3 ms·

> So, yes, if you want to live in a cramped condo, see your money evaporate to taxes, driving to work, private schools, and so on, you can 'life hack' here. Or,

> So, yes, if you want to live in a cramped condo, see your money evaporate to taxes, driving to work, private schools, and so on, you can 'life hack' here. Or, you can live elsewhere, own a few acres, have a big garage, a rec room, work normal hours, have half the commute, and still save plenty of money. While you aren't going to be living on a few acres working at a tech job in the Bay Ara (barring long commutes), you are exaggerating a bit here. - If you live in SF, you generally don't need to drive to work. Your commute will be short (<25 minutes). You can get quite livable single-family homes (3 bedrooms, 1400 square feet) for $750k. You may want to consider private schools. - If you live in areas where you want to get good public schools, prices may surge to $900k for homes that size. tl;dr If you want a huge home with huge lots, yes, very difficult in the Bay Area. But if you just want a typical suburban lfiestyle, it is pretty easy to do on a tech salary.

vonmoltke 13y ago
> - If you live in SF, you generally don't need to drive to work. Your commute will be short (<25 minutes). You can get quite livable single-family homes (3 bedrooms, 1400 square feet) for $750k. You may want to consider private schools. I live in Dallas, have a driving commute well under 25 minutes, and have a 3 bedroom, 2300 sqft house I paid $175k for with the same stipulation on the schools. Your scenario would be a major cost increase for me. In fact, I could probably max out my 401k here with just the housing cost delta. Austin is more expensive than Dallas[1], but I wouldn't expect to pay more than about $250k - $300k for my house there (for reference, my house is worth about $190k now). I could downsize to your SF-sized house here for under $100k. Since I would realistically only get about a 70% pay raise max over my Dallas salary for moving to SF, it doesn't make any sense. [1] And my house was a good deal even for Dallas.

vonmoltke 13y ago

> - If you live in SF, you generally don't need to drive to work. Your commute will be short (<25 minutes). You can get quite livable single-family homes (3 bedrooms, 1400 square feet) for $750k. You may want to consider private schools. I live in Dallas, have a driving commute well under 25 minutes, and have a 3 bedroom, 2300 sqft house I paid $175k for with the same stipulation on the schools. Your scenario would be a major cost increase for me. In fact, I could probably max out my 401k here with just the housing cost delta. Austin is more expensive than Dallas[1], but I wouldn't expect to pay more than about $250k - $300k for my house there (for reference, my house is worth about $190k now). I could downsize to your SF-sized house here for under $100k. Since I would realistically only get about a 70% pay raise max over my Dallas salary for moving to SF, it doesn't make any sense. [1] And my house was a good deal even for Dallas.