How Long Will You Need to Save to Buy a Home In Your City? • Hacker News Board

Re: How Long Will You Need to Save to Buy a Home In Your City?

#71

Post by richardjordan » Wed, Aug 29, 2012, 7:56 PM UTC

mycodebreaks wrote: post #66

richardjordan wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...or when (like the weekend of the first AngelHack event) you are delayed because your train hits a pedestrian (a horrendous sound by the way - you know exactly what's just happened immediately) then the replacement train is delayed because the next train in front hit a second pedestrian. They need to sort out the grade separation, it's just ridiculous, not to mention tragic.

Totally agree.I wonder why Caltrain is inefficient at times. What prevents Caltrain to do better in terms of keeping up with schedule? Also, there must be a way to keep fare reasonably cheaper than cost of driving a car to work.

It's a lack of willingness to invest in the infrastructure. Which is a chicken/egg thing - legislators won't vote for investment as voters don't support something that doesn't deliver value.

Re: How Long Will You Need to Save to Buy a Home In Your City?

#72

Post by autodidakto » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 8:02 AM UTC

hessenwolf wrote: post #57

chao- wrote: post #7

Speaking from a team bootstrapping our company out of Houston, we wouldn't have stood a chance anywhere else, especially anywhere near the Valley. We were running off savings for the longest time, and so a month's worth of expenditures in most places lasted 2-3 months here, easily (the company and team's cost of living all combined, primarily rent). It gave us the time to figure out which way was up with our business…

(maybe there are only a few people employed?)

What's strange about the current recession is that unemployment is high (especially for low skilled workers) but productivity (for the employed) is hasn't gone down[1]. This might explain the Detroit number.

[1] http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/08/ohanian_on_the.html

Re: How Long Will You Need to Save to Buy a Home In Your City?

#73

Post by mkinsella » Thu, Aug 30, 2012, 9:16 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #16

Surveys like these always highlight how Chicago is underrated: New York: $275 Los Angles: $236 Chicago: $112 San Francisco: $459 Washington, DC: $164 Housing here is comparable to places like Richmond or Raleigh, except it's got the public infrastructure of a world-class city with 10 million people. Even if you live in the suburbs, you can take the extensive commuter rail system straight to downtown.

Unfortunately, Chicago is amazing for less than only half the year: spring and fall. Winter and summer are a miserable experience. And winter usually lasts quite long.

Re: How Long Will You Need to Save to Buy a Home In Your City?

#74

Post by se85 » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 5:14 AM UTC

bmunro wrote: post #52

nl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to [1], apartments in the Sydney City Center are $11K/sq m. If my math is correct, that is around $1000/sq ft. Outside the city center the prices are roughly half that (so a little more that San Francisco). According to the same data source, average weekly pay is around $1064. [1] http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country...

But if you compare figures for both cities from the same site: http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/compare_cities.jsp?coun... You'll see that prices for just about everything are higher in Sydney. Except apples, oranges and tennis court hire. Salaries are slightly higher in Sydney (according to that site), but not enough to make up for the increase in costs.

This is correct.

Its definitely not a 1 to 1 comparison because of the crazy cost of living here.

Theres also the jump in the amount you get taxed (disregarding additional things we have to pay for such as private health care/medicare levy, superannuation, etc), so even if you were earning say 100k a year, you automatically lose a quarter of it before you ever see any of it.

Most people I know that live in the city do not have a salary that exceeds 50k a year, so all of this plus the cost of housing is leading to several generations of renters instead of home buyers. I dont actually know a single person in the city that has a mortgage, everybody seems to be renting because few people can afford to have a mortgage in the city.

I can only speak from my experiences knowing the people I know, but I know many people from all walks of life, so i doubt my view is that biast.

I pay as much in rent for a 1 bedroom apartment in the sydney than I would with a mortgage for a 3 bedroom home well outside of the city.

Heres another example of how expensive things are here that always makes my blood boil - a bottle of coke is going to cost you 4-6 dollars at your typical convenience store.

When i was last in San Fransisco 4-5 years ago, It cost around a $1.50 including tax.

Re: How Long Will You Need to Save to Buy a Home In Your City?

#75

Post by se85 » Fri, Aug 31, 2012, 5:17 AM UTC

bobbles wrote: post #4

se85 wrote: post #3

I live in Sydney Australia, so to me these prices look fairly reasonable in comparison. To give some of you non-aussies an example... The average price for 2 bedroom victorian era terraces (hundred year old plus buildings) with next to no real land except the land the property sits on in sydney can be anywhere from 800k (AU) to millions of dollars. Our interest rates are also higher then US.

I live in a block of flats in a suburb near North Sydney and one of the 2 bedroom flats like mine was sold for $695,000 AUD. It's completely ridiculous. (The flats are pretty bad quality) Meanwhile a friend of mine just south of Newcastle bought a 3 Bedroom house with double garage & front and back yards for just around $400K... It's tempting to just start doing the commute with a difference like that

Yep, I actually migrated from a small country town out west to sydney BECAUSE of the commuting.

Now i'm thinking I just need to move to a country that isn't so ridiculous when it comes to living costs.