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Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

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Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#281

Post by mightybyte »

jwoah12 wrote: post #129
mightybyte wrote: post #96

I'm in NYC and I pay ~10% of after-tax income for rent. I visited a friend in SF recently and after hearing about his situation I concluded it would be very difficult for any company to get me to move to the Bay Area. It just doesn't make financial sense for me. NYC has plenty of tech opportunity, so that doesn't tip the scale either.

Care to elaborate? You either live with several other people, make upwards of $500k/year and live very modestly, or both.

I live with one other person. Combined rent is less than $2k / month for a good sized 2 bedroom apartment a block and a half from a big subway hub. We have a full size grand piano in the living room and it's still spacious. The kitchen is also a pretty good size (at least by Manhattan standards). I suppose some might call this modest. But I wouldn't consider it "very modest". I also have friends who live in the city fairly comfortably on as little as ~30k / year.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#282

Post by mightybyte »

stepanhruda wrote: post #138
mightybyte wrote: post #96

I'm in NYC and I pay ~10% of after-tax income for rent. I visited a friend in SF recently and after hearing about his situation I concluded it would be very difficult for any company to get me to move to the Bay Area. It just doesn't make financial sense for me. NYC has plenty of tech opportunity, so that doesn't tip the scale either.

Sounds like you either earn a ton of cash or live far from the city. I'm spending ~30% after tax.

Neither. You probably can't live in Manhattan for that price, but you don't have to be too far out.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#283

Post by mightybyte »

prospective4334 wrote: post #142
mightybyte wrote: post #96

I'm in NYC and I pay ~10% of after-tax income for rent. I visited a friend in SF recently and after hearing about his situation I concluded it would be very difficult for any company to get me to move to the Bay Area. It just doesn't make financial sense for me. NYC has plenty of tech opportunity, so that doesn't tip the scale either.

I have to ask: which neighborhood do you live in, and how far do you commute? I'm moving to NYC in two days and I still don't know where to live (thankfully, my company will pay for a nice apartment for 30 days). I actually wrote off SF and the entire Bay Area during my job search, largely due to the cost of living. I know that in New York I'll at least be able to find a 1br for $1700 (in Western Queens or Wash Heigh…

Jackson Heights. It's ~20 minutes to midtown.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#284

Post by mooreds »

zyxley wrote: post #211
mooreds wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had multiple clients (I'm a developer and a contractor) who had job reqs open for months at a good pay scale and had a heck of a time finding people in the Boulder Denver area. I think that the tech frenzy is great enough that people are fighting over tech folks in other areas--maybe not as violently as in SF, but still fighting.

Sounds like their "good" pay scale wasn't good enough.

I guess that could have been it. I did some hiring a year or so ago and they pay scales were comparable. And the numbers I see are similar to what I've seen with other jobs (friends, email lists, etc).

Each client did end up hiring, but it was a slog.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#286

Post by suryon »

s73v3r wrote: post #257
eitally wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a fair way of looking at it, though, from a business-owner's perspective. You need to look at the overall market, and you can find equally good developers in cheaper parts of the country for fractions (50-60%) of that cost.

It's an entirely fair way of looking at it. Just because other developers live in cheaper areas of the country doesn't change how much value a good developer is bringing to your business.

Nope. They are overvalued. Iphone will cost the same or with small differences everywhere in the world. Ironically in some "poor" places it's more expensive than in the US.

The costs of living in SF are too insane.It will not create more jobs but instead push bigger chunks of money to fewer people that will not really benefit from them.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#287

Post by aries1980 »

ionforce wrote: post #212
dijit wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to say something to this effect. This figure does not surprise me in the slightest. In London I was _easily_ paying 50% of my salary after tax in rent, because I didn't want to share an apartment with someone else.

So do software engineers typically live alone in London or no?

Or with a "significant other".

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#288

Post by aries1980 »

lobster_johnson wrote: post #241

NYC is also expensive. Spending 50% on rent for a 2BR. (That said, I elected to pay a little more to get a clean, modern place in a new building. A lot of NYC apartments look like something out of 1980s Russia, only not as nice.)

Same here in London, but for a 1BR.
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