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$100k/year still might not be enough to buy a home
- notfromhere 7y agoIt's been a long time since $100k was a lot of money
- glouwbug 7y agoYes, but employers sure treat it like a lot of money
- ceejayoz 7y agoIt remains an enormous amount of money for a lot of people.
- glouwbug 7y ago100k is not enough for your typical American dream, which a _lot_ of people feel entitled to
- vsareto 7y agoWhat is the typical american dream and why is there a typical version and an atypical version?
- glouwbug 7y agoThe typical american dream has always been a detached home with a car and 2 kids. At 100k a year I'd break even.
- hanniabu 7y agoAnd then the kids go to college or someone in the family has a medical issue and boom, you're in debt for at least the next decade.
- notfromhere 7y agohome ownership, two kids, college education, and regular travel, all while being financially comfortable and saving for retirement are what the hallmarks of the american middle class dream used to be. A 100k household income doesn't afford you that anymore.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago"Regular travel"? This is not a historically aware definition of "the American dream". Regular travel isn't even a goal of most people today.
- notfromhere 7y agoVacationing is def a part of the American dream, whether its a road trip or air travel
- cylinder 7y agoIs that why the US has no legally mandated annual leave laws?
- notfromhere 7y agothe things americans want aren't the things americans gets.
- tdfx 7y ago> Regular travel isn't even a goal of most people today. I see you've been boycotting Instagram for at least the last half a decade.
- bigYahnz 7y agoAsking what the typical american dream is a bit hyperbolic, no? For the same reason we seem to be worried about vaping but also want to make sure children get their puberty blockers and can chop off their penises before they could legally have sex or consume a beer. For the same reason why being a stay at home mother is similar to slavery, but wasting your life away at some joke of an HR job while you're just a slave to your boss is empowering. For the same reason new companies who are supposed to be taken seriously play video of a shooting range in Kentucky and try to make the public think that it is a foreign country where our stinky old racist president is allowing untold slaughter to take place. For the same reason the guy who won and aware with Rosa Parks and Muhammad Ali is supposed to be the biggest racist of them all while he tells his supporters, who are also the most racist people to have ever lived, that he would like record immigration if done legally.
- benburleson 7y agoThe classic American Dream is: * A stable job (that pays "enough" and isn't too stressful) * Own a home * (optionally) Raise a family * Enjoy weekends free, as well as vacations (and the ability to afford them) At least that is my interpretation. If there are atypical American Dreams, I'm curious what those might include.
- root_axis 7y ago100k is about $5900 a month after taxes and modest 401k contribution. Let's subtract some typical expenses (erring on the more expensive side) $200 - water + electricity $100 - high speed internet $160 - decent wireless plan $250 - employer subsidized health insurance $150 - car insurance $50 - netflix, spotify, hulu $700 - groceries $800 - go out to dinner twice a week (or some other activity) $350 - car payment + gas $1000 - savings $1500 - median monthly mortgage payment in the USA. $200 - home insurance. That still leaves 400 a month while also managing to save and invest in 401k. Seems like a decent salary and way of life. Not rich by any means, but certainly comfortable. The median mortgage payment in the USA is about 1500, but let's call it 1800
- cmendel 7y agoThat food bill is sky high, holy shit. My households food bill is 300-400 a month and we never eat out. 12k a year makes a difference.
- tachyonbeam 7y agoI would have said a lot of people want, rather than a lot of people "feel entitled to". It's debatable what people are "entitled to", but we live in an age where it would be well within our technological reach to build comfortable homes for everyone. It would however be politically impractical to reallocate land and resources to make that happen, because the people who currently own most of the resources feel entitled to keeping them.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- chickenpotpie 7y agoThat's still higher than 70% of American households https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distribution-of-household-income-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/203183/percentage-distri...
- notfromhere 7y agoin the places where you can regularly find work for 100k, 100k is not a lot of money.
- auiya 7y agoWage stagnation is a serious problem.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dragontamer 7y agoMedian household income in USA is $59,039. That's both the mother AND father working to bring home $59,039 on the average (before taxes and other costs). Its clear you live in a rich area where $100k isn't much. But that's also why a large chunk of Americans think that "city-folk" are disconnected from reality. $100k is a lot for many people. My sister lives in an area (in USA) where a 2-bedroom apartment is just $500/month, low crime good living conditions.
- notfromhere 7y agoRural folk don't understand that even if you're making 100k in the big city, a lot of that is eaten up by housing costs. The fantasy of what people who don't earn 100k think 100k buys you is very different from the reality of what lifestyle 100k affords.
- elicash 7y agoMedian household income in NYC is $57,782. (Individual is $50,825.) And yeah, NYC is a huge, diverse city but even Manhattan's median income is $79,781 in 2017. (Corrected figure)
- thaumasiotes 7y agoHence Scott Sumner's headline a while ago, "The Typical Rich Family Is A Cop Married To A Nurse". https://www.themoneyillusion.com/the-typical-rich-family-is-a-cop-married-to-a-nurse/ https://www.themoneyillusion.com/the-typical-rich-family-is-...
- elicash 7y agoGreat observation, but the analysis here seems wrong to me. If you took the median income of people between 45 and 60, I bet people here would STILL be shocked at how low it is. The reason isn't a lack of taking life stage into consideration (the link has no analysis of the numbers there). It's mostly about rich folks refusing to admit they're rich relative to most people.
- beamatronic 7y agoA friend just started a new job at a non-FAANG company and got a $100k signing bonus
- aledalgrande 7y agoMust be a director/executive position?
- beefalo 7y agoIf you are forfeiting a large amount of equity from leaving your current job and are joining as a senior/staff engineer it's possible to negotiate a signing bonus that high
- beamatronic 7y agoIC - no direct reports.
- Pimpus 7y agoIt's been a long time since HN was not out of touch.
- NTDF9 7y agoIf only the FED actually measured this in inflation numbers.
- xhgdvjky 7y agotoo lazy to go around the paywall, but I also wondered how inflation factors into this. seems normal that "a record number of six figure earners" would rent
- justinzollars 7y ago$100,000 still a lot of money. You can buy a beer in Vietnam for 20 cents. The problem in the Bay Area, where I live, is we artificially limit the amount of housing. So prices move to infinity.
- nxpnsv 7y agoJust imagine the house you could build from 500000 Vietnamese beers...
- hadlock 7y agoHeineken actually, briefly, ran an experiment where they made the bottles more rectangular, so that they could be filled with earth and then cemented together as glass bricks: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-heineken-bottles-were-square-62138490/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/when-heineken-bo... Glass is a pretty good insulator and generally weather-proof, UV-resistant etc, and cheap to produce.
- davidw 7y agoI've visited this in person: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tom-kellys-bottle-house https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tom-kellys-bottle-house It's kind of neat if you're ever in the area.
- mixmastamyk 7y ago> In Sima Valley, California That's Simi.
- aledalgrande 7y agoI would say that is a problem in any place where it is desirable to live these days. Locations I've experienced first hand: London, Sydney, Bay area, Los Angeles, Vancouver... and I'm sure there are many more where you can't buy on that salary.
- em3rgent0rdr 7y ago
- Tehchops 7y agoThere's very few places where there is an overlap of "jobs that pay $100k" and "homes that can be afforded at $100k salary".
- aidenn0 7y ago"Household income" so a couple with incomes of say $75k and $25k would put you in the "low six figures."
- dragontamer 7y agoSmall town America will have $500 / month for a 2-bedroom apartment, while paying medical-doctors $200k+ / year. But you may be the only doctor around for 10s of miles. Which is why you'd be so valuable. I'm sure there are other $100k to $200k jobs that small towns need. No, you won't get high-tech or programming in small-town America. But there's more to life than just the tech-field. Its easy to forget because we're mostly programmers in this website.
- notfromhere 7y agothe sweet spot in terms of arbitrage right now is: find full time employment at a high earning job in a major metro area, move far enough from that metro area to work remote while being able to come into the office a handful of times per month. A three hour commute is easier when you only do it twice a week, or a few times a month.
- taurath 7y agoA 3 hour commute each way is not easy even when you do it only twice a week
- notfromhere 7y agoRound-trip
- 7y ago
- sjdb77 7y agoI'm in a mini-retirement right now and living in SF. It was surprising to learn that below like $50k you basically pay 0 in income tax in California. As a single person I can very comfortably live off $40k/year in investment income and pay no taxes right now.
- uwuhn 7y ago>It was surprising to learn that below like $50k you basically pay 0 in income tax in California. Not if you're a contractor without a full-time employer. In college I did freelance work, and I lost nearly 30% to taxes despite making less than $5k a year from my work. Having your social security responsibility doubled is brutal.
- sjdb77 7y agoI'm not familiar with how freelancing income is different than other forms of income...isn't that just a regular 1099? Are you saying you didn't receive a tax refund during tax season?
- anonuser123456 7y ago1099 income you pay full amount of payroll tax. W2 your employer kicks in 1/2.
- icedchai 7y agoYou need tax deductions: expenses, SEP IRA contributions, home office space, utilities, etc.. You'll get that 1099 income down real quick.
- diminoten 7y agoYou lost that because you didn't file for a tax return correctly...
- mrfredward 7y agoWith W2 employment, you and your employer split the payroll tax responsibility. When you're self-employed, you pay both halves. If you adjust your rates accordingly, it's a wash for everyone involved (this is one of many reasons the 1099 price per hour should be around twice the W2 price per hour). None of this has anything to do with CA income tax.
- gourneau 7y ago[Laughs In Bay Area]
- dfxm12 7y agoI'm behind a paywall, so I'm sure they pick up on this, but the biggest problem I ran into when I thought I could afford a house was the down payment. You can make $100k (or less!) and quite easily afford a monthly mortgage payment, but that doesn't necessarily mean you have enough saved up for a down payment.
- ed312 7y agoSince we have such low interest rates, asset prices have ballooned (money is cheap).
- chadlavi 7y agoExactly this. Who can manage to save up 20k when they've got massive student loan bills from the education that got them that $100k+ job in the first place?
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- g2ah5z 7y agoYou only need 3.5% down with an FHA loan. To put that in perspective, a $300,000 home would only require $10,500 down.
- sjg007 7y agoYou can buy as low as 3% down and then there are the NACA loans and a slew of zero down programs.
- itsbenweeks 7y agoSort of. You'd be left paying the difference of 3.5% to 20% (16.5% or $49,500) in a FHA Mortgage Insurance Premium (MIP). This means another loan that you need a 1.75% down payment for (making your downpayment ≈ 3.8% or $11,400) that adds another payment (≈ $400) in addition to the mortgage. MIPs last the entire life of the FHA loan, too.
- loourr 7y agolive somewhere else.
- downrightmike 7y agoIn a van down by the river?
- notadoc 7y agoThis is mostly a west coast problem, where housing is hugely inflated in every west coast state and city. And NYC too of course, but that's less surprising given its NYC. Sometimes I think these articles are written as clickbait for people in the midwest, southeast, northeast, where housing is still very cheap and jobs pay well.
- notfromhere 7y agoevery major metro has seen an increase in housing costs. West coast may be extreme, but this hits every metro across the country.
- notadoc 7y agoSure ok, but over 6 years a starter house going from $19,000 to $30,000 in Dayton is a lot different on the affordability spectrum than an equivalent house going from $300,000 to $900,000 in Seattle.
- notfromhere 7y agoyou're not getting a starter home for 30k in Dayton unless it comes without walls and was a former meth lab.
- 2sk21 7y agoIndeed - even cities like Nashville have seen dramatic increases in home prices in recent years: https://www.nashvillepublicradio.org/post/after-years-surging-nashville-homes-prices-start-plateau#stream/0 https://www.nashvillepublicradio.org/post/after-years-surgin...
- beefalo 7y agoFrom looking at job markets vs cost recently, Nashville came out near the top for me on the list of worst job markets with most expensive housing.
- chadlavi 7y agoI know millennials with combined household incomes in excess of $200k who can't afford to buy, because huge student loans are required to get that kind of income if mommy and daddy aren't rich in the first place.
- uwuhn 7y agoWhat's their occupation? You don't need huge student loans to get that kind of salary as a software engineer.
- filoleg 7y agoIt depends a lot on the school you went to and what kind of financial aid you were able to get. Back when I was picking a college for my CS undergrad, the choice boiled down to (numbers are rough estimates, because I don't remember the exact ones, but they are close enough and should relay the point I am trying to make): * UCLA out of state: some financial aid for the first year, bringing the costs down to around $25k/yr. Around $35k+ each following year. * Georgia Tech in state: without financial aid, around $9.5k/yr. With Zell Miller/HOPE scholarship (which every in-state student gets, provided they maintain a certain GPA), it brought down the tuition costs to essentially $0/yr. I still took out some loans for rent/basic necessity expenses, but those were miniscule. Like, less than the first year at UCLA kind of miniscule. Both are well respected colleges, same program, but wildly different loan situations post-graduation. I obviously choice GT, but not everyone is in the same situation as me. The amount of loans doesn't always correlate with the kind of program you are choosing.
- wil421 7y agoJust to add you could’ve done TAG (Transfer Admission Guarantee) to both GaTech and UGA from Georgia Perimeter (community college) and saved a bunch on tuition or get in via transferring to a difficult school. I went to KSU to be with my wife (girlfriend at the time) and did Information Systems. Had I known I would love software engineering I might have done CS elsewhere. Are you still in Atlanta? If so what kind of tech do you work on?
- thrower123 7y agoThe issue is less about the dollar cost of housing in most places, than the opportunity cost and closing of flexibility in getting into a long term mortgage. In all but the most obnoxiously over-priced areas, if you make $100k, you should be able to buy something on a low down-payment FHA loan, and your total mortgage payment should be less than you'd pay in rent. PMI sucks, but it's not terribly difficult to refinance out of it after a handful of years. The problem is you're tied down to a location. The market is hot now, but even so, it is not trivial to list a house, get an offer, close, and decamp from it, and it's rare that that goes quickly. If you envision moving around from job to job, rather than settling in for the long haul, a 30-year mortgage is a ball and chain.
- ed312 7y agoStruggling with rent vs buy right now for this very reason. I know financially it would be better to buy, but then you lose the flexibility to go after a great opportunity in even another part of a major city.
- aetherson 7y agoYou know that you can sell houses before you pay off your mortgage, right? If you aren't in an area with very high housing costs (which, obviously, very many readers of this site are), it's not even that big a deal to sell your house when you need to. If your house constitutes 40% of your net worth, and you take a 5% hit on your sale price, then your net worth has declined... 2%. A good job is worth that. Admittedly, it's different when your house is 90% of your net worth and you're barely able to afford your mortgage.
- ska 7y agoClosing costs will kill you if you are doing this too often. If you are pretty certain you will stay at least 5 years, you should be ok.
- fredophile 7y agoSelling isn't free. Where I live you can expect to pay 6% just to the realtors. You also have other costs like lawyers, etc. You're also ignoring leverage. If the house is 40% of my net worth, I take a 5% hit on the sale price, and I've only paid 20% of the house then I've lost 10% of my net worth not 2%.
- jriot 7y agoI am 34 years old working remotely as data scientist, making $107k TC. My wife who I've been married to for 13 years is a stay-at-home mother as we have two children in grade school. Since they are in the school she is turning in our half-acre into a sustainable garden with chickens. We own our home, are financially comfortable while saving $1500 a month, and travel. We were planning a 2-month trip to Japan this upcoming summer until we realized the Olympics are held there in 2020. In the end we will shift dates around to make it work. Aside from being active duty for 11 years which allowed me to complete through two graduate degrees without any student debt, was taking my first role after the military in a small town one and half hours from the nearest city; a small city at that. I stayed there for four years to get comfortable enough to work on my own without any oversight; soaked up all possible learning opportunities. When switching roles to my current job, I negotiated to work remotely, now I live 2500 miles from my employer. Cost of living is the same, but now I don't have to purchase airline tickets to see family. The number one advantage I see compared to others comes from the military. I complete all tasks asigned without complaining, and get them down without bothering those above me. Doesn't matter the task, if it is assigned and needs to be completed, I do it. Sometimes these are trivial, others would say beneath them, others are writing patent paperwork with the co-founder. This mindset has worked two-fold, I touch numerous areas of the business so my skill-set is well rounded, and my bosses are happy; work gets done without their involvement. Live below your means, take advantage of where you live, and maintain a simple life. Good things come to those who wait.
- MuffinFlavored 7y agoHow much did you pay for your home? $100k/yr gross household income would make it rough to own a 3/2 single family home in South Florida.
- jriot 7y agoOur home was $348k - 4 bedrooms, 2 baths in Louisiana.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- dbtqgoat 7y ago> “I can’t think of anyone we’ve rented to recently who didn’t make $100,000,” said Bruce McNeilage, who owns 148 rental homes around the Southeast and is building 118 more. Well there’s your problem. Quit building unaffordable housing.
- tathougies 7y agoI mean if there are still renters able to pay then it's not unaffordable.
- anonuser123456 7y agoIn most 'unaffordable' locations, land is way more expensive than housing. My house, to build new, would cost 250k. The land it sits on is another 750k. The right answer would be to demo my somewhat old house and rebuild 6 units on it. But you can't; setbacks, height restrictions, parking spot requirements etc. make that impossible. Why? Because everyone in the neighborhood already 'got theirs'. But from a usage standpoint, my million dollar/ property neighborhood is at that price point because of the land use, not because builders don't build 'affordable housing'
- jandrese 7y agoYou can't build cheap housing, it would drop property values! That's not too far from the truth either. Comparing "comps" is a lazy man's game. They don't look that closely at the houses they are comparing.
- anonuser123456 7y agoUgh.. this is so true. When I bought my house I used a rudimentary linear regression to decouple land price from home price. My realtor thought of that as unworkable black magic. I was like well, if I know the build quality and know the cost of construction, why wouldn't this work? I think the answer was "pride of ownership, location, location, location!"
- La-ang 7y agoThis definitely applies to nyc xD
- gg2488 7y agoI'm behind the paywall but I'm wondering if this is because, just maybe, younger people understand finances better. When I wanted to buy a house, I waited until I save up the 20%. I know plenty of friends in their late 20s and early 30s who have the same attitude. Me and my wife also paid for our wedding in cash, we waited until we could afford it. You have the millennial generation looking at their parents still working and we're desperately trying to achieve financial independence so we don't suffer the same fate. I see so many articles about how bad millennials are burdened with student loan debt, but that's made us more concerned about finances than any other generation before us. So maybe it's less than we can't afford houses with high incomes. It's that we're less willing than our parents to take on financial risk instead of renting.
- jandrese 7y agoThe downside of saving a lot before you buy is that you still have to pay the rent while trying to save that money. Putting 20% down has advantages when making the loan (better rates mostly) so it makes sense, but saving beyond that is making your life more difficult. I think Student Loan debt is a huge factor in buying houses later. It's really hard to save if you're paying down debt as well as paying rent. It could easily delay their entry into the housing market for a decade.
- dinkleberg 7y agoYeah in my area I'm paying probably $200+/month more for my small apartment than I would for a house that's 2-3 times the sqft. It's frustrating to know that I'd actually be saving money + building equity of I could just buy a house today. But saving up is hard when you're also paying off student debt. My family has told me that you should always save up the 20%, but it seems like like the FHA 3.5% is the winners choice. If I wait until I have 20% down it's going to take ages and all that money spent on apartments is going to waste.
- gg2488 7y agoOne thing I keep telling people is that buying a house really won't save you money in the long run. I only bought a house for the space, me and my wife both work from home in the midwest and need the office space. You'll spend more than you realize on upkeep, furnishings and the increase cost of utilities. My opinion is If you really want to save money, find a cheap cost of living area and rent. Only buy a house if you need the space and know that you'll be staying in that area for 10ish years.
- cosmodisk 7y agoI live in London. I'm not on 100K, however my salary is higher than 90% of the UK's population.If I'd compare our family income,we are better off than 75% of the country's households.These are just the stats. All 3 of us live in a one bedroom,rented flat in a decent area. We wouldn't even get a mortgage for the flat we live in (£300K)...The neighbors bought a house next door for £1M. Only pensioners and businessmen own properties on my street,the rest are renting. So realistically,unless I start making 50% more than I do now, there's no way this will ever change. I guess I should start looking at those remote Salesforce jobs in Bay area...
- IshKebab 7y ago90th percentile puts you on around £55k, for which you could absolutely get a mortgage on a £300k property (assuming you have a 10% deposit and your partner earns an average salary).
- cylinder 7y agoCould you move somewhere like Manchester? I don't get the point of living in London with kids unless your career is absolutely killer.
- bwooceli 7y ago120 range in KS, 15 year mortgage on a 2,600ft^2 house is $2k on the nose. Commute is 15 minutes. KS isn't all that bad folks :)
- throwaway981211 7y agoI lived in Little Rock for high school and Norman, OK for college. How does KS compare? Shit you could not pay me enough to go back to Oklahoma or Arkansas.
- bwooceli 7y agoI would say those are not comparable cities. Way more to do in KC (but not as much as like Chicago).
- non-entity 7y agoWhat part? I visited KC earlier this and frankly didn't find it too terrible, but idk if I'd live in like Topeka or Wichita
- bwooceli 7y agoOlathe (Southern Suburbia). Yeah, Topeka and Wichita are off the menu for me, but I'd gladly be anywhere between Lawrence and Lees Summit (on the Missouri Side) South of I-70 and North of Gardner. And while Downtown KC isn't going to stack up to the non-stop adventure of a "Big City", there's still plenty to do, and the other quality of life bonuses add up.
- marsrover 7y agoLooking at some similar stats here right outside Atlanta. 30 year mortgage with 3,800ft^2 for $2.1k. Commute is 30m-40m. Seconding KS, though. I've only been a handful of times and I really like it.
- tathougies 7y agoWe rented while making good money because it's easier to rent. We're now buying a house. I genuinely like fixing and maintaining houses, so it makes sense for us. However, most people don't. For them, it makes a lot more sense to rent. If you're rich and have a stable source of large income, it's almost always better to rent all your stuff. Not only is rented stuff of higher quality (because you can always have new stuff), someone else takes care of it for you. This is good. My wife and I will soon sell one of our cars, and rent a car if we need it, because a rental car is certainly going to be newer than any car we own, and if it breaks, someone else will fix it. Renting is superior from a user experience perspective. If you can afford it, it is the best. And yes, we're planning on renting out a unit in our home. It will be a very nice unit and the renter there quite lucky (as are all renters) because someone else -- me -- will take on all the risk if anything breaks.
- Arcaelyx 7y agoYou don't have to take on any of the risk if anything breaks by forcing them to have renter's insurance. It's something that a lot of newer apartment buildings are doing these days.
- tathougies 7y agoYou seem to be confused as to the purpose of renter's insurance. Renter's insurance does not cover the cost to repair broken appliances or problems with the apartment that reduce habitability. Not sure where you got that idea from. Renter's insurance covers the renter's property if something in the apartment damages it. For example, if there is a fire that damages your computer, renter's insurance will pay a replacement cost, but will not pay for the repair to the apartment. That is up to the homeowner's policy the landlord pays for. Source: have rented solely in buildings requiring renter's insurance, and have never filed a claim for things breaking in the apartment. The landlord always fixes it. More information here: https://www.ipsagency.com/blog/does-renters-insurance-cover-appliances.aspx https://www.ipsagency.com/blog/does-renters-insurance-cover-...
- youdontknowtho 7y agoWelcome to 10 years ago, WSJ.
- aidenn0 7y agoWhile housing is an issue (particularly in more prosperous coastal cities), if I made over $100k per year but couldn't afford a house in the $400k range, I don't think my response would be to rent a single-family house in Stapleton. There are more affordable apartments in the Denver area that are still in a good school district. Articles like this are starting to annoy me because I see the working poor and lower-middle class, who have very serious financial issues today lumped in with young professionals with 2010 levels of student debt trying to live the lifestyle of young professionals in the 1980s (who were largely free of student debt) to their own financial detriment. If you have a household income of $110k and both work in SF, you are screwed. If you have a household income of $110k and live almost anywhere else in the country, you have options.
- non-entity 7y ago> trying to live the lifestyle of young professionals in the 1980s I've been interested in the subject for while, but do you know of any recommended reading material about what being a YP in the 80s was like (socially, career wise, etc) and the economics of how it was possible?
- aidenn0 7y agoI do not have any recommended reading. I had relatives that came of age in the late 70s and early 80s, so this was personal experience. http://www.paulgraham.com/re.html http://www.paulgraham.com/re.html suggests that young professionals being paid more was new around this time. I don't know if this is true or not. If it is true, then this would suggest that there was a sudden increase in disposable income among young professionals. Professionals were already a small fraction of workers, and social change is usually uneven, so it seems likely that in addition not all professional jobs experienced this shift at the same time. If you suddenly give a small fraction of the population more money then they are likely to live it up because there aren't enough of them to drive the costs up in lock-step.
- just_myles 7y agoIn major US west coast cities, definitely yes. 100k is not enough.
- jumbopapa 7y agoI think there is still a big issue with pegging home ownership as the quintessential "American dream". In a lot of ways home ownership actually leads to worse outcomes than renting, but so many people think it's the one thing everyone should do.
- droithomme 7y agoI've paid cash for all my houses. I paid off my student debt within a couple years. I did live in the Bay Area and LA as well briefly and realized it was a dead end financially, mentally, morally, and spiritually. Anyone with enough smarts to create great products is going to have enough smarts to check out of the system and live in a great place instead of a shithole with blow jobs in the streets and heroin needles on the sidewalks, while paying through the nose for the privilege. And this is the problem the venture capitalists can't seem to face. Good. Let them die and burn in hell.
- abc_lisper 7y agoWhere do you live now
- droithomme 7y agoJust in the US.
- djmips 7y agoInflation and the obsession with powers of 10. Back when I was starting out in 1990 a $100K job would have to be a $200K job today. Yes, housing has inflated as well but what I'm trying to say is that our perception of using $100K as some kind of benchmark hasn't.
- dragonwriter 7y agoA more accurate summary would be “People with $100K/yr may be able to rent homes in sufficiently more desirable neighborhoods than they could buy as to choose the former over the latter while being able to do either”, but it's too long and not hyperbolic enough for a headline.
- sunstone 7y agoShould be plenty for a house in Miami.