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Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

nytimes.com

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Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#61

Post by seanflyon »

Domenic_S wrote: post #17
bjt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't this work just as well in reverse? > Eventually you will run out of available, qualified coastal talent and you will need to hire someone from a non-coastal area. I live in the bay area, but am from Utah originally. A couple examples from my home state: http://www.adobe.com/careers/locations.html#lehi http://blog.ebay.com/ebay-expands-in-utah-with-the-opening-o...

> Doesn't this work just as well in reverse? . > I live in the bay area, but am from Utah originally You just answered your own question.

So the answer is yes, the coasts will run out of tech talent and need to import it.

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#62

Post by jrs235 »

nutjob123 wrote: post #50
mcdougle wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how do you know someone's a Texan? Don't worry, they'll tell you I never noticed this before, but I'm a Texan, and I do this.

Same joke also works for new yorkers

As well as lawyers, crossfitters, and vegetarians.

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#63

Post by rglovejoy »

nthj wrote: post #12
jgunaratne wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the best jobs in areas such as technology, design and finance are on the coasts. No doubt that costs are lower in the middle of the country, but pay is also substantially lower. I wonder why more top companies don't try to take advantage of the cost savings of setting up in middle America vs. outsourcing jobs abroad?

I know Google, Facebook, Apple, and others have been visibly increasing their presence in Austin. Apple was putting up offices across the street from my old apartment complex, and the scuttlebutt was they were adding 4,000-some-odd-employees here over the next few years.

Google has an office here in Austin, but it's mostly for sales and marketing. Apple's campus is going to be for sales and customer support, not product development.

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#64

Post by genwin »

mrfusion wrote: post #36
vlucas wrote: post #28

This is awesome news for me. I currently live in the Oklahoma City area, and have for the past 11 years after moving here from the Bay Area, and am heavily invested in the local tech community (I founded http://okcjs.com and organize http://thunderplainsconf.com among other things). The tech community here is better than it has EVER been and awesome things are happening here, but of course it's all relative - it's st…

Thanks for the write-up. What's the climate like? Does it feel weird not being able to drive to a beach/ocean easily? How did you decide on OKC? I've always imaged Boulder would be nice if I ever moved inland?

Boulder's not cheap. There I saw an ordinary split-level house for sale at $1.5 million. 10 miles away, closer to Denver, the same house could be $300K.

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#65

Post by chris11 »

genwin wrote: post #64
mrfusion wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the write-up. What's the climate like? Does it feel weird not being able to drive to a beach/ocean easily? How did you decide on OKC? I've always imaged Boulder would be nice if I ever moved inland?

Boulder's not cheap. There I saw an ordinary split-level house for sale at $1.5 million. 10 miles away, closer to Denver, the same house could be $300K.

But real estate is much more reasonable once you get out of Boulder. You could get a decent house in Longmont for $300k, and the commute into Boulder would be reasonable.

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#66

Post by genwin »

vlucas wrote: post #40
taway2012 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How long ago did you buy your house? If a person bought the house today, would they still pay only $640/mo?

My house cost $76,000 when I purchased it 7 years ago, and it would be only slightly more today - around $85,000 or so. Also, it of course depends on interest rate, loan term, insurance, local taxes, etc. To be fair though, it's a small starter home that my wife and I bought when we first got married. A house we might buy if we were moving now might be more in the $150k-185k range for a nice 4bd. 2.5ba. newer house o…

I suggest you buy that next house now. That $185K could become $300K in a hurry. House prices in my area are up by about 50% in 2 years and accelerating. This is partly due to hedge funds buying up houses to rent them out. They'll likely be a big player in every major city eventually.

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#68

Post by dublinben »

bryanbuckley wrote: post #48
sixbit wrote: post #41

I just did the SF --> DFW move this week. Housing is 10x cheaper so that tipped the pluses ahead of the minuses for me, and it's still a big city so you can find decent things to do outside of work. Have my own b2b company that I'm bootstrapping, so I realized I wasn't tied to SF anymore for any particular reason. Will be interesting to see how the next year goes!

Nice! I did the opposite about 2 years ago. Really wish I had bought some real estate in certain parts of Dallas but I was just starting out and didn't have the capital/guts. There are parts of Dallas that I love (lower greenville, deep ellum, oak cliff) that have really boomed these last two years. The move to SF has been worth it, though, for my career/finances. Net was a little bit lower than what I could have bee…

>alternative living styles

Do you want to expand on this? Are you just living in a van now?

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#69

Post by sixbit »

eastbayjake wrote: post #51
sixbit wrote: post #41

I just did the SF --> DFW move this week. Housing is 10x cheaper so that tipped the pluses ahead of the minuses for me, and it's still a big city so you can find decent things to do outside of work. Have my own b2b company that I'm bootstrapping, so I realized I wasn't tied to SF anymore for any particular reason. Will be interesting to see how the next year goes!

Can I ask if you're married or have kids? And if so, how did that affect your decision?

Married, no kids. My wife is also my co-founder so it made employment logistics easy.

Re: Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities

#70

Post by pchristensen »

autism_hurts wrote: post #2

A little reminder that we sometimes forget in the San Francisco Bay Area -- there are plenty of other, really wonderful places to live. People here will rattle off weather, jobs, activities (outdoors) -- but the reality of the situation is that there are plenty of incredible places to live in the US, where you can make within 10%-20% of your Bay Area wage with 30%-40% or more less housing costs. Even a place like LA…

FWIW, I moved from Chicago to the Bay Area two years ago.

In the Bay Area: - salaries seem to be 40-80+% higher, as well as significantly more chances to trade salary for equity (if that's your thing) - there are probably 50-100x more senior developer jobs in SF than Chicago, and at least that many more in the Valley - there are more specialized jobs available (by market, technology, growth stage, company size, etc) - housing prices for a family of 5, good schools, safe neighborhoods, fairly long commute, are probably 75% higher to buy, 50% higher to rent. - the SF tech jobs are better located for transit than the good Chicago ones (River North, Ravenswood, etc are miserable if you ride Metra)

Whenever I looked outside of tech hubs (Tampa, Atlanta, SLC, Research Triangle), I found housing prices within 10-20%, salaries lower by 25% or more, and much narrower job selection than Chicago. Austin was the only place that had more jobs, but salaries and housing prices were in line with those other cities.

My conclusion is that there are many cities where you can create a good job+housing situation, but once you make it work your options are very, very limited. The biggest benefit I feel from living in the Bay Area is the immense career flexibility and potential over the next 20+ years.

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