4 ms·

Not in SV. $400k gets you to the lower middle class. That is you probably have a tiny chance of buying some real estate in your lifetime. House and expenses rel

Not in SV. $400k gets you to the lower middle class. That is you probably have a tiny chance of buying some real estate in your lifetime. House and expenses related to maintaining it is a huge chunk of change.

jedberg 7y ago
Don't kid yourself. Even here in the Bay Area, $400K a year is still upper middle class. You'd be in the top 3% of earners across the nine bay area counties.
- deadc0de 7y ago
  Prop 13 distorts that a lot. If you bought a house 25 years ago and now are earning 400k, yeah, you're an upper middle class.
  - jedberg 7y ago
    Again, you're kidding yourself. Even if you bought a new house today with no existing equity, you could easily afford $11K a month in mortgage. That's a house that's over $2M. And still have $10K a month left for other expenses.
p1esk 7y ago
According to [1] average income in SV is $140k, and median house price is $1.2M. $400k income would put you into upper middle class territory. [1] https://sf.curbed.com/2019/2/19/18229922/silicon-valley-index-2019-housing-gentrification-wealth-gap https://sf.curbed.com/2019/2/19/18229922/silicon-valley-inde...
- deadc0de 7y ago
  140k is believable, but I think they mean it's per person. If you rent, it's very unlikely you'd be able to buy a 1.2M house on 140k if you started with 0 in savings. EDIT: To clarify my previous post - I was talking about the household income.
  - p1esk 7y ago
    $140k is household income: https://siliconvalleyindicators.org/data/economy/income/household-income/median-household-income/ https://siliconvalleyindicators.org/data/economy/income/hous... I agree that it might be tough to buy a median house with median income in some areas, however you can easily afford to buy a decent house almost anywhere with $400k income.
alphagrep12345 7y ago
Forget about buying a house part. Say the person can buy a house in texas and retire there. Would you still say it's lower middle class?
- deadc0de 7y ago
  The definition of the middle class would surely depend on the cost of living in the particular area. You can make $30k and live like royalty in the 99% of the world.

jedberg 7y ago

Don't kid yourself. Even here in the Bay Area, $400K a year is still upper middle class. You'd be in the top 3% of earners across the nine bay area counties.

deadc0de 7y ago
Prop 13 distorts that a lot. If you bought a house 25 years ago and now are earning 400k, yeah, you're an upper middle class.
- jedberg 7y ago
  Again, you're kidding yourself. Even if you bought a new house today with no existing equity, you could easily afford $11K a month in mortgage. That's a house that's over $2M. And still have $10K a month left for other expenses.

p1esk 7y ago

According to [1] average income in SV is $140k, and median house price is $1.2M. $400k income would put you into upper middle class territory. [1] https://sf.curbed.com/2019/2/19/18229922/silicon-valley-index-2019-housing-gentrification-wealth-gap https://sf.curbed.com/2019/2/19/18229922/silicon-valley-inde...

deadc0de 7y ago
140k is believable, but I think they mean it's per person. If you rent, it's very unlikely you'd be able to buy a 1.2M house on 140k if you started with 0 in savings. EDIT: To clarify my previous post - I was talking about the household income.
- p1esk 7y ago
  $140k is household income: https://siliconvalleyindicators.org/data/economy/income/household-income/median-household-income/ https://siliconvalleyindicators.org/data/economy/income/hous... I agree that it might be tough to buy a median house with median income in some areas, however you can easily afford to buy a decent house almost anywhere with $400k income.

alphagrep12345 7y ago

Forget about buying a house part. Say the person can buy a house in texas and retire there. Would you still say it's lower middle class?

deadc0de 7y ago
The definition of the middle class would surely depend on the cost of living in the particular area. You can make $30k and live like royalty in the 99% of the world.