.

I also don't like how some San Franciscans like to put down other areas. You can have pride in your city without insulting other people and places. As someone who grew up in a poorer area, it left a very bad taste in my mouth. Most SF people are nice, but it's those other few people who ruin it for me.

Re: San Francisco

#38

Post by Void_ »

bifrost wrote: post #5

> The coffee is very different than the Italian one I've heard this many times :) His point about SF lacking children is very very accurate. SF basically forces people with families out because its so expensive and the school situation is bad (your kids don't get to go to the neighborhood school). One of these days SF will wise up and at least fix the school problem, but until then the peninsula will get families and…

This (no children) is what I hated about the city when I stayed there over the summer. And the smell.

Re: San Francisco

#39

Post by adw »

kryten wrote: post #19
spikels wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a great place for raising a family: expensive, bad schools, disfunctional government, drugs on streets, and lots of crazies[1]. Pretty much everyone I have ever know who had kids in SF moved away within a few years. The demographics always reminded me of China where you did not see as many girls because of the one child policy. In SF children of both sexes (10% of population) are just missing: Persons under 18 (2…

Sounds like London, UK where I currently reside with three children... Expensive: check. Bad schools: check. Disfunctional government: check. Drugs on streets: check. Lots of crazies: check. The thing I hate is that people wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire. Going to move out to the countryside I think... As for the nutter on BART, I got urinated on whilst on the tube in London .... twice. And no I was not on f…

SF is way worse (I used to live in Finsbury Park, now live in the Mission).

Re: San Francisco

#40

Post by ceph_ »

encoderer wrote: post #32
bherms wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Avg 1br prices are up to over $2500 now. Granted depending on area and quality, you can get down to $1600, but a majority are mid to high $2ks.

Citation? We're in the SF rental market and I work for a real estate start-up. I see 1br's in desirable neighborhoods available for $1.5-2k all day long. A look through Craigslist gives you an idea: http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/apa/sfc?zoomToPosting=&qu... But note that there are many 2+ BR's in the search results so skim the list with some scrutiny. Also there's a lot of spam in the "$1200 4br" listing that ap…

According to this[1], as of February average rent for 1br in OUTER sunset is 1.9k. Another source[2] puts average 1br rent at $2547.

[1]http://sfist.com/attachments/SFist_Brock/SF-Infographic.png [2]http://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-rent...

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