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Comment by closeparen | Hacker News Reader

At $150k in the Bay Area you’re going to be renting and spending 2 hours a day on public transit. Those roles made sense as a career stepping stone up to homeownership & family supporting roles. I don’t anticipate too many senior folks taking them unless they get exceptions to go remote or they already have mega home equity / rent control.

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I'm curious and asking in good faith, $150k in CA seem to translate to just over $100k take home. Looking at Zillow there seem to be an abundance of places all over the bay area around $2.5k (1bdrm) and $3.5k (2bdrm) which sound not too bad on one and 2 incomes respectively, just like what everyone else is doing, around a third of your income. I don't get why you're assuming one would have commute 2 hours a day. Is transit that bad even if you're close to where you work? I honestly don't get it fully. Don't get me wrong, it sucks and I wish housing was cheaper but I think that's just the way it is now for everybody that has to work in person somewhere. And 25% of your take home income spent on housing isn't too bad at all and that's at the lower end of the spectrum GP is talking about here ($150k-$200k).

I've spent most of my career in the Bay - $150k in the Bay Area without child expenses in a single-earner household with the following common lifestyle choices will about break even month-to-month while fully funding a 401k (in the "core" Bay Area - SF, the Peninsula, parts of Oakland/Berkley):

Eats out frequently, goes out for drinks occasionally, travels a few times a year, owns a new mid-range car, lives in a modern apartment complex or small home/condo near a downtown area (with a < 30 minute commute). New electronics, big TV, minimal but high quality furniture.

Pairing back on those choices you can begin to save every month, but not at a pace to buy a home in a reasonable time frame.

On dual income assuming consistent earnings YoY you can start to buy a house in a cheaper neighborhood later in life, around the time many are starting to have kids.

I have to imagine kids can put a 5-10 year delay on buying a house without various kinds of assistance.

> Pairing back on those choices you can begin to save every month, but not at a pace to buy a home in a reasonable time frame.

That’s what I’m saying.

> On dual income assuming consistent earnings YoY you can start to buy a house in a cheaper neighborhood later in life, around the time many are starting to have kids.

Dual tech income folks are in a great spot, but with gender ratios as they are, there can’t be very many such couples. Also this could be a function of social circle but I find many women (even in tech) expect a husband to provide for them while the kids are young.

If you have a family, those might not fit. If you have a mortgage, your costs won't go down if you lose your job, you can't easily change things.

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No, you don't. Expensive activities aren't necessary when you have kids. Do you really think people aren't raising kids in SF?

SF leads the US in childlessness.

https://sfist.com/2022/05/24/sf-still-the-most-childless-cit...

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I don't have kids and won't have kids, but I definitely didn't have those things growing up in a suburb. It's not at all required unless you're homeschooling.

This is a case of lifestyle inflation and then complaining about lifestyle inflation. Public school is good enough, your kids aren't better than the rest of the people in SF.

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> But I also live in the bay area now, and have kids, and can confidently say that it's a different experience for kids than what you are talking about.

The different experience is that you make more than your parents did at your age and thus have lifestyle inflation.

The IT guy for a car dealership in Milwaukee is allowed this kind of "lifestyle inflation" no problem. The point of Silicon Valley is that high level and differentiated computer skills can make you rich. Part of that might be slumming it a bit during the early stages of your career or startup, hence the commandment against lifestyle inflation. But in a career role, your Silicon Valley TC better give you a better lifestyle than what’s generic computer guy gets from a non-tech business in a normal metro area. And given prices here, that’s a big number.

Obviously Bay Area amenities are worth something. Are they worth descending an entire social class? Maybe to some. But I think most rational people will go fix the computers at that car dealership, and put their kids on the travel team. You are not obliged to live an austere life just because someone offered you a (locally) mediocre job in the Bay Area.

The IT guy at a car dealership isn't expecting to pay full price for private schools and then complaining when it wipes out almost all of their take home pay. That's probably because the IT guy for a car dealership is making $70k not $500k a year.

Nobody's "descending a social class" by sending their kids to public school or having them do normal stuff, this is hysterical.

I grew up on the Peninsula and my parents were not paying for any of this stuff. Public school parents organized soccer games and park days and other times we just road cheap bicycles around and went to each others houses and occasionally caused trouble.

Sounds like a fun childhood :)

Felt relatively safe and of course once we got older we would just hop on caltrain for super cheap and head up to SF. Told our parents we were going to "the movie theater". New Years in San Francisco at age 13 was definitely interesting

Agreed, you can buy a good 2000 sqft house on a 1/4 acre within 1 hour of the peninsula on 150k. I did it last year. My wife is just starting a bootcamp + software career and we will be quite happy and comfortable if she brings in an extra 75k/yr.

Interest rates have increased quite a bit.

What city has 1/4 acre lots? (11000 sq ft (1020 m^2))

For larger lots you generally wont be looking at city centers unless you are rich, but almost all bay area cities have larger lots on the outskirts or adjacent areas.

It is all a matter of tradeoffs and the level of urbanization you want. I cant walk to a bar or music venue, but I can still walk to a grocery store and a smaller number of restraints.

Interest rates are up, but property prices are down quite a bit (my house is down about 15%). While last year may have been better, I think is a still a decent market if you have a few 100k saved from a 150k salary, better if you saved more.

Adjacent Peninsula cities are barely within an hour of each other at commute time. Where are you talking about?

It's not that bad, those cities aren't very large geographically.

I think the parent commenter might be eating a lot of garlic since his move. :)

Is eating a lot of garlic a euphemism for something?

Gilroy (home of the garlic festival).

of course it depends on your worksite, but oakland, hayward, fremont, and the coast are all substantially cheaper.

Sure, that should be possible, but I think you'll need to have a downpayment of over 20% to make that happen.

That takes a several years at 150k salary, but is entirely feasible.

If you don't have a down payment and cant save one, you are in for a bad time everywhere.

It’s more than enough to rent, which is fine for folks just starting out, mid-late 20s getting their first promotions, or those who plan to move back to LCOL when they are done saving up. It’s less fine as a terminal level for someone at a homeownership/family stage of life.

Well, when I first came to US, I lived like first 8-9 years without a mattress. I found carpeted floors and 2 comforters more than enough comfy setup. I also stayed with people who had to buy a mattress before spending first night in apartment.

Point being whats luxury living for one could be basic, minimum living standard for others. And I am talking about people doing roughly same IT type jobs.

So that below living wage of 150K in bay area is from that school of thought where having single family home, 2 car garage, a bit of front/backyard and 30 min leisurely commute by personal car is basic minimum standard of living.

To be clear my spouse would also consider this as basic things despite spending far fewer years than me in US. And after decade and half in US I still think these facilities/perks are matter of great fortune that I ended up with and not just oh everyone has it type.

The point is less what's a "basic minimum" or what you "deserve" but what your alternatives are. The US is big. The vast majority of its regions are less insane than the Bay Area. All of them employ skilled-with-computers people to some degree. And in most of them, even lower-status and lower-paying computer jobs would support a comfortable house in a decent school district much better than these kinds of jobs would in the Bay Area. The reason FAANG has historically had to offer $300-500k is because that's what it takes to entice people away from those lives into this housing market. Housing prices are down a bit, but not that much.

That's freaking hilarious, I didn't cross $150k until I was just shy of 40 years old. My first SWE job paid $55k.

Not in the bay area, though.

People working at Cisco aren't cracking $150k until they're mid-level at minimum. The people on this thread are completely out of touch.

AFAIK people aren’t giving up middle class lives elsewhere in the US and relocating for Cisco.

To most people, Cisco would be considered a high paying employer. If anything, people are giving up middle class lives in other countries and relocating to San Jose for Cisco.

Living 5 adults to a house in San Jose might genuinely be better than living in India. I wouldn’t know. The point is if you have moved to Wisconsin or whatever, it would be foolish to move back to San Jose for that.

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