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Comment by b9a2cab5 | Hacker News Reader

Only if you work in tech, and only if you're a software engineer or PM. It is straight up not possible to live in a reasonably safe area in SF on a salary less than $100k before tax. And the biggest reason is the toxic cost of living caused by refusal to build high density housing.

I know software engineers who went from living with roommates in a tiny apartment in SF to paying less for a penthouse in other big cities.

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Not disagreeing, but I think it has more to do with not having kids. You can find a one bedroom on Craigslist in almost any neighborhood in SF for less than $2,000 a month. How much more do you need to survive as a single person? Another $2K a month? That puts you at $4k/month, or $48K a year, which most full-time jobs will pay.

Assuming healthy, no kids, and that the landlord agrees to rent you the place, which may be difficult if you’re a person of color or have a low salary.

A "safe" and not particularly conservative budgeting rule of thumb is to not spend more than a third of your take-home income on housing... so your numbers pretty much match up exactly with what GP said about <$100k salary.

Most of us live with roommates.

True, but I’ve read that most people don’t budget or spend conservatively, so it is theoretically possible to get by on a normal paycheck in SF. At that rate you probably qualify for stuff like BMR housing and may be able to own a home in the Bay well before someone earning $100K-120K. However, it’s very unlikely you will win the BMR lottery or qualify for the loan.

Pre-COVID you couldn't find a 1br in a safe neighborhood for less than $3-3.5k. Less than 2k gets you something in the Tenderloin, which is the opposite of safe. Add food (~$700 because high cost of living), car payments (~$450 for an econobox), car insurance (~$200 because SF has a lot of break-ins and theft), health insurance, utilities (also expensive as fuck in NorCal due to cost of living), phone/internet bills, and you can realistically hit $5k/mo in expenses.

According to this calculator [1] post-tax a $100k salary nets you $5500/mo in San Francisco. This is mostly due to high state taxes. So you are basically living paycheck to paycheck despite making 6 figures and living a pretty standard life, which is moronic no matter how much you look at it.

[1]: https://smartasset.com/taxes/paycheck-calculator#XhSaiPp5Sy

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