Sounds about right.
The benefit is, if you’re ever able to afford property, you can hold it for a few years, sell it, pay off the mortgage, and move almost anywhere else in the world as a millionaire.
Remote work begins to look very attractive.
Bay Area single-family homes’ median price is $2 million. With a 20% down payment, you are looking at a $400k down payment and $10k monthly payments. No single soul can afford it, unless you have rich parents or Airbnb hoarders. Or senior+ positions for FAANG
Yup, those are the people who benefit. Everyone else gets priced out. And good luck if you’re in trades or the service industry.
Yep, my wife’s friend bought a house in San Jose, and IMO in a shitty area. Her mortgage is $10k / month. The thought of spending a full Honda Civic every 3 months to put a roof over your head is just asinine.
Seriously who the fuck is able to do this and how is it sustainable as a system?
I don’t mean to be an accelerationist but let’s all get guns and wrap this the fuck up already.
Senior dev positions in the Bay area can fetch like 300k/yr base pay or higher. You can afford monthly down payments with an income this high. If you are married your income can go even higher. US tax code also allows you to average your income if you file together. Eg. If one person is staying at home and the other makes 300k/yr, your income tax is calculated as if two people made 150k/yr each. This can greatly reduce your taxes.
I find it really funny that Texas is welcoming the tech bros now, because this is exactly what happens when the tech bros mix with an unregulated housing market.
Yeah it’s been like that for awhile. Tech bros have been moving in swathes out of California because they only care about paying less taxes and buying cheaper real estate.
I’m looking at jobs where they have offices in downtown SF and require full time in office because “culture” (or if they’re generous, 2 days a week at home), but the pay is like $250K/year. Anywhere else that salary would be AMAZING but in SF you’re going paycheck to paycheck and still commuting 2-3 hours a day. Seattle is just as bad.
Those places are beautiful and I’d love to live there, but it’s not realistic for anyone who hasn’t gotten some kind of windfall.
Seattle is definitely not just as bad. Sure it’s reasonably high cost of living, but you can do fine well under 100k. Parts of it are insane, but parts of it are not much worse than urban Midwest.
If min wage kept up with inflation it would be more than $30/hr now.
