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Comment by powerslacker | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how this will affect housing prices in the rest of the states. The bay area has a lot of people, if half of them migrate that's bound to have an effect.

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Most American cities are only slightly behind Bay Area cities in the housing crisis process and small disturbances radically upset their housing markets. Market rents in Austin almost doubled in the past year alone. If you're leaving SV for lower housing prices you might be surprised.

Facts

This is true. I make $150k a year and Boston area rent prices + cost-of-living makes me live close to paycheck-to-paycheck. (I'm not there, but I can save very little even though I try to live frugally, prices are insane!). I simply cannot comprehend how low income people live in major American cities, you'd have to live with many roommates and be very food insecure! Life is hard in the US [1] right now!

[1] In the cities. I'm guessing life in suburbia/rural towns is easier. I lived in a major city my entire life, and living in rural parts of the country not worth it unfortunately. It's my own personal decision, I understand that it comes with significant trade-offs.

Boston rents are much higher than they should be (build more housing!) but $150k is still quite a lot compared to rents? For example, you can rent a 3br unit 10min from Harvard sq for $3700/month or in East Arlington / West Medford for $2800: https://www.jefftk.com/apartment_prices/#2022-08-18&3

At $3700, that's about 25% of someone's before tax income at $150K/yr, But your after tax take home in Boston would be something like $104K/yr. So you could do this and be left at $59,600 for all other expenses and savings. This is very doable with no children, debt, or other financial obligations, but you never know what someone's life circumstances are.

Boston's prices, while not as high as SF, are crazy as well. Many large cities like Houston, Atlanta, Chicago, etc, have prices that are around half of Boston.

You're making twice the median whole household income for Boston... I nearly guarantee you could be more frugal and save fully half your income. You'd have to give up things you don't want to give up, but that most people in Boston don't have either... I say this not as a personal attack, but what I found out about myself after critically evaluating my finances in a similar situation despite being a single father in a HCOL location.

The Austin housing market is insane. And with Texas getting a large chunk of their income from property taxes, there's going to be some very major effects when everyone's homes start getting reappraised for tax reasons.

Yeah. The homestead exemption limits tax increases to "only" 10% per year, but it will still be a lot for people who count on their home payment staying static. And, getting the homestead exemption isn't automatic, so anyone who forgot to file it will be ... surprised.

The homestead cap limits annual appraised value increases to 10% over the previous year. In theory, if the taxing units maintained the same rate as last, yes, it would result in a 10% jump in tax amount too. Many taxing units reduced their rates a bit this year, given the higher appraisal values. Surprisingly, many Austin area homeowners reported their estimated tax amount stayed the same as last.

The owner has to live on the property and make it their primary residence, to claim homestead exemption. CADs will not know that until the owner applies for Homestead exemption. Not sure they can make it automatic.

Austin's housing prices graph resembles the Himalayas!

https://www.ksat.com/news/local/2022/10/04/how-texas-cities-...

Yes, houses in nice areas with desirable amenities tend to be expensive, because (no surprise) demand to live there is high. Most of these areas also have the common problem of local government that is very heavy-handed in the zoning in permitting of new housing construction.

Most American cities are nowhere near SV prices (or coastal California in general).

https://cdn.nar.realtor/sites/default/files/documents/metro-...

Housing prices have risen everywhere, but they are still dramatically cheaper than SF or even Austin. The average home price in the US is more than 1/2 that of SF. Big cities in Texas are typically cheaper than Austin (Houston and San Antonio averages are around $350k).

If you restrict yourself to specific "tech lifestyle" cities obviously that's a different story.

If your current prices are half ours, and a small influx can double prices in a year, then QED.

Moving from California put a tremendous amount of pressure on the housing prices in Denver. And then Salt Lake when Denver got too expensive. And then Boise when Salt Lake got too expensive. And then Spokane when Boise got too expensive.

We're literally running out of cities in the west.

How about build some new cities that allow high density and public transit? I swear Americans always think they could never survive without free parking. You are absolutely not running out of land out west.

Land is cheap, water is expensive. Where would a new city get water from?

Desalination is a well developed process. Just ask Israel. They now export fresh water

Simple, build this new city next to a water resource, not a desert and build it from the ground up to be low water usage. Manage runoff and limit single family home zoning with large yards. I bet you could make it several times more efficient than the average water usage of just about any other US city and every new resident would take pressure off the water resources of existing cities. How can the answer to “the west is running out of water” possibly be “more suburbs please”?

Can always go to NYC.

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