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Comment by warent | Hacker News Reader

California is crumbling, socially. Have you seen the homelessness epidemic from San Fransisco and everywhere south? I work in a lucrative upper engineering management role and still cannot afford to buy a house... That's not really an indicator of a healthy state.

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Then ask for a raise. Two people making $140k should easily be able to save up $400k in 5-8 years for a mortgage down payment. And single people don't need an entire house.

With the $400k, they should forget the down-payment, move somewhere with reasonable real estate, and buy two houses outright.

Should just move to somewhere in Montana with fiber. Buy a house with a forest attached to it and only one person need to work making $100K to live the same life.

The downside being lack of good sushi restaurants anywhere near, but ones got to make choices.

Clearly you've never tried to purchase real estate in the Bay or done the math. $140k after taxes is more like 90k, and then rent eats up $25k of that alone. Subtract another $25k for living expenses (food, insurance, car, etc.) and you're left with 40k, which realistically you'd be dumping into a retirement fund. 2 bedroom house in a decent location with decent schools costs well over $1.5M, plus the insane property taxes due to Prop 13., and you need to pay cash or you won't win the bidding wars.

In states with functioning real estate markets, a decent house in a decent location costs $700k tops and you don't pay $3-4k/mo in rent for a shitty, tiny apartment next to a homeless encampment. My friend rents a highrise penthouse in Chicago for the same price as a 1930s 3bd apartment in SF.

"functioning real estate markets"

Is the housing market in the Bay area really uniquely dysfunctional? High property prices are a result of demand outstripping supply. It's what you get for concentrating the entire tech industry in one place. Similar to Manhattan and the financial industry.

In that regard, the real estate market in the Bay area is basically working as intended. Or am I missing something?

By functioning, I mean markets where the local property owners haven't colluded to restrict supply via bullshit environmental assays, zoning, etc. Or at least they haven't sufficiently colluded to the level of straight up preventing new housing from being built.

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