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Spending 2.3m on a house is a bit extravagant, the median house price in nearby San Jose is currently only 1.2m. That means half are even lower! Of course if you want some newly-built 3000 sq ft house in a top 10% school district it's going to cost even more, so it really depends on what you consider reasonable.

I guess this just supports your argument that 450k sounds like a lot but in practice it only buys an 'upper middle class' lifestyle. Still, many things don't cost more in HCOL areas (travel, goods you can buy online), or only have a slight premium (food). It's easy to overfocus on expensive housing and services. Actual 'middle class' people don't go on frequent airplane travel or dine out multiple times/week, whereas that's very typical among HCOL tech workers.

If you’ve been looking for a house, you’ll realize that 1.3M houses in San Jose either need some work done or are not in a good school district. I am sure someone who makes $450k will always try to move to the best available school district.

Also to your point about expenses. Companies don’t pay you $450k for a 9-5 job. They do that so they can squeeze out as much time of your day as possible. Most tech workers don’t “dine out”, they order in because they have to.

And as far as what I said, it’s not to cry how bad it is for someone making 450k. It is to say that it sounds nice, but in practice you can get a comparable lifestyle in say 80k in India or 200k in Europe. The only difference like I said is when you move out of these expensive places to somewhere cheaper.

It’s the same comparison to saying you can earn $18-25/hour (35-50k/year) waiting tables in Bay Area. But only make 20k/year in Paris doing the same job in Paris.

The difference is with waiting tables you are living hand to mouth. When you’re making $450k, it just takes a little bit of discipline to build up a huge nest egg and then move somewhere way cheaper to up your standard of living.

There's something conveyor-belt-like about some high salaries in some areas that isn't appreciated. A Wall Street salary (comparable to the Silicon Valley) comes with it no remote-first, a questionable commute unless one is paying top dollar, and the very likelihood of continuing to rent versus buy. And who can resist the 7 dollar coffees and the expensive outings with friends or colleagues at a restaurant.

In a sense you can try to save money, but it is hard in HCOL like NY and the Bay Area.

When on paper we see the person with the 300, 400K salary we sometimes assume they have a lot of money saved up or they live very well. And indeed probably they live with many many conveniences that few people on Earth have.

Most of them (us?), though, aren't smart enough to make that much money and figure out a way to retire early on it.

If there's a trick to do so without roommates, I'm all ears.

Saving big without roommates almost anywhere 3rd tier city or higher requires hefty sacrifices. Not unique to a megapolis at all.

And yes, that includes saying 'no' to your 7 dollar coffees, though that's more likely the tip of the iceberg.

But that money you’re putting towards the mortgage belongs to future-you (minus interest, and assuming property prices at least stay the same). It’s a savings account.

To get the money back you have to sell your property, and then where are you going to live? Sure it's great if you want to then move to a cheap area, but what if you want to stay near your friends & family?

(Yes, there are some alternatives like HELOC or reverse mortgage, but I don't think they are generally that great except for very specific situations)

Sounds easy, in practice it’s much harder. Spend years building a life making money, have your entire social circle and your kids’ lives somewhere. You don’t just leave. Why do most of our parents still live in the same place or move to near where their kids live (also other HCOL areas)?

Because most parents didn't have the foresight to only invest a few years to kickstart their career and bank accounts to greater heights and leave after.

Times have changed and the writing is on the wall for individuals to GTFO after a few years now. Gentrification is far more rampant and obvious, and anyone moving to a big city has a wealth of information to draw from.

True, but you can downsize later in life and get a payout.

Is this life hedonically adapted to live on $450K sustainable? I would prefer the social system of Germany, France etc where there are safety nets for me and my family.

Very true, we've lived in Oregon for 30 years but all my inlaws lived in the Bay Area the whole time. Now that they are ready to cash and move out their property values are a great asset but it's also very painful to pull up your roots at that age.

A mortgage isn't a cost. It's an investment. You would call money you put in a 401k a cost either.

Where do you live if you take the money out of the house for retirement? In a practical sense, it’s a cost.

The point is home equity is value you own. You can get money out a lot of ways: relocating, downsizing, reverse mortgage.

With rent you are out on your ass with nothing the moment you stop paying.

If you move to a much lower cost of living area, then the difference in expenses is the return on investment.

Netflix is remote first. They made that decision during the height of the pandemic and stuck to it.

Nope. Their CEO literally wants people back. I interviewed with them recently and they said, they have the pandemic policies in place, but eventually they want people back. The job I was interviewing for asked me to be in office at least 3 times a week.

I worked there until very recently (in an SE role for 4 years). I left Los Gatos and haven't looked back. While I'm in another major city where they have an office, before I left I hadn't been in months. Half my team ended up moving to Austin.

During the pandemic they made the open statement that people could permanently move, people did (bought houses and the like). They've openly admitted internally that they're stuck with that decision. They even went as far as sharing remote adjusted salaries based on the "tier" of city you were remote in.

Not to be prickly, but you're wrong in the broader sense. The hiring manager was saying that to YOU because they don't want to hire YOU as a remote worker.

The team you interviewed with wanted you there three times a week, that's not a global policy across the company. Go look at roles in the security org for example and you'll see nearly every one of them lists Remote, United States as the location.

>13k/month (with taxes and insurance) or $156k/year.

Keep in mind that most of that is going to be tax deductible. So depending on marginal brackets and other write-offs someone can make, the $150k per year might be more like $100k

How is most of that tax deductible?

1) Can only claim interest tax deduction on the first $750,000 of indebtedness [1]

2) Only can claim up to a maximum of $10,000 deduction for state and local taxes on the federal taxes. [2]

3) At the beginning of a mortgage are paying mostly interest and have maximum available tax deduction. But as time goes on it switches to being more paying towards principal. So at the end of the mortgage it is very little interest and thus very little tax deductible.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/publications/p936

[2] https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc503

You can’t write off your mortgage, it’s only the interest and that too has a limit. Otherwise I’d just be buying houses left and right.

True pre-Trump, but he changed that. Thumb in the eye to the coasts.