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Comment by jonesb6 | Hacker News Reader

It's expensive to live in the Bay Area. Expect > 2.5k/rent + utilities + car payment in most situations.

However at that salary it is completely manageable if you keep your other expenses down. If you're not coming out of the gate with $80k+ student loans, you don't buy an overly expensive car (as people tend to do when they get a salary spike..), and you don't empty your savings on overpriced clothes and an outlandish night life, you should be able to save a decent amount of money every month.

Then over the next decade or so you continually build your savings, move your career forward, then you can actually afford a nice home in a nice area.

For the majority it's basic financial management. It will not work for everyone, but $130,000 is a lot of money.

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There's no way that's adequate to, ten years from now, have enough to afford a nice home anywhere in the Bay Area, unless there's some unprecedented adjustment in affordibility vs compensation. My opinion is based on having a high ranking job at (usually) the most valuable company in the world, and having been in California over a decade.

Well by afford I mean can afford a 30-year mortgage on a $1.2m home. Assuming this imaginary person spends his decade or so in the $130-200k range (solid career advancement, probably overly optimistic) and shells between $10-$30k a year into savings, that would be maybe 15% down.

My opinion is based on having absolutely no experience in home buying while making the greatest attempt possible to be optimistic about my future in the Bay Area.

Sorry, but a $1.2m house, including mortgage, taxes, insurance and the general cost of owning a home is not affordable to someone making 200k/yr, much less the $180,000 down payment you are suggesting. That isn't to say it is impossible, but the house would own you.

Yeah, that math is not going to work, even closely.

$200K a year works out at around $11K/month after tax.

15% on a $1.2M home is $180K - even by your estimations that's 6-18 years savings.

So a $1.02M loan over 30 years... 1.1% property tax, 0.5% PMI, 4% interest...

You're looking at a $6,000 mortgage payment (www.mortgagecalculator.org).

Yes, frugal living says you could manage that at 200K.

Your mortgage originator is not even remotely, no matter how convincing you are, going to underwrite a loan with a mortgage payment of 55% of your after tax income.

At 130K, no. That's 85% of your paycheck going to mortgage.

> Your mortgage originator is not even remotely, no matter how convincing you are, going to underwrite a loan with a mortgage payment of 55% of your after tax income.

Not in 2016 at least.

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