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Just remember that you'll want to select a city that has a decent economy and tech scene in the event that you lose your job and need to take a location dictate
by ryanSrich 10y ago
Just remember that you'll want to select a city that has a decent economy and tech scene in the event that you lose your job and need to take a location dictated position.
So long as you and your partner are both making 6 figures you should be able to afford any of the following cities:
- Seattle
- Portland
- Austin
- Denver
- juliangoldsmith 10y ago>So long as you and your partner are both making 6 figures That's a pretty high bar for cost of living. Here in Charlotte, NC, I make half of that, and could support two people without any difficulty.
- ryanSrich 10y agoYeah. There's definitely a culture tax in the NW. I can freely enjoy the virtues of legal cannabis, frequent the best coffee shops in the world, and hike the glacial peaks all in the same day. To me that's worth the cost.
- juliangoldsmith 10y agoIn Charlotte, I'm 2 hours away from the Appalachian mountains, and can easily get good coffee. I wouldn't consider legal marijuana worth $100k a year, personally.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- sf_rob 10y agoI get the feeling that tech people no longer have reasonable understandings of cost of living. I live in the PNW and could keep my current nice standard of living on a $60k salary (as a single person). I cannot think of a scenario where I would need two six figure incomes unless I really ramped up spending (private school, nicer car, nicer house).
- santaclaus 10y ago> Portland Rents in Portland are skyrocketing (I had friends whose landlords were pulling out 30% rent increases). I went from Portland to Oakland and my rent isn't that much more.
- ryanSrich 10y agoYou can still buy a house in Portland for $500k. I live here. Bought in 2015. It's more expensive in 2017, but not 100% more. Once 1000sqft houses hit a $1mm average Portland will be too expensive. Until then we're doing just fine.
- santaclaus 10y agoI dunno, developers were snapping up lots in our hood in Albina for 750, demoing them to lower the tax burden, and letting them sit empty to appreciate. Long term residents who had been renting for 30 years were getting chased out and moving to the numbers... those don't seem like great situations.
- zrail 10y ago> moving to the numbers I lived in Portland for six years and never once heard this expression and yet I know exactly what you mean.
- ryanSrich 10y ago20 years ago = 57th is bad 10 years ago = 82nd is bad Now = 122nd is bad I count myself lucky to live West of 82nd.
- infinite8s 10y agoThat was the same with the Upper East/West side of manhattan, (although truncate the timeframe by 1/2 and going N/S instead of E/W).
- deleted 10y ago
- xweb 10y agoI would strike Seattle from this list. Just over the last couple of years, home prices are up 50% or more. It's not SF/SV prices but it's 80-90% there...unfortunately. It is, however, easier to build in Washington, so hopefully this will be a bubble and not a permanent trend.
- danielcampos93 10y agotrue this. Average sale price in seattle metro for march was just shy of 700k. The city is trying to be pretty aggressive about building but if you want to live in the city you are going to pay a lot. That being said, if you dont mind commuting you can get a nice place that is affordable(30 minutes commute to the city).
- bermanoid 10y agoI wouldn't get too comfortable with the "easier to build" bit, either - Seattle has a strong far-left presence, and as we've seen in SF it's very easy for homeowners to convince them (against all reason) that more housing means higher prices and get them to start blocking new construction across the board (whoever thought up the "100% affordable or not at all!" bit is a genius at playing progressives like a fiddle, and is probably making a killing on a ton of SF property). Meanwhile, the office buildings that are actually luring more people to the city and driving prices up keep getting built, because they're not in the neighborhoods that NIMBYs care about.
- tzs 10y agoI'd leave Seattle on the list. In SF/SV, the high housing prices extend far enough out from SF to cover almost everything that is in reasonable commute distance. Same for Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, and San Jose. In Seattle, prices are high or getting there in Seattle, Redmond, and Bellevue, but there is still reasonable housing between Seattle and Tacoma, and across the Sound over in Kitsap county. If you can get a work schedule that lets you miss the heavy commute hours it should be reasonably possible to get affordable housing without too bad a commute.
- nojvek 10y agoI wonder how many couples make six figures. What is the percentage of population with 350k combined income that are not business owners.
- WalterSear 10y agoAnd can both move and find jobs in a new city at once.
- magic_beans 10y agoI mean, my COMBINED income with my partner is around $160k. This isn't a whole lot of money in a large city, and especially not with children.
- douche 10y agoMost of southern New Hampshire is within commuting distance of Boston - plus there are no income taxes. Housing is a little pricey, but not compared to Bay Area prices. A 200k+ household income would let you live like kings.
- genkimind 10y agoI left New Hampshire a long time ago. It's quite boring.