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Comment by nox100 | Hacker News Reader

They're not affordable for FANG employees. According to levels.fyi an L5 at Google makes $349,163, of that they'll keep 60% after taxes so 209k. It sounds like a lot (and it is in comparison to people making less) but a 1bd apartment costs > $1 million almost anywhere near one of those jobs. You need to pay rent until you've saved $200k-$400k which will take 5-6yrs and then you buy a 1bed apartment and pay $7000-$9000 a month (apartment + hoa) (seen HOAs as much as $3k a month!).

AFAICT the only way they can do it is as a couple or down payments from family.

If you wonder why traffic is so bad, it's because the only places affordable are 90 minute commute

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A FAANG engineer with a take home pay of $200k/yr should be able to save, let's say, $50k/yr. that still leaves $150k/yr, or $12,500/month to spend on housing, doordash, groceries, entertainment, and other savings. Which should be plenty, but maybe I'm not spending enough on Doordash. After 4 years, they'll have $200k saved up.

Here's a million dollar, 1 bed condo, and its HOA is $600/month. I don't doubt that there are HOA's charging $3,000/mo, but that's not remotely normal. If you put $200k down, that's 20%, so you have a mortgage of $800k. At today's interest rates of 6.358% on a 30-fixed, that's $6,062+$600 HOA/month. Which is a lot higher than a couple years ago, but that's a whole other thing.

Since they're no longer saving, their take home of $209k - $6700*12, leaves them $128k/yr, or $10,700/month to pay for food and entertainment and savings. Again, maybe I'm not spending enough on entertainment, but $10k month seems a lot to me, enough to survive on, at least.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/400-Avila-St-APT-102-San-...

Of course this is San Francisco, and housing goes for over-list-price, so here's an $800k condo.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/417-Carl-St-San-Francisco...

Both of these are in reasonable neighborhoods, though everyone's got an opinion about which neighborhood is the best.

You realize you're talking about a 1bedroom apartment, not a single family home. It shouldn't require an L5 job at FAANG to just barely be able to afford 1bedroom apartment.

L5 at google here, your numbers are a bit off. I’m in Seattle, so you can still get a one bedroom condo for $600k or so. HOA will top out at $1k, for a new place, it’s often much lower for those $600k places, like $300/month. I saved for my down payment while working for Microsoft in Beijing: rent is pretty cheap, even if a 1 bedroom apartment sells for $1m, you can rent it for less than a thousand a month. I did make less in China than what a level 64 would make in the states, but my expenses were pretty low.

I bought 3.5 years ago, today it would be much harder, I would have sell some stock to put more in a down payment to make my mortgage payment more reasonable. It also helps that my SO works as a designer for another FAANG.

> today it would be much harder,

> It also helps that my SO works as a designer for another FAANG.

Thanks for confirming my point :)

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