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Comment by geddy | Hacker News Reader

I'm always reading about job openings throughout my country (or world, for that matter) that offer 100% remote positions, and initially the huge difference in salary was pretty jarring. Then I hopped on Trulia for some less populated (not rural, but certainly not close-to-the-city-suburbs), and realized the mortgage for a house twice my size would cost the property taxes I pay now. Literally talking about a $25,000/year difference in just the mortgage. In other words, what I pay just in property taxes annually here, is how much a house costs annually that's double the size, there.

Suddenly I didn't mind seeing zeroes falling off the salary.

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This could be dangerous, restarting your life somewhere sight unseen just because it looks great on paper. You sell and move to that house in location x for cost alone, always pining for that life you had in location y with all the intangibles you never realized you were reliant on, and never will make enough to reverse the play and relocate back to y which has experienced ever higher property values since you've been gone.

A better move would be to move laterally, to a place with the same benefits that the one you are in gives you, be it leisure activities or a network for your field. That might limit you to metros, and particular metros that are most favorable to your activities (skiers might like CO, sailors might like FL). Suddenly your options become limited, and you find among these limited choices the same housing issues that have plagued states like CA as demand ramps up, because everyone had the same idea as you. No city in the U.S. actually builds sufficient supply for their influx in labor; even the ones that we applaud are doing quite poorly in terms of how much housing should be built and where. The ones that don't seem to have a housing crisis are experiencing a contracting local economy, and that doesn't bode well with your networking prospects and career options.

There's a concept known as operating leverage which applies here: fixed costs, even if high, mean that increases in revenue multiply net income.

And of course by moving outside a greater metro area, you're also saving money by choosing not to consume any amenities of private schools, airports, large hospitals, high infrastructure recreation, etc.

Absolutely true. Once you move out of the center of a high-density, major metropolitan area, you literally cannot find and use private schools, airports, hospitals, and theme parks.

And your IQ drops by 50 points. Instantly. It's weird.

That's not what I said, so your sarcasm is misplaced and makes you seem unnecessarily irritated. Maybe you are misunderstanding the meaning of "greater metro area" which means "a metro area and surrounding, connected developments" and not "better than rural metro area."

I live in northeast Alabama currently, in a rural area, well outside any metropolitan area. Now, I can't speak to private schools; I don't have kids.

As far as airports go, there are two connector airports about an hour away, to the northeast and west, and a major hub two hours east. (As it turns out, even when I've lived in major metropolitan areas, I've never been closer than an hour to an airport.)

There are two regional hospitals relatively close (plus trauma helicopters if you need that sort of thing). Then there are major hospitals an hour west, plus Birmingham and Nashville---both of which I've known people to go to for specialized care.

I honestly don't know what you mean by "high infrastructure recreation"; if it's outdoor sporting and recreation, it's as good here as anywhere (and fishing is better than most).

There is a dearth of bars and live-music venues, but then I didn't partake of those even when I had easy access.

So, when you write "And of course by moving outside a greater metro area, you're also saving money by choosing not to consume any amenities of private schools, airports, large hospitals, high infrastructure recreation, etc." you seem to have a very wrong idea of life outside a "greater metro area", one that is either extremely naive or deliberately insulting.

And I'm not irritated, just cranky.

No, I have the right idea just as you corroborated. There are amenities of legitimate value in a metro area. You do not care for them, so it doesn’t make sense for you to pay for easy access to them. However, saving money by reducing consumption is a lifestyle choice. Many people would rather choose to consume. That’s all I was trying to point out.

There are network effects as well. I live 15 minutes from an airport with daily direct flights to the my parent’s home country. There are only a few such airports in the USA. Places with that kind of infrastructure also tend to have other valuable infrastructure. So even though I don’t benefit from the live music venue 2 blocks from my home, it’s part of the deal of being able to return home on short notice in emergency.

> Suddenly I didn't mind seeing zeroes falling off the salary.

Keep in mind: that asset your company is paying for can be sold and the difference will be kept by the employee, which will let them set themselves up for a much better retirement in a lower cost of living area.

It reminds me a bit of the SF Giants. They couldn't pay high salaries because they had to pay for their ballpark. But the value of that ballpark is part of the value of the club, which would be realized if the owner ever sold it. So it still was a lot like the owners pocketing the money. But not exactly.

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