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Comment by riantogo | Hacker News Reader

For those outside Silicon Valley why might think, "you could live like a king with that kind of money", here is a potential home you are looking at ($2M, 1200 sqft, 7 rated schools): https://www.redfin.com/CA/Palo-Alto/3785-Park-Blvd-94306/hom...

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Or you can live in this house, which is >2k sq ft, on 0.53 acres, in a 10 rated school district and only 16 miles from SF

https://www.redfin.com/CA/Orinda/28-Tara-Rd-94563/home/19147...

Why do you think it is relatively so much cheaper? There has to be some reasonable explanation? Maybe it is because it is not Silicon Valley? Maybe commute to Mountain View or Sunnyvale takes 4hrs off your life each day?

You can easily access SF jobs, but South Bay jobs are harder to get to. But it is no different than living in Oakland or Berkeley when it comes to commute

Somewhat visible in some of the outdoor photos: a railroad right-of-way is located directly behind this house, with at least two trains per hour from early morning until midnight.

Conveniently located for commuters!

The train will be moving. Good exercise.

And for those that aren't familiar with Caltrain, that train blasts its horn two or three times before each stop and the horn is so loud that you can hear it from a mile away. Living as close to the train as that house is would be miserable.

I would be more worried about thick layer of diesel dust on all surfaces (including your lungs) but hey they are going electric in next 20 years for sure

That's OK, Atherton residents are against Caltrain electrification. We must maintain the quaint character of our multi-billionaire enclave!

I could easily afford a home in the bay area if I was more tolerant to noise. I live 1.5 miles away from the train and I can hear it quite clearly (the horns, as well as the track noise), but it's distant.

what i always wonder about this massive income inequality in silicon valley is, where are the non high paying people living?

you know, people who are not highly trained professionals with advanced degrees but who are still required to make up a community. (bakers, school teachers, nurses, technical craftsman, caretakers etc).

It is my understanding that those people make signficantly less money (more on the "standard" level most western-europeans make. say 30kEUR a year), But where do these people live?!

With roommates, in rent controlled apartments, in subsidized housing, in bad neighborhoods most people don't frequent. And some in homes they bought before housing prices skyrocketed to absorb all of those high tech salaries.

Or just far away with long, miserable commutes.

They live with their families.

Palo Alto is a lot more expensive than most of the Bay Area, so this is a somewhat cherry-picked result.

Yeah I started the interview process with Apple and they mentioned that we would have to relocate to the bay. Wife and I looked up house prices and we were like NOPE.

Serious question. As someone who has lived in his car voluntarily for 6 months, what's the feasibility of just buying an Airstream and towing it behind a used Ford F250? And parking somewhere closer to work?

You do realize it’s the price of a lot? That house is a teardown

I'm under impression everything is a teardown yet people live in those. Same in Vancouver and Toronto.

Pretty much every single family property in Silicon Valley is waiting to get torn down and replaced with a 3-4 family property or more.

Yeah but the houses nearby are not that much better, look at this: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Palo-Alto/3561-Park-Blvd-94306/hom...

$2.7M for a 100x50 lot and a 4 bedroom? That's mansion money pretty much anywhere. Hell you can even get a nice place in NY for that much.

I mean the fact that rank and file eng can’t afford PA house is not puzzling to me. More surprising is why Boulder or Vancouver have similar range of prices

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