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> “My client was maxed out,” Wang said. “He wanted to be self-sufficient: `I’m independent. I don’t want my parents to help me.’ But now he’s realized he’s got

> “My client was maxed out,” Wang said. “He wanted to be self-sufficient: `I’m independent. I don’t want my parents to help me.’ But now he’s realized he’s got to have that conversation with his mother to borrow a couple of hundred thousand dollars, just in case that situation happens again.” Must be nice to have parents who can just loan you ~$200k to make an offer on a 2 million dollar house in Sunnyvale of all places. I can't get over how ridiculous the market in the bay area is right now.

froindt 10y ago
>"the median home value is $961,600, according to Zillow." Being from the Midwest, this is such a foreign concept to me. Looking at Des Moines, $955,000 will get you a 5 bedroom with 3 full and 2 half bathrooms, 1.26 acres, 7037 square feet, and a 5 car garage. And that house has a really nice interior too! That house in the first picture of the article would probably be $100,000 or so based on its size. I understand larger cities offer a higher salary, and that the salary can more than offset the cost of living increase, but it would pain me to think about spending that much money on housing (whether renting or buying). http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15-Greenwood-Ter-Des-Moines-IA-50312/794318_zpid/ http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15-Greenwood-Ter-Des-Moine...
- friedman23 10y ago
  The advantage is that even with the insane housing costs I'm still able to save significant amounts of money. For example 2 years out of school a developer can command $160k salary at the best companies (and those companies have a lot of positions to fill). Assuming $3600 a month on rent you have about $65k after taxes. (I guestimated most of these calculations in 5 seconds so be easy on my math)
  - wavefunction 10y ago
    I get that in a different part of the country, plus great music and culture and - SV culture. With a significant fraction of your salary.
  - pmiller2 10y ago
    If $160k 2 years out of school is typical, I need to know where you work so I can apply[0]. :P In all seriousness, that is not a typical salary for the vast majority of people in the Bay Area. Not everyone is a software developer working for a company with money to burn. --- [0]: In spite of the smiley, this is also true.
    - merkleee 10y ago
      Anyone who can get the title "senior" from multiple major tech employers can get that salary if they are competent at negotiating. That is where the market is in 2017. At top employers you can tack on another $100k in stock/bonus.
    - binarysolo 10y ago
      That's a humblebrag, don't get baited. :P Yes you can get 160k 2 years out of school if you're a top student and/or have awesome GitHub/sideprojects and performed well at the company to own something, move up the chain, or are a cleverer bear than your average.
    - friedman23 10y ago
      I explicitly mentioned best companies.
  - irrational 10y ago
    But... you can also get six figure developer salaries outside of silicon valley in places that are significantly cheaper and with far cheaper taxes than California. And they are a lot more common than people I talk to from the Bay Area seem to think. It's almost like there is some sort of group think that believes that there aren't any well paying developer job in nice locations outside of the Bay Area.
    - encoderer 10y ago
      There is a liquidity to the market here that is unmatched. Also, 200k plus here is not rare which I don't think you can say for many places.
      - irrational 10y ago
        Liquidity? You mean as in it is easy to find a different job? I guess that's good if you enjoy that sort of thing. But, I've been working a six figure developer job at the same company for the past 15 years and I'm thrilled that I don't have to worry about the liquidity of the market ;-)
        encoderer 10y ago
        Here is the setup: Literally dozens of companies paying $150k+ (base) for engineers with experience. Upward pressure on wages and working conditions. Cross-pollination of lessons learned between companies. People always think about startups, but there is an army of engineers at profitable tech companies in the bay area that are well comped for work that generally is free of death-march conditions.
  - hibikir 10y ago
    You'd be surprised at how close to those salaries you can get in the exact same companies, just not in their main campuses. I work for one of those, from home, with the same salary as bay area coworkers, but a 200K 4 bedroom house. There was a recent article here in HN about how Silicon Valley was hiring physicists. Oscar, the main name in that story, is a coworker of mine and he isn't working from the Bay area: he is working from Hawaii. Living in San Francisco is a legitimate choice, but the whole idea that you have to go live there to get the good salaries and work at the good companies is less and less true every year.
    - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
      Isn't Hawaii the only place that would be more expensive than the Bay Area besides maybe manhattan?
      - deleted 10y ago
        [deleted]
    - Domenic_S 10y ago
      > he is working from Hawaii ie, one of the only places more expensive than the bay area. Not sure what point this proves...
      - aaronblohowiak 10y ago
        Not more expensive anymore
      - froindt 10y ago
        Even Hawaii has a gradient of pricing. General cost of living is more expensive than most places on the mainland because almost everything has to be brought in on a ship, but outside of the major tourist cities prices are more manageable.
      - prawn 10y ago
        I expect that the point is they're working remotely, not that they're working remotely from another expensive location.
  - froindt 10y ago
    I ran some pretty extensive numbers on a sub-comment and don't want to repost the entire thing in reply to you. I estimated at $2,900/month rent in the valley and $900/month in the Midwest. Valley earned 160/year, Midwest at 80/year. My conclusion was that if everything froze and you could save all non-rent money (minus 20k for misc. other expenses), the end result would be pretty close. You'd have to commit to working in the valley fairly for about 4 years to save up for the downpayment (assuming you started at 0). After the valley developer gets the house, the numbers may swing substantially in their favor, however it's a long timeline for that to happen, and the housing prices have a fair chance of continuing to rise or for the housing bubble to burst. Full math: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13424430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13424430
    - obstinate 10y ago
      160k total comp is still pretty early days, though. A senior engineer at Google will end up making about 250-300k. A staff engineer 300-400k. I have heard it can be far higher in the case of a highly valued specialty, or high leadership potential. It will be very difficult to ever command a salary like this as a programmer in the midwest.
      - froindt 10y ago
        You know, there may be a serious upside to living in the valley as a software developer if you stay there long enough. You're right about salaries in the Midwest never reaching that high. I'm not a developer, but it seems like it's a good gig if you've been there for a number of years. It seems like it would be difficult to get by for non-tech workers, either requiring a really long commute for a somewhat reasonable rent/mortgage or putting a huge percent of take-home pay into housing. Roughly how many years would it take to get to senior engineer or staff engineer?
        obstinate 10y ago
        It took me I wanna say three years to reach senior and six to reach staff. This is uncommonly fast, but not way outside the ordinary distribution. I don't know what they're paying the kids these days, but I wouldn't be surprised if the entry level comp for a kid right out of school is topping out at $140k. The salaries at these levels don't start out at the top number. Like many other company, it is a band, so that you can continue receiving smaller raises for a few years after you are promoted.
- jjeaff 10y ago
  Silicon valley does not offer 9x the salary though.
  - ec109685 10y ago
    But the rest of your expenses are not 9x in SV. If you saved 2k a month on housing someplace else, but got paid 48k less, you'd be losing big time, especially since mortgage interest is tax deductible.
    - froindt 10y ago
      The deduction also phases out based on your income, and if your mortgage is over $1,000,000. These are both more likely to be a reality in SV over most other places in the US. On the surface, you would be missing out with those numbers, but we have to look at the whole picture. There is no equity gained in a house if you're renting while saving up for a downpayment. Let's look at San Jose vs Des Moines and use the overall median downpayment for comparison. # Assumptions We'll go a bit conservative here. San Jose developer pay 2k/month more in rent than the Midwest developer. San Jose developer will earn double the base salary (not a mere 48k/year more as suggested above.) Outside of housing, the cost of living in both cities is identical at 20k/year. 20k will give you quite a good life in the Midwest as a single person. No idea about the valley. # Midwest developer living in Des Moines, IA: $80,000/year salary (about 57k after taxes) 2 bedroom apartment in a safe place can be found pretty easily for under $900/month. 1 bedroom for $750 or so. No roommates. Perhaps a 20 minute commute to work. Rent = $900/month = $10,800/year Other Living Expenses = $20,000/year Leftover money = 2,200/month = 26k/year 18 months of saving at that rate to get to the median down payment (39k). Money sunk into rent before getting any equity in a house: $39,000 # San Jose developer: $160,000/year salary (about 105k after taxes) Rent = 2,900/month = 34,800 Other Living Expenses = $20,000/year Leftover money = $4,183/month = $50,200/year 46 months until you have the $192,000 down payment ready, assuming housing prices stay the same. Money sunk into rent before getting any equity in a house: $133,400 # Result When the San Jose developer buys a home (assuming the median downpayment didn't go up in those almost 4 years of waiting), the Midwest developer stopped paying rent (11k/year) and was paying down their mortgage with that 11k and the leftover money of 26k/year, totaling 37k/year. Neglecting mortgage interest because I don't want to calculate that, the Midwest developer put 86k towards the 192k house after the downpayment. Total equity for Midwest developer: 86k+39k = 125k. Total equity for San Jose developer: 192k. Yes, the San Jose developer has more equity in the end, but we also assumed: * Identical cost of living * The housing prices in both cities stayed the same until San Jose developer had their 192k. That will be pretty true in the Midwest, but may not be in SV. San Jose may not have a huge commute, but other areas of SV would. We didn't even look at the fact that the Midwest developer isn't spending 1-2 hours each way going to work (numbers I see cited here frequently). After tax estimates are based on this calculator: https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#347zLoGvwJ https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#347zLoGvwJ
- spamizbad 10y ago
  Here's the other thing: Many of these bay area starter homes are located in safe, but characterless suburbs. I don't mean that in an angsty anti-suburban way: they're just poorly planned with poorly made homes. You mention Des Moines... As a thought experiment: if the hand of god moved the city of Ankeny, Iowa so that it was a 30 min commute to the bay, it would soon be regarded as one of the "cooler" places to live outside of SF, and quickly fill up with millionaires.
  - Girlang 10y ago
    My Sunnyvale neighborhood is not "characterless." You know what is? You are.
  - froindt 10y ago
    Haha Ankeny is already getting filled with people living at or beyond their means and hoping they don't have a housing bubble burst. I have a family friend who moved there perhaps a decade ago and built a really nice house. Few years later, the house wasn't for sale, but someone knocked on the door and wanted to buy it for $1,000,000. Then they wanted it furnished, so the price went up a bit higher. They probably made at least 250k in a handful of years. My friend wanted to downsize anyway, so when someone literally arrived at their doorstep and offered 1M+, it was an easy decision. He bought a model home for 770k about 4 years ago. Someone wanted to buy it off of him in 2015, and he wanted to downsize again, so they made a deal. The purchaser put a large sum of earnest money down, and they would get the house after my friend built himself a new house. The old house sold for 820k about 10 months after the earnest money was put down.
- ryanmarsh 10y ago
  > I understand larger cities offer a higher salary Nah. Salaries in the Bay Area are a third of what they should be to compensate for the cost of living. You can live in lots of big cities in the US and still have discretionary income leftover. The Bay Area is just bananas.
- cperciva 10y ago
  Looking at Des Moines, $955,000 will get you a 5 bedroom with 3 full and 2 half bathrooms, 1.26 acres, 7037 square feet, and a 5 car garage. In Vancouver, it will get you a 2 bedroom condo with 2 bathrooms, 859 square feet, and 1 underground parking space. As they say... location, location, location.
  - justinhj 10y ago
    Interesting comparison because the median salary of Des Moines is $62k whereas downtown Vancouver is just $67k CAD or around $50k USD The earning potential in Vancouver is a joke compared to SF.
    - cperciva 10y ago
      Indeed. On the other hand, median incomes don't decrease very much as you move away from the downtown core of Vancouver, while prices drop significantly; head out to Coquitlam (roughly the same distance as Hayward or Palo Alto are from San Francisco) and that $955k condo turns into a $400k condo. Metro Vancouver is a curious beast: The City of Vancouver itself is relatively small and very NIMBY, but the suburbs are far more pro-development. Between Vancouver's geography (on a peninsula), residents' opposition to development, and its lack of transportation corridors, I find myself wondering if by 2100 people will be asking "why is the metropolitan area named after a small suburb?"
- gozur88 10y ago
  It would pain you just to pay the taxes on a nearly-million-dollar house. Even with the property tax cap in SF you're going to pay over $900 plus special assessments every month on a $961k house. Probably more in Des Moines, but at least you're living the lifestyle you'd normally associate with a house that expensive.
  - encoderer 10y ago
    For that tax deductible $12k a year you get access to the local economy. If you're in tech, it's usually worth it
  - froindt 10y ago
    Yes it would. I'm definitely not cut out to go to the valley.
kylestlb 10y ago
Born and raised in the South Bay and it's really hard for me to justify spending even 1M on a house in Sunnyvale. Wages are higher, yes, but it's still a huge shock. I imagine if you grew up elsewhere in the USA it's even more unbelievable (aside from NYC). edit: looks like I got a downvote - did I break a rule? Didn't mean to offend anyone. Sunnyvale is a decent area but when I think 'one million dollars' I don't think Sunnyvale :)
- kchoudhu 10y ago
  I dunno, man. NYC is starting to feel downright reasonable compared to SF now. And in NYC I can get a bagel that doesn't suck.
  - kylestlb 10y ago
    That's what's crazy to me, that a 1BR in Sunnyvale is probably the same as a 1BR in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Me and my partner are paying the same amount for a 1BR in Campbell as my buddy pays for a high-rise, swanky 1BR in downtown Hollywood. It's surreal.
  - bluejekyll 10y ago
    But what about kale chips? Oh and access to great surfing? And quick access to excellent skiing? Oh and an award winning, internationally renowned wine country? Now you guys do have cheaper maple syrup, that's probably worth it. And the fog in the summer here definitely ruins those awesome summer evenings that are so plentiful in NY. (Btw, these are the things I repeat to myself to be ok with the cost of living here)
    - EpicEng 10y ago
      >But what about kale chips You lost me right there
      - bluejekyll 10y ago
        I was responding to the bagel comment, totally facetious
pfarnsworth 10y ago
In Manhattan it's worse. I was looking at condos and you can get 2 br condos for $1.5 million with a $5000/month condo fee.
bigtex 10y ago
I have lots of acreage not too far from a major US city out in the country, broadband internet, 5 bedroom house all for less than 250k.

froindt 10y ago

>"the median home value is $961,600, according to Zillow." Being from the Midwest, this is such a foreign concept to me. Looking at Des Moines, $955,000 will get you a 5 bedroom with 3 full and 2 half bathrooms, 1.26 acres, 7037 square feet, and a 5 car garage. And that house has a really nice interior too! That house in the first picture of the article would probably be $100,000 or so based on its size. I understand larger cities offer a higher salary, and that the salary can more than offset the cost of living increase, but it would pain me to think about spending that much money on housing (whether renting or buying). http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15-Greenwood-Ter-Des-Moines-IA-50312/794318_zpid/ http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/15-Greenwood-Ter-Des-Moine...

friedman23 10y ago
The advantage is that even with the insane housing costs I'm still able to save significant amounts of money. For example 2 years out of school a developer can command $160k salary at the best companies (and those companies have a lot of positions to fill). Assuming $3600 a month on rent you have about $65k after taxes. (I guestimated most of these calculations in 5 seconds so be easy on my math)
- wavefunction 10y ago
  I get that in a different part of the country, plus great music and culture and - SV culture. With a significant fraction of your salary.
- pmiller2 10y ago
  If $160k 2 years out of school is typical, I need to know where you work so I can apply[0]. :P In all seriousness, that is not a typical salary for the vast majority of people in the Bay Area. Not everyone is a software developer working for a company with money to burn. --- [0]: In spite of the smiley, this is also true.
  - merkleee 10y ago
    Anyone who can get the title "senior" from multiple major tech employers can get that salary if they are competent at negotiating. That is where the market is in 2017. At top employers you can tack on another $100k in stock/bonus.
  - binarysolo 10y ago
    That's a humblebrag, don't get baited. :P Yes you can get 160k 2 years out of school if you're a top student and/or have awesome GitHub/sideprojects and performed well at the company to own something, move up the chain, or are a cleverer bear than your average.
  - friedman23 10y ago
    I explicitly mentioned best companies.
- irrational 10y ago
  But... you can also get six figure developer salaries outside of silicon valley in places that are significantly cheaper and with far cheaper taxes than California. And they are a lot more common than people I talk to from the Bay Area seem to think. It's almost like there is some sort of group think that believes that there aren't any well paying developer job in nice locations outside of the Bay Area.
  - encoderer 10y ago
    There is a liquidity to the market here that is unmatched. Also, 200k plus here is not rare which I don't think you can say for many places.
    - irrational 10y ago
      Liquidity? You mean as in it is easy to find a different job? I guess that's good if you enjoy that sort of thing. But, I've been working a six figure developer job at the same company for the past 15 years and I'm thrilled that I don't have to worry about the liquidity of the market ;-)
      - encoderer 10y ago
        Here is the setup: Literally dozens of companies paying $150k+ (base) for engineers with experience. Upward pressure on wages and working conditions. Cross-pollination of lessons learned between companies. People always think about startups, but there is an army of engineers at profitable tech companies in the bay area that are well comped for work that generally is free of death-march conditions.
- hibikir 10y ago
  You'd be surprised at how close to those salaries you can get in the exact same companies, just not in their main campuses. I work for one of those, from home, with the same salary as bay area coworkers, but a 200K 4 bedroom house. There was a recent article here in HN about how Silicon Valley was hiring physicists. Oscar, the main name in that story, is a coworker of mine and he isn't working from the Bay area: he is working from Hawaii. Living in San Francisco is a legitimate choice, but the whole idea that you have to go live there to get the good salaries and work at the good companies is less and less true every year.
  - seanmcdirmid 10y ago
    Isn't Hawaii the only place that would be more expensive than the Bay Area besides maybe manhattan?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - Domenic_S 10y ago
    > he is working from Hawaii ie, one of the only places more expensive than the bay area. Not sure what point this proves...
    - aaronblohowiak 10y ago
      Not more expensive anymore
    - froindt 10y ago
      Even Hawaii has a gradient of pricing. General cost of living is more expensive than most places on the mainland because almost everything has to be brought in on a ship, but outside of the major tourist cities prices are more manageable.
    - prawn 10y ago
      I expect that the point is they're working remotely, not that they're working remotely from another expensive location.
- froindt 10y ago
  I ran some pretty extensive numbers on a sub-comment and don't want to repost the entire thing in reply to you. I estimated at $2,900/month rent in the valley and $900/month in the Midwest. Valley earned 160/year, Midwest at 80/year. My conclusion was that if everything froze and you could save all non-rent money (minus 20k for misc. other expenses), the end result would be pretty close. You'd have to commit to working in the valley fairly for about 4 years to save up for the downpayment (assuming you started at 0). After the valley developer gets the house, the numbers may swing substantially in their favor, however it's a long timeline for that to happen, and the housing prices have a fair chance of continuing to rise or for the housing bubble to burst. Full math: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13424430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13424430
  - obstinate 10y ago
    160k total comp is still pretty early days, though. A senior engineer at Google will end up making about 250-300k. A staff engineer 300-400k. I have heard it can be far higher in the case of a highly valued specialty, or high leadership potential. It will be very difficult to ever command a salary like this as a programmer in the midwest.
    - froindt 10y ago
      You know, there may be a serious upside to living in the valley as a software developer if you stay there long enough. You're right about salaries in the Midwest never reaching that high. I'm not a developer, but it seems like it's a good gig if you've been there for a number of years. It seems like it would be difficult to get by for non-tech workers, either requiring a really long commute for a somewhat reasonable rent/mortgage or putting a huge percent of take-home pay into housing. Roughly how many years would it take to get to senior engineer or staff engineer?
      - obstinate 10y ago
        It took me I wanna say three years to reach senior and six to reach staff. This is uncommonly fast, but not way outside the ordinary distribution. I don't know what they're paying the kids these days, but I wouldn't be surprised if the entry level comp for a kid right out of school is topping out at $140k. The salaries at these levels don't start out at the top number. Like many other company, it is a band, so that you can continue receiving smaller raises for a few years after you are promoted.
jjeaff 10y ago
Silicon valley does not offer 9x the salary though.
- ec109685 10y ago
  But the rest of your expenses are not 9x in SV. If you saved 2k a month on housing someplace else, but got paid 48k less, you'd be losing big time, especially since mortgage interest is tax deductible.
  - froindt 10y ago
    The deduction also phases out based on your income, and if your mortgage is over $1,000,000. These are both more likely to be a reality in SV over most other places in the US. On the surface, you would be missing out with those numbers, but we have to look at the whole picture. There is no equity gained in a house if you're renting while saving up for a downpayment. Let's look at San Jose vs Des Moines and use the overall median downpayment for comparison. # Assumptions We'll go a bit conservative here. San Jose developer pay 2k/month more in rent than the Midwest developer. San Jose developer will earn double the base salary (not a mere 48k/year more as suggested above.) Outside of housing, the cost of living in both cities is identical at 20k/year. 20k will give you quite a good life in the Midwest as a single person. No idea about the valley. # Midwest developer living in Des Moines, IA: $80,000/year salary (about 57k after taxes) 2 bedroom apartment in a safe place can be found pretty easily for under $900/month. 1 bedroom for $750 or so. No roommates. Perhaps a 20 minute commute to work. Rent = $900/month = $10,800/year Other Living Expenses = $20,000/year Leftover money = 2,200/month = 26k/year 18 months of saving at that rate to get to the median down payment (39k). Money sunk into rent before getting any equity in a house: $39,000 # San Jose developer: $160,000/year salary (about 105k after taxes) Rent = 2,900/month = 34,800 Other Living Expenses = $20,000/year Leftover money = $4,183/month = $50,200/year 46 months until you have the $192,000 down payment ready, assuming housing prices stay the same. Money sunk into rent before getting any equity in a house: $133,400 # Result When the San Jose developer buys a home (assuming the median downpayment didn't go up in those almost 4 years of waiting), the Midwest developer stopped paying rent (11k/year) and was paying down their mortgage with that 11k and the leftover money of 26k/year, totaling 37k/year. Neglecting mortgage interest because I don't want to calculate that, the Midwest developer put 86k towards the 192k house after the downpayment. Total equity for Midwest developer: 86k+39k = 125k. Total equity for San Jose developer: 192k. Yes, the San Jose developer has more equity in the end, but we also assumed: * Identical cost of living * The housing prices in both cities stayed the same until San Jose developer had their 192k. That will be pretty true in the Midwest, but may not be in SV. San Jose may not have a huge commute, but other areas of SV would. We didn't even look at the fact that the Midwest developer isn't spending 1-2 hours each way going to work (numbers I see cited here frequently). After tax estimates are based on this calculator: https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#347zLoGvwJ https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes#347zLoGvwJ
spamizbad 10y ago
Here's the other thing: Many of these bay area starter homes are located in safe, but characterless suburbs. I don't mean that in an angsty anti-suburban way: they're just poorly planned with poorly made homes. You mention Des Moines... As a thought experiment: if the hand of god moved the city of Ankeny, Iowa so that it was a 30 min commute to the bay, it would soon be regarded as one of the "cooler" places to live outside of SF, and quickly fill up with millionaires.
- Girlang 10y ago
  My Sunnyvale neighborhood is not "characterless." You know what is? You are.
- froindt 10y ago
  Haha Ankeny is already getting filled with people living at or beyond their means and hoping they don't have a housing bubble burst. I have a family friend who moved there perhaps a decade ago and built a really nice house. Few years later, the house wasn't for sale, but someone knocked on the door and wanted to buy it for $1,000,000. Then they wanted it furnished, so the price went up a bit higher. They probably made at least 250k in a handful of years. My friend wanted to downsize anyway, so when someone literally arrived at their doorstep and offered 1M+, it was an easy decision. He bought a model home for 770k about 4 years ago. Someone wanted to buy it off of him in 2015, and he wanted to downsize again, so they made a deal. The purchaser put a large sum of earnest money down, and they would get the house after my friend built himself a new house. The old house sold for 820k about 10 months after the earnest money was put down.
ryanmarsh 10y ago
> I understand larger cities offer a higher salary Nah. Salaries in the Bay Area are a third of what they should be to compensate for the cost of living. You can live in lots of big cities in the US and still have discretionary income leftover. The Bay Area is just bananas.
cperciva 10y ago
Looking at Des Moines, $955,000 will get you a 5 bedroom with 3 full and 2 half bathrooms, 1.26 acres, 7037 square feet, and a 5 car garage. In Vancouver, it will get you a 2 bedroom condo with 2 bathrooms, 859 square feet, and 1 underground parking space. As they say... location, location, location.
- justinhj 10y ago
  Interesting comparison because the median salary of Des Moines is $62k whereas downtown Vancouver is just $67k CAD or around $50k USD The earning potential in Vancouver is a joke compared to SF.
  - cperciva 10y ago
    Indeed. On the other hand, median incomes don't decrease very much as you move away from the downtown core of Vancouver, while prices drop significantly; head out to Coquitlam (roughly the same distance as Hayward or Palo Alto are from San Francisco) and that $955k condo turns into a $400k condo. Metro Vancouver is a curious beast: The City of Vancouver itself is relatively small and very NIMBY, but the suburbs are far more pro-development. Between Vancouver's geography (on a peninsula), residents' opposition to development, and its lack of transportation corridors, I find myself wondering if by 2100 people will be asking "why is the metropolitan area named after a small suburb?"
gozur88 10y ago
It would pain you just to pay the taxes on a nearly-million-dollar house. Even with the property tax cap in SF you're going to pay over $900 plus special assessments every month on a $961k house. Probably more in Des Moines, but at least you're living the lifestyle you'd normally associate with a house that expensive.
- encoderer 10y ago
  For that tax deductible $12k a year you get access to the local economy. If you're in tech, it's usually worth it
- froindt 10y ago
  Yes it would. I'm definitely not cut out to go to the valley.

kylestlb 10y ago

Born and raised in the South Bay and it's really hard for me to justify spending even 1M on a house in Sunnyvale. Wages are higher, yes, but it's still a huge shock. I imagine if you grew up elsewhere in the USA it's even more unbelievable (aside from NYC). edit: looks like I got a downvote - did I break a rule? Didn't mean to offend anyone. Sunnyvale is a decent area but when I think 'one million dollars' I don't think Sunnyvale :)

kchoudhu 10y ago
I dunno, man. NYC is starting to feel downright reasonable compared to SF now. And in NYC I can get a bagel that doesn't suck.
- kylestlb 10y ago
  That's what's crazy to me, that a 1BR in Sunnyvale is probably the same as a 1BR in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Me and my partner are paying the same amount for a 1BR in Campbell as my buddy pays for a high-rise, swanky 1BR in downtown Hollywood. It's surreal.
- bluejekyll 10y ago
  But what about kale chips? Oh and access to great surfing? And quick access to excellent skiing? Oh and an award winning, internationally renowned wine country? Now you guys do have cheaper maple syrup, that's probably worth it. And the fog in the summer here definitely ruins those awesome summer evenings that are so plentiful in NY. (Btw, these are the things I repeat to myself to be ok with the cost of living here)
  - EpicEng 10y ago
    >But what about kale chips You lost me right there
    - bluejekyll 10y ago
      I was responding to the bagel comment, totally facetious

pfarnsworth 10y ago

In Manhattan it's worse. I was looking at condos and you can get 2 br condos for $1.5 million with a $5000/month condo fee.

bigtex 10y ago

I have lots of acreage not too far from a major US city out in the country, broadband internet, 5 bedroom house all for less than 250k.