5 ms·

The price premium you are paying, especially for housing, is really all about raising kids e.g. sending them to some of the best (albeit pressure-filled) public

The price premium you are paying, especially for housing, is really all about raising kids e.g. sending them to some of the best (albeit pressure-filled) public schools in the country all while keeping your high paying SV jobs. Basically assume that the quality of public SV schools are high enough that high earning parents are "OK" sending their kids to those schools rather than paying for private school. If you have 2 kids and would otherwise spend $20k/year for ~14 years of PreK-12 then living in your preferred public school district will save you over $500k+ in tuition. If you are single or have no plans to have kids (thus shifting more free time toward cultural activities vs raising kids) then agreed living in SV is really boring and uninspiring and not worth it.

crushcrashcrush 8y ago
100% Agree. I'm leaving in 6 months. Buying two pied-a-terres in cool cities for the cost of a down payment in SV. Can't wait!
- throwaway-1283 8y ago
  Where?
  - crushcrashcrush 8y ago
    Miami and Montreal!
    - throwaway-1283 8y ago
      Oh nice. I looked into Miami and surprised by how affordable housing was, even in South Beach. Similar reaction when I looked into Palm Springs too.
    - Apocryphon 8y ago
      Looks like you're covered for both summer and winter. Smart move.
      - crushcrashcrush 8y ago
        Thanks. Montreal I don't like to talk about because (I believe) it's the most underrated city in North America. Don't go - you'll fall in love!
        davidivadavid 8y ago
        Don't go now or you'll fall flat on your face walking on the sidewalk. So much ice. SO MUCH. But yeah, cool city.
conanbatt 8y ago
As a 6 figure salary worker in SV, you get fleeced. You have worse housing options, worse schooling options, worse public transportations and highest tax rates in the country. SV is not expensive because "public schools are good". Its expensive because both the government and the landlords, that have a huge intersectino of people, capture the largest chunk of the surplus tech workers get.
- throwaway-1283 8y ago
  I'm specifically referring to housing prices. Parents raising kids put an even higher premium on SFHs because they want to live in places that are within a preferred school district. It's just one of many factors.
- anxman 8y ago
  Landlords don't get it either. I'm a landlord and most of that money goes to the banks and property taxes. I might see profits in 10-20 years if I'm lucky but even that's a gamble.
  - conanbatt 8y ago
    I would've been ready to disagree with you 2 months ago, until I looked at the SF budget and saw they spend 2600U$S per household every month. Landlords cant be getting too much of that: but they do get a piece, particularly old time landlords.
    - refurb 8y ago
      The landlords making money hand over fist are the ones that bought long ago AND had the tenants turn over (reset rent control). Right now it’s cheaper to rent a place than buy in SF (rent to home price ratio is almost 1:30 where 1:15 means it’s equal). Most landlords are betting on property appreciation, but even that isn’t guaranteed if you have tenants as they lower the value of the home.
mnm1 8y ago
Who wants their kids to go to school in a place where so many kids kill themselves that there are suicide patrols and no one knows how to stop it? Maybe there is some truth to the necessity of struggle for humans to learn how to appreciate life. These kids grow up with a silver spoon, needing for nothing, and we wonder why they're jumping in front of trains? And on top of that, it costs $1 million or more to buy a house just to give them a chance at this amazing location so they can kill themselves? I'm sure that's a premium all parents want to pay to experience the worst imaginable outcome.
jjulius 8y ago
>... sending them to some of the best (albeit pressure-filled) public schools in the country... Are they really the best if they're putting that much pressure on kids? Surely there's an argument that can be made that schools that are one tier down from the quality of these public schools (read: still good schools overall) while putting less pressure on children might be better than high-pressure public schools in the long-run, no?
- taurath 8y ago
  A lot of it is a function of economics. The schools are built to get kids into college so they can get 6 figure incomes immediately out of it so they can scrape by living in the area around the schools. If you aren't on that path, or don't want to be on that path, you basically move from your parents decent->really nice house into the slums with 5 other people. Especially if your parents want you out of the nest and "independent" as soon as possible. Its like walking a tightrope - mediocrity is not an option, because its ever increasingly hard to get by and live on what most people in the country would call average. I've had several friends in the bay who grew up there struggle coming out high school - one wasn't really up for college at the time, and the only option to move out on the $16-ish an hour service job into a doubled-up apartment in a bad part of town. Surprise surprise, extreme depression. The other had their parents just paying for their rent - they got to mostly sit around and play video games, but mental health was fine other than just general lethargy.
notacoward 8y ago
> sending them to some of the best (albeit pressure-filled) public schools in the country Nope. https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-public-high-schools/ https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-public-high-schools/ Gunn just misses the top 20, PA just misses the top 50. Everything else is further down, and those are expensive places to live even by SV standards. Several states/areas, notably IL, do much better for a fraction of the cost. My daughter attends #56, in what is considered an expensive town hereabouts, and that's still about 1/3 what I'd pay to live in SV. Those are fine schools, but if you're paying SV prices for the sake of your kids' education, you're making a bad choice.
- throwaway-1283 8y ago
  You're paying SV prices because you're getting paid more than you could otherwise anywhere else. Yes, for the average rank-and-file it's probably a worse deal than elsewhere, but if you are mid-level and have a chance at upper mgmt role then what you make is wayyy more than what you could elsewhere, even with the CoL.
  - notacoward 8y ago
    That's funny, because I happen to work for a Silicon Valley company, I'm on the same pay scale as my colleagues there, but I work from my own home on the east coast. Perhaps even more pertinently, my team-mates often express despair about being able to afford a house even on what they're making at one of (according to most sources) the top three highest-paying companies out there. So no, I don't believe that the pay scales are sufficient to achieve parity with other parts of the country in terms of what school districts they could live in elsewhere based on their skills. Here's another way to look at it. There are a lot of people earning big money in Silicon Valley, but there are only a few thousand students at the local top-100 schools. To buy a home in one of those few towns, you need an income that's high end even by local developer standards. By contrast, not only is the cost of living lower in Illinois (for example) but the ratio of demand for their skills to demand for slots in top-100 schools also works in their favor. Those add up to a cost reduction even greater than any likely pay cut. The only way those high Silicon Valley salaries help in terms of getting your kid into a top-100 school is if you take the money and run. Earn all that dough, save it, then use it to buy a house in another part of the country before your kids hit high school. Don't get into an auction with people who are even richer than you are.

crushcrashcrush 8y ago

100% Agree. I'm leaving in 6 months. Buying two pied-a-terres in cool cities for the cost of a down payment in SV. Can't wait!

throwaway-1283 8y ago
Where?
- crushcrashcrush 8y ago
  Miami and Montreal!
  - throwaway-1283 8y ago
    Oh nice. I looked into Miami and surprised by how affordable housing was, even in South Beach. Similar reaction when I looked into Palm Springs too.
  - Apocryphon 8y ago
    Looks like you're covered for both summer and winter. Smart move.
    - crushcrashcrush 8y ago
      Thanks. Montreal I don't like to talk about because (I believe) it's the most underrated city in North America. Don't go - you'll fall in love!
      - davidivadavid 8y ago
        Don't go now or you'll fall flat on your face walking on the sidewalk. So much ice. SO MUCH. But yeah, cool city.

conanbatt 8y ago

As a 6 figure salary worker in SV, you get fleeced. You have worse housing options, worse schooling options, worse public transportations and highest tax rates in the country. SV is not expensive because "public schools are good". Its expensive because both the government and the landlords, that have a huge intersectino of people, capture the largest chunk of the surplus tech workers get.

throwaway-1283 8y ago
I'm specifically referring to housing prices. Parents raising kids put an even higher premium on SFHs because they want to live in places that are within a preferred school district. It's just one of many factors.
anxman 8y ago
Landlords don't get it either. I'm a landlord and most of that money goes to the banks and property taxes. I might see profits in 10-20 years if I'm lucky but even that's a gamble.
- conanbatt 8y ago
  I would've been ready to disagree with you 2 months ago, until I looked at the SF budget and saw they spend 2600U$S per household every month. Landlords cant be getting too much of that: but they do get a piece, particularly old time landlords.
  - refurb 8y ago
    The landlords making money hand over fist are the ones that bought long ago AND had the tenants turn over (reset rent control). Right now it’s cheaper to rent a place than buy in SF (rent to home price ratio is almost 1:30 where 1:15 means it’s equal). Most landlords are betting on property appreciation, but even that isn’t guaranteed if you have tenants as they lower the value of the home.

mnm1 8y ago

Who wants their kids to go to school in a place where so many kids kill themselves that there are suicide patrols and no one knows how to stop it? Maybe there is some truth to the necessity of struggle for humans to learn how to appreciate life. These kids grow up with a silver spoon, needing for nothing, and we wonder why they're jumping in front of trains? And on top of that, it costs $1 million or more to buy a house just to give them a chance at this amazing location so they can kill themselves? I'm sure that's a premium all parents want to pay to experience the worst imaginable outcome.

jjulius 8y ago

>... sending them to some of the best (albeit pressure-filled) public schools in the country... Are they really the best if they're putting that much pressure on kids? Surely there's an argument that can be made that schools that are one tier down from the quality of these public schools (read: still good schools overall) while putting less pressure on children might be better than high-pressure public schools in the long-run, no?

taurath 8y ago
A lot of it is a function of economics. The schools are built to get kids into college so they can get 6 figure incomes immediately out of it so they can scrape by living in the area around the schools. If you aren't on that path, or don't want to be on that path, you basically move from your parents decent->really nice house into the slums with 5 other people. Especially if your parents want you out of the nest and "independent" as soon as possible. Its like walking a tightrope - mediocrity is not an option, because its ever increasingly hard to get by and live on what most people in the country would call average. I've had several friends in the bay who grew up there struggle coming out high school - one wasn't really up for college at the time, and the only option to move out on the $16-ish an hour service job into a doubled-up apartment in a bad part of town. Surprise surprise, extreme depression. The other had their parents just paying for their rent - they got to mostly sit around and play video games, but mental health was fine other than just general lethargy.

notacoward 8y ago

> sending them to some of the best (albeit pressure-filled) public schools in the country Nope. https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-public-high-schools/ https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-public-high-schools/ Gunn just misses the top 20, PA just misses the top 50. Everything else is further down, and those are expensive places to live even by SV standards. Several states/areas, notably IL, do much better for a fraction of the cost. My daughter attends #56, in what is considered an expensive town hereabouts, and that's still about 1/3 what I'd pay to live in SV. Those are fine schools, but if you're paying SV prices for the sake of your kids' education, you're making a bad choice.

throwaway-1283 8y ago
You're paying SV prices because you're getting paid more than you could otherwise anywhere else. Yes, for the average rank-and-file it's probably a worse deal than elsewhere, but if you are mid-level and have a chance at upper mgmt role then what you make is wayyy more than what you could elsewhere, even with the CoL.
- notacoward 8y ago
  That's funny, because I happen to work for a Silicon Valley company, I'm on the same pay scale as my colleagues there, but I work from my own home on the east coast. Perhaps even more pertinently, my team-mates often express despair about being able to afford a house even on what they're making at one of (according to most sources) the top three highest-paying companies out there. So no, I don't believe that the pay scales are sufficient to achieve parity with other parts of the country in terms of what school districts they could live in elsewhere based on their skills. Here's another way to look at it. There are a lot of people earning big money in Silicon Valley, but there are only a few thousand students at the local top-100 schools. To buy a home in one of those few towns, you need an income that's high end even by local developer standards. By contrast, not only is the cost of living lower in Illinois (for example) but the ratio of demand for their skills to demand for slots in top-100 schools also works in their favor. Those add up to a cost reduction even greater than any likely pay cut. The only way those high Silicon Valley salaries help in terms of getting your kid into a top-100 school is if you take the money and run. Earn all that dough, save it, then use it to buy a house in another part of the country before your kids hit high school. Don't get into an auction with people who are even richer than you are.