5 ms·

> I pay less on my mortgage for a large house with over an acre of land than friends of mine pay for rent for studio apartments in San Francisco or Seattle. Th

by GuiA 7y ago

> I pay less on my mortgage for a large house with over an acre of land than friends of mine pay for rent for studio apartments in San Francisco or Seattle. That studio in San Francisco or Seattle comes with the opportunity of a high paying job at a tech company. The large house with an acre of land gives you other opportunities, but if that one specific dimension is what you care about then it falls short.

CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
> That studio in San Francisco or Seattle comes with the opportunity of a high paying job at a tech company. ...and your high paying job mostly pays your landlord. If the same company offered the same job to remote employees for comparable pay, it'd remove the financial incentive to move to these cities. This would have a lot of immediate obvious benefits.
- twblalock 7y ago
  > If the same company offered the same job to remote employees for comparable pay Why would they do that? They only pay as much as they do in Silicon Valley to offset the cost of living.
  - CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
    I said comparable, not equivalent. Cost of Living Adjustments can be included in their offer calculus.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    No, they pay what they need to pay to get the hire.
- bluedino 7y ago
  $2,000 house payment vs a $3,000 apartment rental is only $12,000 a year in difference.
  - CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
    To many developers in "smaller" tech cities, that's nearly 20% of their pre-tax salary.
    - danans 7y ago
      The difference housing cost as a percentage of the small tech city salary is an irrelevant statistic. The relevant statistic to compare is actual housing cost vs actual compensation in both types of places. For many types of tech jobs, the number still favors big cities, if not in percentage terms, then in absolute numbers. And when it comes down to a real life decision, there are plenty of other factors (financial or otherwise) besides that one statistic.
      - CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
        My point was "only $12,000" sounds very ivory tower and tone-deaf to people for which $12,000 is an awful lot of money.
        bluedino 7y ago
        I didn't mean it like that - I meant that if you're making $100k in a suburb somewhere in a flyover state, you would probably make $140k (for instance) in a place with a higher rent but it woul;dn't really matter to your bottom line
        CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
        But also: Everyone has higher rents, not just you. This will generally be reflected in the cost of living (i.e. not just for your rent will go up, but so will other expenses). It's not trivial to do this calculation. Some things will surprise you: You can get cheaper electricity bills in Seattle than where I live (Naples, FL), but you don't need air conditioning in Seattle. Living in Florida without AC is ill-advised.
        danans 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- leoh 7y ago
  Yea, that's a sucky side-effect. But it means access to lots of great people, ideas, and jobs. I've lived on a farm myself, but living in an expensive, but small city is appealing to me right now; a decent trade-off.
- majormajor 7y ago
  > ...and your high paying job mostly pays your landlord. Unfortunately I haven't seen many roles in, say, Dallas or Atlanta where the pay is only 20-25K or so less than my current, total-comp wise. It'd be a bigger drop, usually. The rent gap is steep, but the comp gap can be larger.
  - Fins 7y ago
    Shouldn't you also count the absence of the state income tax (at least for Dallas) and lower prices for pretty much everything else?
- sidlls 7y ago
  It also affords living an area with substantially better quality of life in many areas: diversity and opportunity (career, entrepreneurial, academic) being two important ones. Most places with an acre of land as you describe are rural and in areas with poor services, education, and other quality of life concerns.
  - Fins 7y ago
    That very much depends on the area. E.g. Chicago suburbs may not be quite as cheap as "get an acre of land" but you can absolutely have significantly better access to cultural, educational, academic, etc. opportunities than anywhere around SF for significantly less money. Pretty good career-wise, too, and the difference in salaries is less than the difference in cost of living.
    - sidlls 7y ago
      Chicago might be on par with the Bay Area in terms of culture, or even marginally better in some ways. In just about any other measure, especially education, job opportunities and salary adjusted for CoL, Chicago compares poorly.
      - Fins 7y ago
        I am not sure if I agree. Culture-wise (IMHO, of coursde and all the disclaimers) it is lightyears ahead of the Bay Area. In education, both schools and universities, Chicagoland would compare very favorably with Bay Area (stepkid went to schools in both; entirely unimpressed with BA schools). In job opportunities at FAANG-type companies Bay Area obviously comes out ahead,but for the vast majority of people both in and out of high tech Chicago both has jobs and is actually affordable and salaries are lower by a far lesser amount than the cost of living, at least if you believe all of the comparison sites like Numbeo. In my personal experience I've had much more money left over in Chicago, working for as Chicago company than working for one in Sunnyvale, and that's even before adding up intangibles of better (well, for the USA, anyway) public transit, better museums, theaters, etc. etc. On climate BA might win on paper, but personally I like to have actual seasons.
munificent 7y ago
Also, in Seattle, it provides access to all of the other desireable aspects of living in a thriving metropolis: - Good schools - Lots of like-minded people to befriend - Lots of places to eat, activities, venues, etc. - Several higher and continuing education opportunities - Good (well, better than almost all mid-sized cities, at least) public transit options I definitely understand the appeal of living out in the country, but, for reasons I don't entirely understand, on many threads like this, people seem to completely overlook all of the myriad ways that living in a city is actually great. It's not all grim concrete jungle hellscape. If I lived out in the sticks, I could afford a couple of acres and a +2,000 square foot home. But I couldn't afford a zoo, aquarium, bike trail, running path, music venue, movie theater, personal chef, playground, and coffee house to go with it. The fundamental tenet of urban density is that by giving up some personal space, we all get access to a much greater variety of shared spaces.
- jriot 7y ago
  When you live in a rural area none of these are needed, zoo, aquarium, bike trail, running path as they are provided naturally from the environment.
  - rawrmaan 7y ago
    Yep, just ignore half the things on the list.
  - danans 7y ago
    > When you live in a rural area none of these are needed, zoo, aquarium Perhaps if you live adjacent to a major national park or forest, or marine preserve, but most easily habitable rural areas are not that, and instead are industrially farmed or extracted from - essentially factories. Sure, there are exceptions, but not enough to accommodate the number of people that it would take to make a difference in cost of living in urban areas, not without ruining the access to wildlife viewing that makes those places unique in the first place. > bike trail, running path The environment doesn't provide either of these. They are created by many people either re-using the same route routinely, or by some institution building and maintaining them.

by GuiA 7y ago

CiPHPerCoder 7y ago

> That studio in San Francisco or Seattle comes with the opportunity of a high paying job at a tech company. ...and your high paying job mostly pays your landlord. If the same company offered the same job to remote employees for comparable pay, it'd remove the financial incentive to move to these cities. This would have a lot of immediate obvious benefits.

twblalock 7y ago
> If the same company offered the same job to remote employees for comparable pay Why would they do that? They only pay as much as they do in Silicon Valley to offset the cost of living.
- CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
  I said comparable, not equivalent. Cost of Living Adjustments can be included in their offer calculus.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  No, they pay what they need to pay to get the hire.
bluedino 7y ago
$2,000 house payment vs a $3,000 apartment rental is only $12,000 a year in difference.
- CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
  To many developers in "smaller" tech cities, that's nearly 20% of their pre-tax salary.
  - danans 7y ago
    The difference housing cost as a percentage of the small tech city salary is an irrelevant statistic. The relevant statistic to compare is actual housing cost vs actual compensation in both types of places. For many types of tech jobs, the number still favors big cities, if not in percentage terms, then in absolute numbers. And when it comes down to a real life decision, there are plenty of other factors (financial or otherwise) besides that one statistic.
    - CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
      My point was "only $12,000" sounds very ivory tower and tone-deaf to people for which $12,000 is an awful lot of money.
      - bluedino 7y ago
        I didn't mean it like that - I meant that if you're making $100k in a suburb somewhere in a flyover state, you would probably make $140k (for instance) in a place with a higher rent but it woul;dn't really matter to your bottom line
        CiPHPerCoder 7y ago
        But also: Everyone has higher rents, not just you. This will generally be reflected in the cost of living (i.e. not just for your rent will go up, but so will other expenses). It's not trivial to do this calculation. Some things will surprise you: You can get cheaper electricity bills in Seattle than where I live (Naples, FL), but you don't need air conditioning in Seattle. Living in Florida without AC is ill-advised.
      - danans 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
leoh 7y ago
Yea, that's a sucky side-effect. But it means access to lots of great people, ideas, and jobs. I've lived on a farm myself, but living in an expensive, but small city is appealing to me right now; a decent trade-off.
majormajor 7y ago
> ...and your high paying job mostly pays your landlord. Unfortunately I haven't seen many roles in, say, Dallas or Atlanta where the pay is only 20-25K or so less than my current, total-comp wise. It'd be a bigger drop, usually. The rent gap is steep, but the comp gap can be larger.
- Fins 7y ago
  Shouldn't you also count the absence of the state income tax (at least for Dallas) and lower prices for pretty much everything else?
sidlls 7y ago
It also affords living an area with substantially better quality of life in many areas: diversity and opportunity (career, entrepreneurial, academic) being two important ones. Most places with an acre of land as you describe are rural and in areas with poor services, education, and other quality of life concerns.
- Fins 7y ago
  That very much depends on the area. E.g. Chicago suburbs may not be quite as cheap as "get an acre of land" but you can absolutely have significantly better access to cultural, educational, academic, etc. opportunities than anywhere around SF for significantly less money. Pretty good career-wise, too, and the difference in salaries is less than the difference in cost of living.
  - sidlls 7y ago
    Chicago might be on par with the Bay Area in terms of culture, or even marginally better in some ways. In just about any other measure, especially education, job opportunities and salary adjusted for CoL, Chicago compares poorly.
    - Fins 7y ago
      I am not sure if I agree. Culture-wise (IMHO, of coursde and all the disclaimers) it is lightyears ahead of the Bay Area. In education, both schools and universities, Chicagoland would compare very favorably with Bay Area (stepkid went to schools in both; entirely unimpressed with BA schools). In job opportunities at FAANG-type companies Bay Area obviously comes out ahead,but for the vast majority of people both in and out of high tech Chicago both has jobs and is actually affordable and salaries are lower by a far lesser amount than the cost of living, at least if you believe all of the comparison sites like Numbeo. In my personal experience I've had much more money left over in Chicago, working for as Chicago company than working for one in Sunnyvale, and that's even before adding up intangibles of better (well, for the USA, anyway) public transit, better museums, theaters, etc. etc. On climate BA might win on paper, but personally I like to have actual seasons.

munificent 7y ago

Also, in Seattle, it provides access to all of the other desireable aspects of living in a thriving metropolis: - Good schools - Lots of like-minded people to befriend - Lots of places to eat, activities, venues, etc. - Several higher and continuing education opportunities - Good (well, better than almost all mid-sized cities, at least) public transit options I definitely understand the appeal of living out in the country, but, for reasons I don't entirely understand, on many threads like this, people seem to completely overlook all of the myriad ways that living in a city is actually great. It's not all grim concrete jungle hellscape. If I lived out in the sticks, I could afford a couple of acres and a +2,000 square foot home. But I couldn't afford a zoo, aquarium, bike trail, running path, music venue, movie theater, personal chef, playground, and coffee house to go with it. The fundamental tenet of urban density is that by giving up some personal space, we all get access to a much greater variety of shared spaces.

jriot 7y ago
When you live in a rural area none of these are needed, zoo, aquarium, bike trail, running path as they are provided naturally from the environment.
- rawrmaan 7y ago
  Yep, just ignore half the things on the list.
- danans 7y ago
  > When you live in a rural area none of these are needed, zoo, aquarium Perhaps if you live adjacent to a major national park or forest, or marine preserve, but most easily habitable rural areas are not that, and instead are industrially farmed or extracted from - essentially factories. Sure, there are exceptions, but not enough to accommodate the number of people that it would take to make a difference in cost of living in urban areas, not without ruining the access to wildlife viewing that makes those places unique in the first place. > bike trail, running path The environment doesn't provide either of these. They are created by many people either re-using the same route routinely, or by some institution building and maintaining them.