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There's really no way to intellectualize it - people coming to the Bay Area in 2018 are suckers, plain and simple. You missed the boat - by years. Not only wil

There's really no way to intellectualize it - people coming to the Bay Area in 2018 are suckers, plain and simple. You missed the boat - by years. Not only will you never afford a home here, you will piss away so much money on rent and other aspects of the absurdly inflated cost-of-living adjustment that you won't be able to leave and buy anywhere else either. If you're coming up on forty and still renting your primary residence, you are in real danger of financially screwing yourself for life. Traditional models of retirement have people paying off their homes in full by around fifty so they can start building their retirement funds. Forget about catching a break when the "bubble bursts"...the "bubble bursting" means most people reading Hacker News will be out of work or feeling very nervous about their jobs.

megaman8 8y ago
What the article is saying is, If you are young and have no family, you can rent a room really cheaply say 1400$ for a 1 bedroom, or bunk up with a mate for 700$ (2 people renting 1 room), and save most of your income for about 10 years - durring that time you can save about 500K. Then after that, get out and go anywhere but CA. In the rest of the US, you can buy a house for 300K and have a nice life. The trick is, to not settle down. Don't get a wife or girlfriend or friends. If you that, you'll be able to walk away from it all very easily.
- pm90 8y ago
  > The trick is, to not settle down. Don't get a wife or girlfriend or friends. If you that, you'll be able to walk away from it all very easily. 10 years without friends and partners (to use a gender neutral term) would literally be hell. Its not that hard to find a healthy mix and not bust your bank in the process.
- rfdave 8y ago
  I'm an experienced HW guy pondering this, My wife and I have kids out of college, so I'd be coming at this from the other end of the family pipeline.

megaman8 8y ago

What the article is saying is, If you are young and have no family, you can rent a room really cheaply say 1400$ for a 1 bedroom, or bunk up with a mate for 700$ (2 people renting 1 room), and save most of your income for about 10 years - durring that time you can save about 500K. Then after that, get out and go anywhere but CA. In the rest of the US, you can buy a house for 300K and have a nice life. The trick is, to not settle down. Don't get a wife or girlfriend or friends. If you that, you'll be able to walk away from it all very easily.

pm90 8y ago
> The trick is, to not settle down. Don't get a wife or girlfriend or friends. If you that, you'll be able to walk away from it all very easily. 10 years without friends and partners (to use a gender neutral term) would literally be hell. Its not that hard to find a healthy mix and not bust your bank in the process.
rfdave 8y ago
I'm an experienced HW guy pondering this, My wife and I have kids out of college, so I'd be coming at this from the other end of the family pipeline.