Comment by jrochkind1 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jrochkind1 | Hacker News Reader

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So this all sucks, and you're in a rough situation, and I sympathasize, and I'm not trying to tell you not to complain or that it's under your control. I think you wrote that well in a way that is aware of a lot of what's going on and your position.

BUT. "where does this leave the majority of this country?" -- well, the majority of the country does not have as crazy a real estate market as Seattle, as far as paying ~$1.5 mil for a dump where you're basically just paying for the land. That is not most of the country.

So... have you considered moving elsewhere? Even if you take a salary drop, you can probably wind up ahead overall with cost of living, especially if buying a home is a main goal you have. Of course, you won't get to live in Seattle. Seattle is awfully nice, it's true. But maybe you can afford a nice home and without working 60 hour weeks either.

But as far as "where does this leave the majority of this country" -- definitely not in the insane Seattle or San Francisco (or other "hot" cities with tech money) real estate market, is where.

Where I live (on the east coast even, but in a disinvested non-top-tier city) you can easily get a perfectly liveable no-repairs-needed if modest-sized ~1300 sq ft townhome for $200K, or easily a nice detached larger home in a "good" neighborhood for $500K. which I almost don't want to talk about, becuase if the tech money comes here, maybe that won't last.

But there's plenty of the country that's not on the coasts and is not Austin or Boulder or something, that is like this or even cheaper.

(And, as we both know, there are also plenty of people in even these cities who don't make nearly as much as you or I, and have trouble affording a home in them too!)

Looking at this from an outsider's perspective: a couple of years ago this issue was only affecting SF. Then it spread to almost all of California (Oakland at 1.6M yikes much?) Then it spread to Seattle and parts of Texas (Houston, Dallas, Austin). Looking at this progression, I'd be careful of such talk. In a few years there might not be anymore 'sane' to move to. Who knows what the next real estate trend will be, barn doors are already popular, maybe rural Oklahoma will be place to be in 5 years, and farm estates skyrocketing.

For sure. I mean, how much of the country it can spread to depends on how many people there are that can afford insane house prices, compared to how many that can't, and their distribution -- basically, as long as our society keeps moving to increase disparity in wealth and income, keeps moving to a bimodal distribution with the "rich" 10-15% on one hump separated by an ever-increasing amount of dollars from the rest.... the rich getting richer while the poor get poorer and the middle keeps shrinking... it'll keep eating up more and more of the country.

The only solution in aggregate is political, indeed. I didn't mean to suggest individual choice of where to live as a solution to the socio-political problem, but it can be an individual's solution to present situation that's making you miserable. Even that's not available to everyone, but just for those who can manage to get a job that pays well more than typical for the USA, even if not enough to live comfortable in Seattle. As long as you buy before the place "blows up", you're good even if it does. But if you want to reduce the chances the place you pick will "blow up" for a good long time, and are willing to live a place with less obvious regional amenities to do so, while there's no guarantee, we can all come up with places that seem like good bets. Des Moines maybe? Median house price $185K compared to $870K in Seattle.

I grew up in Des Moines, it's a rather nice place to live and raise a family. Great amenities, pleasant(relatively) traffic, good roads, decent airport, quality schools, etc... there's plenty of compelling reasons to live there - especially at that price.

Boring at times, but it's a lively enough city and you can still park in front your destination for free, which I've always appreciated.

First reaction - Oh no no no. How can I unread this comment?

Second reaction - so uh where in Oklahoma exactly?

Tulsa has been courting remote workers for years before the pandemic. Not exactly rural, though.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18463553

I think this trend is because of two concrete factors:

Factor 1 - Very low interest rates allow people to borrow large sums.

Factor 2 - NIMBY-ism is in various degrees the de facto policy in most major cities, so very little new housing is built there.

Factor 1 might be ending as we speak, since the Fed is talking about changing policy.

Factor 2... I wish it will change, but don't have a ton of hope.

> NIMBY-ism

Bingo. If you want to be part of the solution, this is a good group of people: https://yimbyaction.org/2021/

Although, it must be said that building homes takes time, and getting the politics right takes time, so don't think of it as a short-term solution.

Even if 2 went away overnight and zoning didn't exist... it would take probably a decade for supply to catch up to demand.

Even if 2 went away and zoning didn't exist, you would still have the banal, inane mountains of bureaucratic spaghetti that slow the process down every step it can, so some of that would have to go as well. AFAIK, one of the main reason California has such a large housing shortage isn't NIMBYs or zoning laws, there's plenty of space after all, but ass-backwards regulations, and stupid politics.

Builders want to build. Let's make it easier for them to do that.

it's not just zoning that makes it hard to build--it's building codes and environmental regulations

that’s BS, it’s almost entirely single-family zoning and NIMBYs

Yeah, I think about half of the SF Bay Area is nature reserves.

Millions of people could live there.

There are still reasonable homes in Texas. The real problem is that you would have to live in Texas.

Booo

There are so many things wrong with Texas, it is hard to even know where to start. I would probably start with "kids pledge allegiance to the Texas flag in school" [1] and end with "politicians will call you a freeloader for expecting electricity to be available in the winter" [2]

1. https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Why-do-publ...

2. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-mayor-resigns-aft...

I hear Dallas is quite nice.

The Dallas housing market doesn’t really qualify as affordable anymore. Affordable compared to Seattle or the Bay Area, for sure, but housing prices here have probably doubled over the past few years. The days of finding a well-maintained starter home for under $200k are gone.

I'm wondering how it will spread as well, I am already seeing bay area prices on houses in my area of socal where 1.5-2 years ago it was 30-40% cheaper. I think people in high paying positions are moving to nice areas that are not extremely crowded and close to nature. If this continues as it is(covid variants popping up and tech keeping offices closed), I could see the big companies finally allow remote full time, and then expect to see certain areas skyrocket in price. Think Boulder CO is expensive now, wait until it gets to Palo Alto levels of affordability. Or same with Bozeman, or Bend etc...

Just a few days ago I saw stories coming out of Bloomberg insisting that Arkansas is the next Austin:

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-12-04/arkans...

And of course there’s plenty of cities that were reasonable a couple years ago but are creeping up: Boise residents complain constantly about all the transplants, and I expect Raleigh to look a lot like Austin in 10-15 years (to give a couple examples).

This is exactly what has happened in NZ in the past few years. People flee the biggest cities, then those people push out others from the small cities and big towns, then even the little economically depressed towns 60 minutes from jobs are overpriced.

In 2021 there is not a single remote corner of this place that's affordable anymore.

Costal California has always had ridiculous home values, and nothing has changed that. 20 years ago I looked in Oakland and homes were 400k, which were still relatively unaffordable based on the salary I made at the time, 70k.

I think the income levels interest rates have helped raise values, but I think income has more to do with it. You’ll see high prices anywhere that can support workers, and they will pay for proximity.

I remember a conversation I had with a taxi driver in La Jolla in January 2002. I asked how a taxi driver could buy a house. He laughed and said you shouldn't be a taxi driver if you want to buy a house there, because the cheapest piece of junk was $400,000.

Housing prices were one reason I didn't move out to the Bay Area in the 1990s--at a time when salaries in the tech industry were nothing particularly remarkable relative to engineering salaries elsewhere.

This was actually one of the reasons I did not want to move to California. Around 2000 I had someone from Oakland staying at my $139k home in Minneapolis. Admittedly, I did live in a very nice neighborhood, but her estimate was that my house would cost at least $500k in a comparable area in Oakland.

That was all the incentive I needed to stay put. IIRC, I wasn't making that much more than $70k at the time but I could have worked in a coffee shop and paid my mortgage.

Home values are way up in Texas, but most markets are still reasonable. Only Austin's prices are even remotely comparable to San Francisco/Seattle.

Median home values (per Zillow):

San Francisco: $1,526K

Seattle: $870K

Austin: $606K

Dallas: $287K

Houston: $238K

Some say TX prices are depressed due to high property taxes since it represents a significant component of household TCO. Comparing Seattle to Austin, the property value is 43% greater but the ongoing tax burden is 8:11, 27% less.

Seattle: 0.930% of Assessed Home Value

SF: 0.640% of Assessed Home Value

Dallas: 1.930% of Assessed Home Value

Austin: 1.820% of Assessed Home Value

Houston: 2.030% of Assessed Home Value

Source: https://smartasset.com/taxes/property-taxes

Not sure if this is included in the assessment, but TX does not have a state tax.

Yes, the complete absence of state income taxes makes an enormous difference. Texas property taxes sound crazy until you take that into account.

Putting taxes on sales and property means that even those paid under the table can't escape taxation.

In the absence of an income tax and presence of similar overall government spending then increased rates of other revenue sources are a first order effect.

How this shapes the valuation of other things, like houses, is an interesting second order effect. Property tax rates shape how affordable housing is during the mortgage period and after.

Specifically Austin vs Seattle, that's a non-factor. No state income tax in WA either

That SF number isn't accurate. The 2021-2022 rate is 85% higher (1.18248499%). [1]

Another important thing about property taxes is to know when an updated assessed value is triggered and if there are any limits on how it changes. For example in SF, the assessed value is basically set to the sale price, immediately. But then the assessed value doesn't change until there's another property sale (or permitted improvements are made).

In some states assessed values are updated every year regardless of sales or improvements. [2]

[1] https://sftreasurer.org/property/secured-property-taxes

[2] https://taxfoundation.org/state-provisions-property-reassess...

Yeah, my locality changes the rate annually to make their revenue numbers and reassess regularly although not aggressively and never downward.

I think that right now, you can still get a very nice house for < 500K in many midwestern college towns (e.g. Oberlin OH, but there are hundreds of good small colleges in smaller towns). A college town offers some of the benefits of urban living (probably better coffee), likely good internet, and often good schools. And the worse the weather is, the better the real-estate value. And, they may need some adjuncts teaching CS.

You could recently get a good house within <1h drive from Seattle for <600k. Prices are probably up now, but the problem here is Seattle in particular. No need to even leave the county (although you can hop to an adjacent one)

Which is true with a number of major cities. The Bay Area being something of an outlier in part because of geography.

But, for example, while Boston/Cambridge are very pricey in general as are some of the more exclusive suburbs with good school systems, there's almost certainly housing in that general range within an hour drive (or even on a commuter rail).

Absolutely. Last year I bought a house about eight miles outside of Boston. It's a 25 minute walk or a five minute drive to the supermarket. It's a five minute walk and a thirty minute train ride to downtown. I've got about ten restaurants/bars within walking distance. I like my neighbors. $500K.

> I think that right now, you can still get a very nice house for < 500K in many midwestern college towns

I'm in Madison, WI. The house I'm currently in was 180k back in '09. It has appreciated some since then. My neighbors have each turned over in the past decade and have sold their house for ~$300k.

If you go with 500k, you're in a very nice part of town or one of the extremely large corner lots. Most of the houses are in the 300k - 350k range.

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1305-N-Thompson-Dr-Madiso... isn't uncommon.

> And the worse the weather is, the better the real-estate value.

That's a big consideration for many people. Little tolerance for the winter.

Yikes. Living in Canada, the weather is shitty everywhere compared to a large part of the USA. There's way less nice weather places to live here. Things are going to get squeezed sooner here than in the US.

Oakland is still SF Bay Area, that’s really not “the rest of California”. In fact, yes things are pricier in the every part of CA, but not even close to the extent.

What's the ethnic breakdown like in these cities? I imagine some places have growing ethnic communities but it is hard to go from diverse enclaves like New York or the Bay Area to a less diverse city. Even going to Seattle was a bit of a shock. The Asian food was not even close to New York's.

Of course many Asian and people of color move to less diverse communities. They have my respect, but I'm not sure I want to end up one of a handful of Asians or relegated to a chinatown.

Moving to a cheaper city is a valid decision but it's a more complicated value choice as a person of color.

This is a perspective immigrants to America seem to have that I’ve never really understood. What’s the point of moving to a new country if the number one thing one to seek out is culture and cuisine which makes them feel like they’re back home?

I certainly can’t imagine someone from Texas moving to Japan and wondering where the all American BBQ places are :)

More diverse = less racist. Generally speaking, of course.

If you’re a person of color, it matters. If you’re the only non-white family in the neighborhood, it matters. If your kids are going to stand out in school because of the color of their skin, it matters.

If you’re white, then yes, moving to Japan is probably easier (though you might be surprised).

An observation, and honest question: aside from a few well known stereotypically racist areas, to my knowledge, most of the country is fine. You might run into ignorance, or be subjected to the the curiosity of others because of novelty when moving to a mostly white community, but the distribution happened because of communities and families emigrating en masse, so you get Irish towns and Polish towns and Italian places, etc. They become more diverse over time but they're not white for any reason except genetic happenstance. By and large, they don't care about race.

My question is this: doesn't it matter more to engage those communities with the same level of willingness to live among them as to deliberately pick already diverse areas, or an area that matches your own genetic happenstance?

If you don't have specific friends and family you're relocating for, then I'd say it's probably better to minimize the impact of any sort of decisions based on race or ethnic diversity. I think it's best to find good people and participate in your adopted community. And with that in mind, if you can work remotely, there's a vast array of affordable housing and land and communities of good people out there.

I see what you're saying. It is very admirable when people engage in these communities, cross boundaries and educate others. It's also a lot of work. Even if we take your premise that most of the country is fine, there's a lot of work to be done in encountering innocent ignorance. Some of the more hurtful, frustrating experiences have come from innocent ignorance. Just because people "don't care about race", doesn't mean they're always great at interacting with other races. Some people are willing to either put in the work or ignore these unpleasantries and survive. Others are not. They may not relish being obligated to act as a representative for a race or a culture in their community. They may not like having to ignore or brush off remarks that are not so great, even if they're meant in good faith

Roxane Gay has a good bit in one of her essays about how she struggled to help the black and LGBT organizations in colleges. She felt obligated as one of the few black queer professors, but that obligation in of itself really wore her down. Being a minority can be an extra job and some people do not want that responsibility.

>the distribution happened because of communities and families emigrating en masse, so you get Irish towns and Polish towns and Italian places

why dont we see as many british or french neighborhoods?

>but they're not white for any reason except genetic happenstance

:hmm: i dont agree that one could accurately describe the evolution of racial diversity in american communities as "not white for any reason except genetic happenstance"

Hmm not sure this is accurate.

> so you get Irish towns and Polish towns and Italian places

My italian ancestors settled where they did because (a) the polish wouldn't sell them the land they originally wanted near but not in the italian neighborhood, so they had to find an italian to sell them some and (b) they wanted to live somewhere that had italian grocery stores, and italian churches (this is very important 100 years ago) and other italian cultural points.

> They become more diverse over time but they're not white for any reason except genetic happenstance.

Redlining. Segregation. The history of america is "genetic" segregation.

> If you don't have specific friends and family you're relocating for, then I'd say it's probably better to minimize the impact of any sort of decisions based on race or ethnic diversity

I think the opposite is true. If you don't care where you're going, why not go somewhere that can feel like you're a bit at home when you're homesick?

I don't know SF is very diverse and the year I spent there I felt it was the most unfriendly place I have ever lived. Its the only place where I never met or even talked to a single neighbor. And its also the only place I would never move back to for any position.

I can't speak to your situation but did you view that as racism or just unfriendliness? Just because we're less racist doesn't mean we're nice haha

If everything in your life is changing and your old favorite people and places are far away sometimes it’s nice to have little reminders of home.

There are American food places in Japan, even BBQ.

> What’s the point of moving to a new country if the number one thing one to seek out is culture and cuisine which makes them feel like they’re back home?

Wealth or safety commonly.

Sometimes (actually a lot of times), immigrants move for a better quality of life (more pay, better schools, more job opportunities) and not for culture and cuisine. If I am moving for culture, why move to USA? Europe would be much better. A lot of people move for a better home (same but better) and not necessarily for new experiences.

>I certainly can’t imagine someone from Texas moving to Japan and wondering where the all American BBQ places are :)

You can't? You don't think eventually they won't crave the food they're used to eating?

New ideas are one thing, but your food, the food your mother cooked you growing up, will always be special to a person. And your people will understand you better than anyone else-- I'm the child of Indian immigrants and I still find people from my culture get the issues that I have to do through better than others. No one else knows or cares about the stereotypes one has to deal with, the particular ways culture can clash, the common challenges, etc etc

A. Not an immigrant, born here and parents were born here. We live in New York because of the discomfort (ahem, racism) experienced outside of New York. I know this wasn’t your implication but want to emphasize that not all Asians are immigrants. For a lot of us, coastal cities are our home.

B. An american would definitely choose to live in Tokyo versus a small town in the middle of nowhere. That’s why ex pat communities are a thing! No harm in wanting a little bit of home abroad.

C. I get plenty of America in New York. It’s not like the city is some asian bubble. Indeed part of the reason I want to live in New York is to have access to asian food and asian people without living in a solely asian neighborhood. I like having multiple cultures in one neighborhood.

Houston is super diverse and foodie choices comparable to LA. Asians have been the fastest growing demographic there for decades.

NIMBY free, as long as you don't mind the billboard in your back yard.

> Moving to a cheaper city is a valid decision but it's a more complicated value choice as a person of color.

Its not just racial minorities that face this issue either. If you're gay, you might have a very limited selection of potential partners to meet in a minor city, and very few culturally gay places to go to. If you're trans, you'll probably be alone in a small town and almost certain victim of a hate crime.

A good perspective i like to use for regular straight white americans that don't experience much diversity is sports teams. If you like the cowboys, how much would you enjoy going to only sports bars in boston that play the Patriots games? Sure you can watch the cowboys at home, but none of your friends will want to watch with you, and if there is a cowboy v patriots game on TV, you might feel super comfortable wearing your team's jersey out in public.

To add on to this, point a real estate app (Zillow, etc) to Racine Wisconsin. The east side is fairly nice. Also, look at north-eastern Illinois, starting in a radius about 40 miles or so outside of Chicago. The grate thing about that area is there is a lot of open farm land, and pieces get converted to housing development periodically whenever the market can support it. So that means many areas have 1500 sqft on 1/4 acre homes in the $200K range (or $100k if you want to put some work into fixing it up).

And everything is "close enough" to a major city, and there is enough of the city that expands out in the surrounding areas (a number of large employers aren't downtown, although some have been migrating back to the city to attract the employee demographic that prefers the city life).

So sick of seeing this. I grew up in rural Illinois, first 20 years of my life. Also spent 10 years in Chicago proper. 40 miles outside of Chicago is the middle of nowhere.

It is not a substitute for living in a city. I do not see the draw in buying a cheap house in a rural community with nothing to do and nothing around it. My family owns a house in a rural community. It is dead weight. Nobody wants to buy it from us.

It is not a good place to raise your kids. The schools are under-funded. The people you interact with are bigots and they will teach your kids to be bigots.

If your kid is gifted they will sit them in a corner and do NOTHING to address how they are learning more quickly than their peers. They will suffer from under-funded schooling that is just desperately trying to keep the bottom half of the students from spilling out.

Kids are heavily influenced by their peers. There are no "garage bands" or art groups or clubs or anything for your kids to participate in. There is school and sports. If you are lucky there will be a marching band.

Also, you are assuming this person is a cis hetero white male. There IS sexism in these communities, there IS racism, there IS bigotry. You will not be welcome if you do not fit in. You WILL be confronted, you WILL be harassed.

Glad to see comments like this, this kind of conversation seems to always be dominated by col calculators.

It just grinds my gears. It is such a non-solution to the problem. Basically "if you don't like it leave." and it just muddies the water around discussions about affordability of housing.

Move away from your friends and family and community to somewhere in the middle of nowhere, make a massive investment, and cross your fingers you find friends in the community! There is no job market to speak of, so good luck when the remote work fad ends[0]!

Also pretending these communities are not extremely religious and contain bigotry is dishonest. It is out there.

[0]: which is not guaranteed but possible

Calling all (or at least most) rural dwellers bigots… ah, the irony.

Of course not all of them are, and there's plenty of bigots in urban and suburban areas, but you start looking at voting patterns and it's hard not to conclude that the bigot density is a lot higher.

I grew up in the Midwest as a person of color. I specifically refuse to go back and am consider a $1.5MM home purchase only because of the bigotry and prejudice that I faced and my parents faced. My friends at school couldn’t come over because their parents weren’t comfortable with it.

It is a problem, and it’s not that most rural dwellers are bigots but enough people are, and they’re the loudest in the room.

Asking a person of color, lgbt, Muslim, etcz to live in rural white america is often a non starter.

The irony of how incredibly bigoted this comment is would be hilarious if so many people didn't seen to believe it.

Based on your hateful comments it seems that rural areas would be better served if you stayed in the city.

Yeah...there's something spooky about places like Racine, Wisconsin or rural Illinois. And I don't think it's specific to me. Get Out resonated with a lot of people (ofc it's way different and difficult for Black people) because there is some fear and discomfort in going to a white, rural area. Even if the white, rural area is ostensibly liberal and friendly. There's something disturbing about being alone, the only one of your race and surrounded.

40 miles away from a major city is hardly the "middle of nowhere." That's still within spontaneous day-trip range. My hometown is 88 miles to the nearest real city, and that city is Fresno. Double that distance at least to get anywhere you actually want to go.

Hour and a half total round trip? Almost certainly more including traffic and navigating the city? Plus having to drive yourself ( or public transit) instead of a cab?

How often are you actually making that trip? At that point you aren't participating in the culture of the city.

Also you aren't going to school in the city, aren't meeting people at cultural events in the city, etc. Etc.

I'm not sure what "participating in the culture of the city" means exactly. I live an hour and a bit outside of a major city. I don't go in all the time but I regularly will go in for dinner and a show, to meet people, etc.

Not that I would have wanted to do it long-term, but 60+ minute commutes are not exactly rare (and I once had one part-time), so that length of drive hardly rules out going into a city on a weeknight or weekend every 2 or 3 weeks.

I live in west San Francisco, popping over to the East Bay is an hour and a half round trip for me, so that's not quite a deal-breaking amount of time. That's a magnitude of difference from having to do at least a four hour drive each way.

> 40 miles away from a major city is hardly the "middle of nowhere." That's still within spontaneous day-trip range.

I call "40 miles away" a daily commute distance.

See, the thing is, not everyone wants to live in the city. Some find the quiet more refreshing than the noise. Some find open space better for raising kids than city streets. To a point that you posted in a follow-on, not everyone wants to participate in "the cultural life of the city" all that much.

Personally, I'm not sure that I'd want to be closer than 40 miles to downtown Chicago... but I might want to be close to a Metra line.

It's not even Seattle. There are still places going for 600k and 800k just fine.

I'm not sure what this person is looking for, honestly.

Even stretching out just a bit and going to the Mill Creek area for more north, or Lynnwood, or Issaquah and perfectly nice, even new construction are in their claimed price range.

This seems actually to not be accurate: Top Housing Markets of 2022: Think Boise, Not New York City [0]

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29475091

https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-search/Huntsville...

What's the city?

> BUT. "where does this leave the majority of this country?" -- well, the majority of the country does not have as crazy a real estate market as Seattle, as far as paying ~$1.5 mil for a dump where you're basically just paying for the land. That is not most of the country.

True - and the problem is less bad in cheaper areas, but it's still bad and getting worse there, too. OP may be able to afford a $300k house in Kansas, but I doubt the average worker in Kansas can.

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