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Nope. That's why the no dependents part is essential. If you are single and willing to live with roommates, you will be able to navigate the "high cost of livin

Nope. That's why the no dependents part is essential. If you are single and willing to live with roommates, you will be able to navigate the "high cost of living" pretty successfully. I'm living quite comfortably in San Francisco and spending a fraction of what I was spending in Texas. Why? - No car. No gas. No upkeep. No payments. No insurance. No inspections. No car. - Roommates. I HATE living alone so this was a no-brainer. If you insist on having your own place, then yeah it's probably going to sting. If not you can often find good deals. - Food. A tech job often provides free or free-ish food. Plus I can get reasonably-priced staples at the market on the corner of my block. The culture here makes it much less likely I'll spend $400/mo at Olive Garden, Chili's, and The Red Lobster. - Stuff. Don't need much. When I was in Texas I lived FAR away from anyone who really shared my geeky interests. I'm surrounded by them here. I simply don't have the urge to buy so much stuff to keep me occupied. I have the stuff I need and I spend most of my time doing things with people. These things are often free. Speaking of which... - "funcheap". SF is famous for this (as is NYC). You can ALWAYS find cool stuff to do that costs little or no money. You can also, of course, find stuff that costs a lot of money. It's your choice, day by day. Now if I couldn't stand to live with roommates or had a family to support, this would be a whole different story. Also, "high cost of living" really means $$$/sq ft vs $$/sq ft. It IS outrageous in places, but I'm much happier in my apartment with 1 bedroom to myself than I was in a 2600 square foot house in Texas. So yes, price per square foot is going to hurt on paper, but if "size doesn't matter", you might end up paying less by actual dollars. Your mileage may vary, of course, but I'm pretty passionate about this since I stuck around in places that weren't right for me a lot longer than I should have... simply because I let popular rhetoric convince me that only dot com millionaires could afford to live in the Bay Area. They were wrong, and I was a fool for listening to them instead of exploring it for myself. Don't make my mistakes.

jlgreco 13y ago
Honestly I think roommates isn't a requirement (at least in most of those cities) either.
- PittedPrune 13y ago
  um, what? With tiny 400 square foot apartments going for 2500 in San Francisco... how can you possibly say that?
  - breckinloggins 13y ago
    Yeah, I agree with this. A key point of my post is "if you're willing to live with roommates you can find good deals". Of course you still have to find them. I spent over a week glued to Craigslist looking for a combination of the right price, right location, and right people. Yes I got lucky, but not "win the lottery" lucky. I ran across several that were good potentials. The roommates part seems essential. There are a number of reasons but if I had to guess: - With roommates you can often take advantage of someone who has been living there since before some recent price spikes (especially in certain neighborhoods). If you find a place by yourself, the landlord is free to charge whatever they want unless you can find a rent controlled apartment, but those have multi-year waiting lists. - Vacant units are often renovated so the rent can be raised. - Economies of scale. If you live by yourself chances are you want a place with your own kitchen, bathroom, etc. These are shared spaces in a roommate situation. - There seems to be more competition for single-residency housing. I have no data to back this up, but just from talking to people it seems that there are more people who hate living with roommates than who hate living alone.
  - jlgreco 13y ago
    San Fransisco perhaps isn't going to work well for somebody who wants to live on their own and save money, but they are the outlier there. It is trivial in Seattle, and not hard in NYC if you don't insist on Manhattan. I know people who do it in Boston and Chicago (until recently anyway, and technically he was making "ethanol engineer" money, not "tech" money... I digress though.) I am not very familiar with San Francisco, so I left myself some wiggle room ("(at least in most of those cities)") but having a roommate is not a requirement for anybody making a tech salary and wanting to save money in those other cities.
  - mkehrt 13y ago
    That's a one bedroom or studio. As the number of bedrooms goes up, the price per room goes down.
ars_technician 13y ago
>They were wrong, and I was a fool for listening to them instead of exploring it for myself. Don't make my mistakes. They were right if you ever want to have a family. You are building no equity in rent so you will essentially have to leave and start over somewhere else to have kids. Your story is fine as long as it ends with you being single and alone without any real assets.
- nickdoesdesign 13y ago
  This is what gets me. The whole building equity thing by equating it to property. I have equity, but I invested it elsewhere. I still rent. You dont need to own property to have equity and to state otherwise is a disservice. America is not all subdivisions and white picket fences...
  - ars_technician 13y ago
    You are confusing what the point of building equity in a home is. It's not solely an investment vehicle like stocks, bonds, options, commodities, etc. By building equity in a home, you are also eliminating your cost of rent. >You dont need to own property to have equity and to state otherwise is a disservice. Again, you do if you want your cost of housing to go towards building equity.
    - nbouscal 13y ago
      You're not eliminating your cost of rent, you're (maybe) lowering it. Whatever percentage of your housing costs go towards interest, property taxes, HOA fees, homeowner's insurance, mortgage insurance, etc. are not going towards equity. Especially early on in a mortgage, the vast majority of your housing expenses are not going towards equity. Your analysis is only correct late in a mortgage. Early in a mortgage it's entirely possible to be paying more in non-equity expenses than you would be if you were renting.
      - ars_technician 13y ago
        What you don't seem to be getting is that if you are renting, ALL of it is going towards non-equity expenses. A monthly house-payment of $2000 is still better than rent of $2000 even if 90% is going towards interest/insurance overhead.

jlgreco 13y ago

Honestly I think roommates isn't a requirement (at least in most of those cities) either.

PittedPrune 13y ago
um, what? With tiny 400 square foot apartments going for 2500 in San Francisco... how can you possibly say that?
- breckinloggins 13y ago
  Yeah, I agree with this. A key point of my post is "if you're willing to live with roommates you can find good deals". Of course you still have to find them. I spent over a week glued to Craigslist looking for a combination of the right price, right location, and right people. Yes I got lucky, but not "win the lottery" lucky. I ran across several that were good potentials. The roommates part seems essential. There are a number of reasons but if I had to guess: - With roommates you can often take advantage of someone who has been living there since before some recent price spikes (especially in certain neighborhoods). If you find a place by yourself, the landlord is free to charge whatever they want unless you can find a rent controlled apartment, but those have multi-year waiting lists. - Vacant units are often renovated so the rent can be raised. - Economies of scale. If you live by yourself chances are you want a place with your own kitchen, bathroom, etc. These are shared spaces in a roommate situation. - There seems to be more competition for single-residency housing. I have no data to back this up, but just from talking to people it seems that there are more people who hate living with roommates than who hate living alone.
- jlgreco 13y ago
  San Fransisco perhaps isn't going to work well for somebody who wants to live on their own and save money, but they are the outlier there. It is trivial in Seattle, and not hard in NYC if you don't insist on Manhattan. I know people who do it in Boston and Chicago (until recently anyway, and technically he was making "ethanol engineer" money, not "tech" money... I digress though.) I am not very familiar with San Francisco, so I left myself some wiggle room ("(at least in most of those cities)") but having a roommate is not a requirement for anybody making a tech salary and wanting to save money in those other cities.
- mkehrt 13y ago
  That's a one bedroom or studio. As the number of bedrooms goes up, the price per room goes down.

ars_technician 13y ago

>They were wrong, and I was a fool for listening to them instead of exploring it for myself. Don't make my mistakes. They were right if you ever want to have a family. You are building no equity in rent so you will essentially have to leave and start over somewhere else to have kids. Your story is fine as long as it ends with you being single and alone without any real assets.

nickdoesdesign 13y ago
This is what gets me. The whole building equity thing by equating it to property. I have equity, but I invested it elsewhere. I still rent. You dont need to own property to have equity and to state otherwise is a disservice. America is not all subdivisions and white picket fences...
- ars_technician 13y ago
  You are confusing what the point of building equity in a home is. It's not solely an investment vehicle like stocks, bonds, options, commodities, etc. By building equity in a home, you are also eliminating your cost of rent. >You dont need to own property to have equity and to state otherwise is a disservice. Again, you do if you want your cost of housing to go towards building equity.
  - nbouscal 13y ago
    You're not eliminating your cost of rent, you're (maybe) lowering it. Whatever percentage of your housing costs go towards interest, property taxes, HOA fees, homeowner's insurance, mortgage insurance, etc. are not going towards equity. Especially early on in a mortgage, the vast majority of your housing expenses are not going towards equity. Your analysis is only correct late in a mortgage. Early in a mortgage it's entirely possible to be paying more in non-equity expenses than you would be if you were renting.
    - ars_technician 13y ago
      What you don't seem to be getting is that if you are renting, ALL of it is going towards non-equity expenses. A monthly house-payment of $2000 is still better than rent of $2000 even if 90% is going towards interest/insurance overhead.