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It is an insane amount of money even in the Bay Area. It's more than enough to support a large family living a very comfortable lifestyle while also saving sign

It is an insane amount of money even in the Bay Area. It's more than enough to support a large family living a very comfortable lifestyle while also saving significantly for retirement. I'm not sure what the grandparent poster is on about.

giantg2 6y ago
I guess other people agree with him because I'm getting downvoted.
bradlys 6y ago
Everyone argues about this but for most people in tech - $400k/yr does not give you a "very comfortable" lifestyle. You cannot afford a $2m home. A $2m home isn't even that comfortable in the peninsula. (Varies on location but it'll probably be under 2000sqft, still 3-4 bedroom, 4000-8000sqft lot, 2-car garage if you're fortunate, will likely require $200k+ in renovation/repairs on move in, nothing lavish) Good luck trying to get one anyway - you're going to be beat by cash offers anyway. If you extend your reach to very far out areas - you can get a better home and your dollar goes further but you're sacrificing on commute and then you don't have a very comfortable lifestyle because you're commuting really far. A very comfortable lifestyle for most people in tech would be: two luxury cars (bmw/mercedes/porsche/modelsx), good public schools, safe and pleasant to look at neighborhood to purchase a home in, short commute distance (<30 min), and the usual lake tahoe trips, one-two vacations abroad a year, plus the usual smaller vacations, etc. You're not doing that on $400k/yr in SV. If both partners make $400k/yr then sure. I'm skipping out on the nanny, private school, prepared meals, and so forth because I think that's going above and beyond. People I know who are at $400k/yr (household) are not buying homes in the peninsula or - just generally - close to work.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  > 2000sqft, still 3-4 bedroom, 4000-8000sqft lot, 2-car garage if you're fortunate In what way is this not "comfortable"? What is your definition of "comfortable"? Like, I grew up in a 3BR, 2 car garage house that was <2000 SqFt. It was absolutely "comfortable". I had friends who were lower income who had smaller houses who were comfortable. You're describing an inflated, luxury lifestyle. You even sort of admit it when you say "very comfortable lifestyle for most people in tech". That's not "very comfortable", that's "very comfortable for people who are already very comfortable". I feel like this is a sort of keeping up with the joneses thing: comfortable implies "more comfortable than the median person in your social circle, where your social circle is all tech people with 400K a year or more household incomes". Like another way of putting this is that a 400K income should allow you to afford a nice 3-BR rental and kids and save money. If you don't have kids, 400K allows you to keep a luxury apartment in SF and another one in the south bay, you know, if you want to do that.
  - jkubicek 6y ago
    > You're describing an inflated, luxury lifestyle. Exactly. I consider a "comfortable" lifestyle to be a 3BR house in a safe neighborhood, 2 reliable cars, 2 week+ domestic vacations/year, plus saving enough to give a nice cushion in case of emergencies / retirement. I'm terrible with budgeting / saving and I was doing this working for a startup on a $120k/year salary. Granted, this was 10 years ago and housing has appreciated significantly since then, but still. $200k would be more than enough to enjoy this sort of comfortable lifestyle.
    - bradlys 6y ago
      Sorry, $200k isn't enough. You won't get the house. I know because I've applied. No landlord is renting out homes to single income in the peninsula at $200k/yr. $400k at FAANG - yes (they're all afraid of people losing their jobs at startups and lots of FAANG out there to rent them homes up). But, again, we're talking about "very comfortable" - not comfortable. Not okay. Not "I managed". Very comfortable - something people actually want, not just live with. And I don't put renting in the "very comfortable" category. Nor do I put "reliable" cars or domestic vacations. Safe neighborhood? It's expensive - $2m expensive. Do you have any real insight to the CURRENT housing market in the SF Bay Area? Housing is the big cost. It's more expensive to have a garage for a Porsche than the Porsche itself. I can literally go out tomorrow and buy a 911 but CANNOT afford to put it in a garage. That's how fucking ridiculous it is.
      - giantg2 6y ago
        I'm just curious, why do people choose to put themselves in that environment? I'm mean, based o the cost of living one could move to practically anywhere else (excluding about five areas) in the US and have this "very comfortable" lifestyle on $100k-150k.
        bradlys 6y ago
        Because you aren’t surrounded by peers. Some of us have lived in other areas and don’t want to go back for good reasons. People in other areas have jobs. People in SV have careers. Many more reasons to list. Average education among my peers is obscenely high (a bachelors is seen as being undereducated - masters is average with PhD being very common). The area isn’t that bad except for COL. Once you’re rich, it isn’t that bad. So, just get rich. That’s the basics of it. It sucks but at least there is a solution for those that are ambitious enough. Can’t fix bad weather or jobs.
- BlargMcLarg 6y ago
  >for most people in tech The majority of people in tech do not work in Silicon Valley or even US tech hubs for that part. Friendly reminder entire continents across either side of the US coast by with less than 15% of that number and would live extremely comfortable lives with just the 100k that often gets tossed around here.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    omfg. dude, we're not comparing devs in developing countries to people in SV. What kind of troll comment is this? Is it a surprise that cost of living DIFFERS WILDLY based upon LOCATION?
    - giantg2 6y ago
      I don't see your comment as a valid response to the parent. They were not talking about developing countries. They were talking about in the US. They even pointed out that most devs do not live in the SV area (in response to your statement about most people in tech...). The majority of the people in tech in the US do not live in SV and the median salary for a dev is about $100k-110k.
      - bradlys 6y ago
        No. They literally were talking about 15% of $100k being sufficient. Re-read it.
        joshuamorton 6y ago
        15% of "that number" is 60K, since "that number" is 400K. They're talking about 60K being good enough on the east coast, and 100K being very nice on the east coast.
        giantg2 6y ago
        I pretty much agree, but I think they're actually talking about the area between the coasts for the 15% number ($60k).
- comp_throw7 6y ago
  I'm not sure how you figure that 400k/yr (dual-income) doesn't let you buy a 2m house, putting aside the question of why you'd want to - there are multiple listings under 1.5m in "safe neighborhoods" less than a 20 minute drive away from MTV, and yes, they have 2-car garages. You're probably looking at a TCO of ~11k/month (mortgage, tax, & maintenance, and it's really more like 9.5-10k/mo after the mortgage interest tax deduction), which is arguably an unwisely large % of your ~20k post-tax take-home, assuming you're putting away a substantial amount into 401ks, but you're left with 9-10k/month, which means you can put easily waste whatever you want on luxury cars (as if you can't be "very comfortable" leasing a new Japanese sedan for under $300/month instead of lighting money on fire for the pleasure of driving less reliable vehicles). But, I mean, you _could_ if you really wanted to. And still have enough money to travel internationally twice a year. And outsource whatever percentage of your cooking you want to takeout. I'm glad you agree that a full-time nanny would be stretching the definition of "very comfortable", and private schools seem superfluous if you're buying expensive real estate, since part of what it buys you is a spot in the local public school, and if you don't want that you can relatively trivially arbitrage it away by buying a cheaper house in a different zip code. Is it possible that those people are making the arguably sensible decision to rent instead of buying, because the price to rent ratio in the Bay is truly absurd, and not everybody cares enough about "ownership" to spend an extra 20-30k/yr on it? That doesn't mean that they couldn't make the finances work if they had to, they just have... different priorities. Like putting an extra 20-30k/yr into the market.

giantg2 6y ago

I guess other people agree with him because I'm getting downvoted.

bradlys 6y ago

Everyone argues about this but for most people in tech - $400k/yr does not give you a "very comfortable" lifestyle. You cannot afford a $2m home. A $2m home isn't even that comfortable in the peninsula. (Varies on location but it'll probably be under 2000sqft, still 3-4 bedroom, 4000-8000sqft lot, 2-car garage if you're fortunate, will likely require $200k+ in renovation/repairs on move in, nothing lavish) Good luck trying to get one anyway - you're going to be beat by cash offers anyway. If you extend your reach to very far out areas - you can get a better home and your dollar goes further but you're sacrificing on commute and then you don't have a very comfortable lifestyle because you're commuting really far. A very comfortable lifestyle for most people in tech would be: two luxury cars (bmw/mercedes/porsche/modelsx), good public schools, safe and pleasant to look at neighborhood to purchase a home in, short commute distance (<30 min), and the usual lake tahoe trips, one-two vacations abroad a year, plus the usual smaller vacations, etc. You're not doing that on $400k/yr in SV. If both partners make $400k/yr then sure. I'm skipping out on the nanny, private school, prepared meals, and so forth because I think that's going above and beyond. People I know who are at $400k/yr (household) are not buying homes in the peninsula or - just generally - close to work.

joshuamorton 6y ago
> 2000sqft, still 3-4 bedroom, 4000-8000sqft lot, 2-car garage if you're fortunate In what way is this not "comfortable"? What is your definition of "comfortable"? Like, I grew up in a 3BR, 2 car garage house that was <2000 SqFt. It was absolutely "comfortable". I had friends who were lower income who had smaller houses who were comfortable. You're describing an inflated, luxury lifestyle. You even sort of admit it when you say "very comfortable lifestyle for most people in tech". That's not "very comfortable", that's "very comfortable for people who are already very comfortable". I feel like this is a sort of keeping up with the joneses thing: comfortable implies "more comfortable than the median person in your social circle, where your social circle is all tech people with 400K a year or more household incomes". Like another way of putting this is that a 400K income should allow you to afford a nice 3-BR rental and kids and save money. If you don't have kids, 400K allows you to keep a luxury apartment in SF and another one in the south bay, you know, if you want to do that.
- jkubicek 6y ago
  > You're describing an inflated, luxury lifestyle. Exactly. I consider a "comfortable" lifestyle to be a 3BR house in a safe neighborhood, 2 reliable cars, 2 week+ domestic vacations/year, plus saving enough to give a nice cushion in case of emergencies / retirement. I'm terrible with budgeting / saving and I was doing this working for a startup on a $120k/year salary. Granted, this was 10 years ago and housing has appreciated significantly since then, but still. $200k would be more than enough to enjoy this sort of comfortable lifestyle.
  - bradlys 6y ago
    Sorry, $200k isn't enough. You won't get the house. I know because I've applied. No landlord is renting out homes to single income in the peninsula at $200k/yr. $400k at FAANG - yes (they're all afraid of people losing their jobs at startups and lots of FAANG out there to rent them homes up). But, again, we're talking about "very comfortable" - not comfortable. Not okay. Not "I managed". Very comfortable - something people actually want, not just live with. And I don't put renting in the "very comfortable" category. Nor do I put "reliable" cars or domestic vacations. Safe neighborhood? It's expensive - $2m expensive. Do you have any real insight to the CURRENT housing market in the SF Bay Area? Housing is the big cost. It's more expensive to have a garage for a Porsche than the Porsche itself. I can literally go out tomorrow and buy a 911 but CANNOT afford to put it in a garage. That's how fucking ridiculous it is.
    - giantg2 6y ago
      I'm just curious, why do people choose to put themselves in that environment? I'm mean, based o the cost of living one could move to practically anywhere else (excluding about five areas) in the US and have this "very comfortable" lifestyle on $100k-150k.
      - bradlys 6y ago
        Because you aren’t surrounded by peers. Some of us have lived in other areas and don’t want to go back for good reasons. People in other areas have jobs. People in SV have careers. Many more reasons to list. Average education among my peers is obscenely high (a bachelors is seen as being undereducated - masters is average with PhD being very common). The area isn’t that bad except for COL. Once you’re rich, it isn’t that bad. So, just get rich. That’s the basics of it. It sucks but at least there is a solution for those that are ambitious enough. Can’t fix bad weather or jobs.
BlargMcLarg 6y ago
>for most people in tech The majority of people in tech do not work in Silicon Valley or even US tech hubs for that part. Friendly reminder entire continents across either side of the US coast by with less than 15% of that number and would live extremely comfortable lives with just the 100k that often gets tossed around here.
- bradlys 6y ago
  omfg. dude, we're not comparing devs in developing countries to people in SV. What kind of troll comment is this? Is it a surprise that cost of living DIFFERS WILDLY based upon LOCATION?
  - giantg2 6y ago
    I don't see your comment as a valid response to the parent. They were not talking about developing countries. They were talking about in the US. They even pointed out that most devs do not live in the SV area (in response to your statement about most people in tech...). The majority of the people in tech in the US do not live in SV and the median salary for a dev is about $100k-110k.
    - bradlys 6y ago
      No. They literally were talking about 15% of $100k being sufficient. Re-read it.
      - joshuamorton 6y ago
        15% of "that number" is 60K, since "that number" is 400K. They're talking about 60K being good enough on the east coast, and 100K being very nice on the east coast.
        giantg2 6y ago
        I pretty much agree, but I think they're actually talking about the area between the coasts for the 15% number ($60k).
comp_throw7 6y ago
I'm not sure how you figure that 400k/yr (dual-income) doesn't let you buy a 2m house, putting aside the question of why you'd want to - there are multiple listings under 1.5m in "safe neighborhoods" less than a 20 minute drive away from MTV, and yes, they have 2-car garages. You're probably looking at a TCO of ~11k/month (mortgage, tax, & maintenance, and it's really more like 9.5-10k/mo after the mortgage interest tax deduction), which is arguably an unwisely large % of your ~20k post-tax take-home, assuming you're putting away a substantial amount into 401ks, but you're left with 9-10k/month, which means you can put easily waste whatever you want on luxury cars (as if you can't be "very comfortable" leasing a new Japanese sedan for under $300/month instead of lighting money on fire for the pleasure of driving less reliable vehicles). But, I mean, you _could_ if you really wanted to. And still have enough money to travel internationally twice a year. And outsource whatever percentage of your cooking you want to takeout. I'm glad you agree that a full-time nanny would be stretching the definition of "very comfortable", and private schools seem superfluous if you're buying expensive real estate, since part of what it buys you is a spot in the local public school, and if you don't want that you can relatively trivially arbitrage it away by buying a cheaper house in a different zip code. Is it possible that those people are making the arguably sensible decision to rent instead of buying, because the price to rent ratio in the Bay is truly absurd, and not everybody cares enough about "ownership" to spend an extra 20-30k/yr on it? That doesn't mean that they couldn't make the finances work if they had to, they just have... different priorities. Like putting an extra 20-30k/yr into the market.