Comment by everdev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by everdev | Hacker News Reader

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You can find affordable food, gas, insurance, etc. in the Bay Area. Sure, there are $20 burgers and $10 beers, but you don't need to consume them as the food in grocery stores is within a few % of most other areas of the country.

As far as I can tell, the main driver of family expenses in mortgage/rent and keeping up with the Jones' (but I don't know if the last is a uniquely Bay Area problem). Unfortunately, many families reach for the max mortgage someone will lend them, which keeps expenses and housing prices going up. If you pay $50k/year ($4k/month) on a $850k mortgage and $30k/year in taxes, it's easy to see how $120k/year is low-income. The remaining $40k divided by 4 people = $833/month per person for food, clothes, transportation, insurance, etc. Not poverty, but not high living either.

I know many families in the area that complain about the high cost of living yet frequently carry debt for that new car, or a credit card balance they can't afford. It's a self-generated problem that keeps going.

We (a family of 6) seemed to spend about 50% more on "general life" in the Bay Area than we do in Chicago.

* Eating out was a lot more expensive, kids' meals especially are more expensive than other places.

* More on gas because we had to flippin' drive everywhere. Anywhere with reasonable public transit or walkability had vastly higher housing prices.

* State income tax is high

* I don't know why, but we got a crap ton of ticky tacky traffic tickets.

* Property taxes are relatively high if you're in a house that was recently purchased.

Yes housing is the bulk of it, but I was really astonished how much money we spent.

Keeping up with the Jonses? Maybe others parts of the country but not so much in the Bay Area. More like NIMBY's protecting the insane value of their dilapidated 2bed/1bath fixer uppers offered at $1M+ and selling to all cash buyers offering 20% over asking and 7 day close. [0]

[0]http://www.berkeleyside.com/2017/06/09/overheated-market-eas...

with two teslas on the street parking spot and an apple device stuck in each orifice.

(probably more the case of a couple making $250k each and still buying above their lifestyle than the case this thread is about)

The price of housing is a self-generated problem?

It is if you also get a new car, and can't properly afford either.

The price of housing is a product of too many people wanting to live in too small an area. The huge salaries, probably driven in part by venture capital mardi gras, also certainly work to keep driving up prices. If somebody's willing to pay $4k a month for a modest place, then there will certainly be people willing to charge $4k a month for a modest place!

It's not that it's too small an area yet, it's that higher density building is being hamstrung, which prevents housing from meeting demand. If I recall correctly, for every new housing unit that's been created over the last (I think 10) years, 9 jobs were added. It's incredibly low density for such a high priced area, with many tiny, single story ranch-style houses, but a sizable contingent of very noisy residents fight tooth and nail against increasing the density.

In San Mateo, for example, there's a law on the books that prevents any new buildings above 55 feet, as well as any building with a floor area greater than 3x the land it sits in, which condemns the area to an average density of 3 stories or less, even in downtown, where there are some existing 150 foot+ buildings. That law is sunsetting in 2020, but there are already citizen groups agitating vigorously to get a renewal on the ballot, even as the current council was elected on a platform of more building. This would tie the hands of the council and prevent them from doing what they were elected to do.

In the case of the Bay Area, it's the case of building commercially zoned areas without residential units which can bear the capacity of the available jobs. Palo Alto is the poster child for having many more jobs than residential units.

Is that true for PA? Seems like the whole town is nothing but neighborhoods. I suppose if you include Stanford in that calculation you could be right.

Problem is, most of PA is single-family homes, with strict height limits. This makes density artificially low (i.e. the infamous American "sprawl")

According to this 2013 study, the daytime population in Palo Alto is twice the residential population.

http://www.paloaltoparksplan.org/pdf/PTOSR-Demographic-Analy...

It's pretty clear if you look at 'typical traffic' in Google Maps, particularly on Page Mill or Sand Hill Roads at 280.

Salaries are low at VC-backed firms. Huge salaries are from companies with a lot of revenue.

actually kind of because no one is forcing you to live in the bay area (maybe less than 1 percent of people really have to stay in the area)

The cost of homes keeps going up because of supply vs demand. There just aren't enough homes in the Bay Area to handle the population. That's why people pay ridiculous sums for homes that really aren't worth what they pay.

It's basically a situation where the rich can outbid the poor. Building "affordable" housing won't solve the problem, because the rich will just come in and outbid everyone anyway.

Costco, dollar stores, buying on sale items only... you can save a ton by not going for fast food, dining out or convenience. I used to spend over $25k/yr dining out around 2007 and $18k on housing. Housing is now zero and food under $200.

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