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San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

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Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#311

Post by hayward2 »

LandoCalrissian wrote: post #283
hayward2 wrote: post #17

I don't understand why tech workers in the Bay Area feel guilty about receiving 'high' salaries of $100 - $200k/year. This is not a lot of money... People on Wall street laugh at these amounts. So do specialized doctors, corporate lawyers, investment bankers, etc. Software engineering is unfortunately a very middle class occupation at this point. I'd love to see it get up into the ranks of the upper class (at least f…

That's a very unique view of "Middle Class" considering the median income is $44,389. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United... If you earn $100,000 per year that puts you in the top 20% (for a household, if it's just you it's even higher).

The median in SF is much higher than that, and in the peninsula even higher. Also, middle class is all but the 1%. The top 1% is the capitalist class of very good jobs (high finance, specialized doctors, exectives, some lawyers, etc) or people who own a lot of assets instead of working, owning 40% of the wealth in the country and 34% of the income. So yes, programming is a middle class job, though I suppose 'upper-middle class' would suffice as well.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#312

Post by x0x0 »

enraged_camel wrote: post #164
api wrote: post #30

I've got a possibly great job offer on the table from SF/SV, but may turn it down. I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the conclusion that home ownership is unthinkable to anyone who hasn't had a cash-out event. The real estate market is certifiably, utterly bat-dookie insane. NYC is often considered more expensive, and Manhattan is certainly... well... Manhattan. But taken collectively…

>>I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the conclusion that home ownership is unthinkable to anyone who hasn't had a cash-out event. I've never understood this crazy, if not outright insane obsession with home ownership. Why does everyone want to tie significant amounts of their lifetime earnings into physical property that historically has had very low appreciation in value? It's like pe…

I think there are many reasons, some more rational than others.

1 - everyone is long housing, and sfbay has had major price swings. Buying a house caps what you'll pay. I lived in a neighborhood in sf where market rents for my apartment went from $2200 to at least $2700/mo in a little over a year and a half.

2 - the US, via mortgage interest deduction, privileges home ownership

3 - california in particular privileges home ownership by basically freezing property taxes

4 - rental stock in california is often complete shit. If you don't want to hear your neighbors walking or running the bathroom fan or etc... you probably need to buy a home.

5 - good luck finding a 3 bedroom rental, which is highly desirable if you have 2 kids

6 - if you have good credit, a $1mm house in the peninsula costs roughly (within $700/mo) what rent does on a similar apartment

7 - want to have a dog? Good luck with that in a rental.

8 - want to not have to ask permission for X, Y, or Z while paying $3500+/mo? Don't live in a rental.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#313

Post by cpeterso »

RKoutnik wrote: post #66
api wrote: post #30

I've got a possibly great job offer on the table from SF/SV, but may turn it down. I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the conclusion that home ownership is unthinkable to anyone who hasn't had a cash-out event. The real estate market is certifiably, utterly bat-dookie insane. NYC is often considered more expensive, and Manhattan is certainly... well... Manhattan. But taken collectively…

Have you looked into Alameda? It's hundreds cheaper than anywhere in SF proper, quieter/cleaner and my commute's only 20 min.

Alameda is a nice, quiet place with a ferry to SF (and the Lucky JuJu pinball joint aka Pacific Pinball Museum). I looked for houses there, but my friends are concerned that Alameda's low, flat land area will be flooded in ~50 years by sea level rise from global warming.. :\

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#314

Post by Domenic_S »

nostrademons wrote: post #242
api wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you commute? My possible offer's in Mountain View, and that seems like it would take a while. I also looked at Fremont/Newark, but have never physically been there. What's that area like? School district maps say some of the schools are decent. FYI I am 35 with a new baby, so the question is "can a family live in SF comfortably without having a cash-out event or a salary in excess of $240k?" The offer I'm pu…

MV housing has gotten insane since Google started their hiring binge in 2011. My rent's gone up nearly 50% since then. And Google's demographics are changing: average age is now about 31 (up from 28 or so when I started in 2009), so many of them will likely be having kids in the near future and driving up house prices even further. Fremont is decent as long as you don't mind boring. Unfortunately, the commute over th…

Lol, sorry, did you just call willow glen affordable?

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#316

Post by patio11 »

ahh wrote: post #296
patio11 wrote: post #96

At the risk of unsolicited dating advice: is the reason one is embarassed to mention one's occupation to a woman at the bar caused by tech salaries being too high, or by years of social conditioning telling you that geeks are low status? (Or by learning that the way one signals high status is by constructing a low status outgroup and then explaining how you're unlike them?) An alternative: just pretend society really…

The second, and there's basically no solution for it. Other than lie about your job, I guess. I tend to tell girls I'm a "mathematician", which is sort of true, is about equally nerdy but doesn't instantly cue low-status associations, and doesn't lead to further questions. It works about as well as anything I could say would, but I'm still clearly low-status and it sucks. What's your proposed solution to dating as a…

The last time a young lady asked me what I did for a living I did the Old Spice guy impersonation and mentioned I was getting flown abroad to do it for an audience. She married me, so I now have the luxury of not caring anymore what people think of my answers, but they're generally some flavor of "I run a company which does X", where X is one thing I think they'll find interesting. Possible Xes include "helped teach Y00,000 kids to read last year", "gets patients in to see their doctors", or "makes shedloads of money for software companies like Y" if they look like they swing that way.

You'll note the pointed absence of "I am a poor peon working in the Ruby on Rails salt mines." (And heck, even when I was a Japanese salaryman, I got better results with "I am in charge of administration of X university's admissions exam" rather than "I write unit tests and XML files, please tune out of this conversation.")

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#317

Post by cpeterso »

liveinoakland wrote: post #149
greghinch wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean this to play into stereotypes etc, but just as a matter of experience, every single person I know who's lived in Oakland for any significant amount of time (say 1 year or more), over the past 5 years, has been robbed at gunpoint at least once, usually while walking within a few blocks of their home. It's not a huge sample, I probably know half a dozen people/couples who live/have lived there. But the fac…

where did they live? probably some sketchy part of west oakland where out-of-towners like to move because it's so grungy. you won't get robbed in piedmont, rockridge, montclair, temescal, grand lake usually, or JLS ever. but please keep upvoting this to the top! our rents are already going up because of SF spillover, feel free to avoid it and those of us in the know will keep enjoying our lives in the east bay with n…

Rockridge and Piedmont have crime, too. I live in Rockridge and follow the crime watch mailing lists. People get mugged in broad daylight at the BART station and just a couple years ago was a rash of restaurant "take-over" robberies. Crime follows the money.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#318

Post by [deleted] »

russelluresti wrote: post #237
jaysonelliot wrote: post #60

I don't understand why the author would move to Portland when we've got our own affordable, culturally rich, tech-friendly cities in the East Bay. Come to Oakland. It's beautiful here. The weather is better than San Francisco, you can ride your bicycle anywhere, public transit is good, and it's easy to get to SF as well as Silicon Valley (which I do regularly). There's no need to leave the entire Bay Area just becaus…

http://www.spotcrime.com/ca/oakland http://bit.ly/18J6BFi Yeah, looks safe enough.

[deleted]

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#319

Post by r00fus »

api wrote: post #68
RKoutnik wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you looked into Alameda? It's hundreds cheaper than anywhere in SF proper, quieter/cleaner and my commute's only 20 min.

Where do you commute? My possible offer's in Mountain View, and that seems like it would take a while. I also looked at Fremont/Newark, but have never physically been there. What's that area like? School district maps say some of the schools are decent. FYI I am 35 with a new baby, so the question is "can a family live in SF comfortably without having a cash-out event or a salary in excess of $240k?" The offer I'm pu…

Look to the south bay - Campbell, West SJ, etc are far better commutes to MV than the city (though Google does have the bus lines from SF).

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#320

Post by eclipxe »

ryandrake wrote: post #103
api wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you commute? My possible offer's in Mountain View, and that seems like it would take a while. I also looked at Fremont/Newark, but have never physically been there. What's that area like? School district maps say some of the schools are decent. FYI I am 35 with a new baby, so the question is "can a family live in SF comfortably without having a cash-out event or a salary in excess of $240k?" The offer I'm pu…

Good luck. If you're planning on buying, the only areas in the Bay Area affordable to a single-income family will be places you don't want to live (East side and south San Jose, Hayward, and the nastier parts of Oakland). Also, in the current real estate market, you're going to need all-cash (or a very, very high down payment) and be willing to waive all the usual contingencies. It is a brutal seller's market, and as…

Nothing wrong with South SJ...
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