Rule of thumb for home affordability would still price the person out of that home, even at 400k/yr. Meanwhile, the median home price in the country as a whole is 350-400k these days. SV has priced out even their senior engineers, which does seem like an issue for hiring.
Mean average home price in the city of Cupertino is not a useful statistic to determine if someone is priced out of a job located in Cupertino. There are lower priced areas that are within commuting distances acceptable to sufficient people, plus dual income couples.
The median home price for the SF Bay Area is roughly $1.4M -- that means this sort of role is the bottom of who could afford a home alone. Making half as much money somewhere else is likely going to provide a higher quality of life than barely being able to break into the Bay Area housing market and potentially needing a long commute to your "desirable" job. This was not the case for the previous generations of engineers moving to the Bay Area.
> of who could afford a home alone
I don’t think that’s much of a thing any more, not just in the Bay Area.
Yikes so this ultra rare skilled engineer is going to have to have a long commute and essentially live like a peasant?
Who would accept this role??
Cupertino is smaller than you think it is. I don't know if much of anyone at Apple lives there. It's mostly old retired people from Taiwan and India.
Incorrect, as common sense would dictate lots of people who work at Apple live close by the office (homes aren’t the only option, there is a thing called renting)
To rent in Cupertino they would have to let you build apartments, which they famously don't.
You're not buying a house with your yet-to-vest stock.
I recently got approved for a mortgage with a mainstream lender where they took unvested stock into account for the pre-approval. Thankfully I'm not reliant on that stock vesting to pay the mortgage. As I understand there are quite a few lenders that will do this.
“Total compensation” usually refers to base salary together with your yearly bonus and vested stock. Mortgage lenders will typically look at your W2 income which includes the bonus and stock.
Private bankers will do this if you have enough of it.
There seems to be a massive disconnect between people who live in these expensive bubbles and everyone else.