2 ms·

In Boston & Cambridge there are quite a lot of tech people making $200k, even as individual contributors. And there are many two-job couples with household inco

by ef4 10y ago

In Boston & Cambridge there are quite a lot of tech people making $200k, even as individual contributors. And there are many two-job couples with household income over $300k. A million dollar mortgage will cost $6000 per month, which is only 36% of $200k or 25% of $300k. So yes, plenty of people can afford it. > assuming this guy paid cash There's no reason to assume that, although there _are_ a surprising amount of cash buyers around here.

shostack 10y ago
Where are you getting the $6k/mo on a $1M mortgage figure from?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- ef4 10y ago
  If anything it is pessimistic. It amounts to 7.2% total annual costs, which would include a jumbo mortgage rate, real estate taxes, and condo fees.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>In Boston & Cambridge there are quite a lot of tech people making $200k, even as individual contributors. Who are these, "quite a lot of people"? What percentage of the total population? How many individuals? Middlesex County (where Camberville is) has a median household income of $82,090. Suffolk, containing Boston proper, has $53,540/year.
- ef4 10y ago
  Well, there are 1,200 Harvard faculty, average effective annual salary $274,005. 600 MIT faculty, average effective annual salary $249,509. 900 Google employees, of which quite a few are at least Staff Software Engineers, which average $200,418 based on Glassdoor's estimates. Then you also have Microsoft, Akamai, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon, all of which have pay grades for individual contributor software engineers that go over $200k, and staffs in the hundreds of engineers. We can thrown in many hundred MD PhDs at the world-class research hospitals: MGH, Brigham and Women's, Tufts Medical, etc. My point is that the Boston/Camberville economy has many institutions that compete globally. They bring revenue from around the entire world and concentrate it here, and they compete vigorously with each other over the most qualified people. People from elsewhere don't often appreciate the way that this city punches above its weight. Only New York and San Francisco are really in this league, and they are both much larger cities. So yes, a few hundred new luxury condos are hardly a blip. The median home price in Cambridge is now $1.6 million. During the 2008 crisis when real estate was falling nearly everywhere, it merely leveled off here. It's not hard to see why, when you consider the value of having neighbors with endowments of $37 billion and $13 billion who form a global skill vortex.
scep12 10y ago
I thought the 1/4 - 1/3 rule referred to net (not gross) income?

by ef4 10y ago

shostack 10y ago

Where are you getting the $6k/mo on a $1M mortgage figure from?

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ef4 10y ago
If anything it is pessimistic. It amounts to 7.2% total annual costs, which would include a jumbo mortgage rate, real estate taxes, and condo fees.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>In Boston & Cambridge there are quite a lot of tech people making $200k, even as individual contributors. Who are these, "quite a lot of people"? What percentage of the total population? How many individuals? Middlesex County (where Camberville is) has a median household income of $82,090. Suffolk, containing Boston proper, has $53,540/year.

ef4 10y ago
Well, there are 1,200 Harvard faculty, average effective annual salary $274,005. 600 MIT faculty, average effective annual salary $249,509. 900 Google employees, of which quite a few are at least Staff Software Engineers, which average $200,418 based on Glassdoor's estimates. Then you also have Microsoft, Akamai, Facebook, Twitter, and Amazon, all of which have pay grades for individual contributor software engineers that go over $200k, and staffs in the hundreds of engineers. We can thrown in many hundred MD PhDs at the world-class research hospitals: MGH, Brigham and Women's, Tufts Medical, etc. My point is that the Boston/Camberville economy has many institutions that compete globally. They bring revenue from around the entire world and concentrate it here, and they compete vigorously with each other over the most qualified people. People from elsewhere don't often appreciate the way that this city punches above its weight. Only New York and San Francisco are really in this league, and they are both much larger cities. So yes, a few hundred new luxury condos are hardly a blip. The median home price in Cambridge is now $1.6 million. During the 2008 crisis when real estate was falling nearly everywhere, it merely leveled off here. It's not hard to see why, when you consider the value of having neighbors with endowments of $37 billion and $13 billion who form a global skill vortex.

scep12 10y ago

I thought the 1/4 - 1/3 rule referred to net (not gross) income?