Hacker News Reader

Comment by vjk800 | Hacker News Reader

Indeed. If your complaint is that you need to be a millionaire to get basic housing, it's because you live with other rich people. Since the overwhelming majority of humanity lives in houses with value far below 1M$, we can conclude that no-one really has to live in a place with only 1M$ houses, but you, for some reason, want to do so.

Living in a posh neighbourhood is a luxury, like Ferrari (which, by the way, costs much less) or a golden watch. If you want rich people lifestyle, then you should be prepared to pay rich people money for it.

View on HN

Dude, this guy isn't talking about some posh high end part of Seattle. I just sold my "quaint 1200sqft starter house" in a remote South Seattle neighborhood for $675,000. It's 45+ minutes by transit to downtown. You know what I paid for that just 5 years earlier? $350,000.

This is the part of town where the grocery store has security guards all over the place, and the bank has thick bulletproof glass between you and the teller, and the transit options such big time. If you want to live anywhere remotely near where the jobs are, every house is near $1m+ now.

Conclude what you want, you're completely wrong and out of touch with current housing prices in a lot cities.

Going to the Safeway on Rainer is really on you. It does get dicey at night, but the day is okay.

One reason I would never live in "South Seattle" it's a literal food desert. The WinCo being in Kent is it's only saving grace, but even the QFC a bit north of the Safeway on Rainer - yeah.

The fun part is, all the good brands are routinely on sale/discounted heavily because the local population either does not like or can't afford it - e.g. cheeses. Always 20-40% discount on cheese.

Not so common in north outside Seattle limits, or even along the border - but yeah to go back to point -

"This is the part of town where the grocery store has security guards all over the place, and the bank has thick bulletproof glass between you and the teller, and the transit options such big time. If you want to live anywhere remotely near where the jobs are, every house is near $1m+ now."

Is why the good houses cost 1,000,000+. Community and neighborhood alongside school district.

That's worth 350k though? The same as the whole house was 5 years ago?

Funny reading some comments. I currently live in the northern part of Kirkland, in a very average suburb.

This isn't rich people houses folks, these are middle (possibly lower middle) class houses. Most people here didn't pay 1M for their homes, they most likely paid a very affordable price many years ago. It's worth repeating that house prices increased an average of ~40% since the beginning of Covid. That should help to put prices on perspective.

There is some irony, though, in being in one of the most portable sectors of the economy but complaining about having to live “where the jobs are.” I think a lot more of it has to do with FOMO and wanting to live a particular tech lifestyle rather than needing to live in Washington or California to work in tech.

Other jobs literally have to move to continue their work in a particular industry. When a factory relocates, line workers need to move too. Nurses often have to move, or learn a new job. Sure, you may not have a high status FAANG job, but there’s way more remote work in tech than probably any other industry. I think it’s more an issue of managing expectations and wanting it all, than lack of opportunity to find a job in an area with a decent quality of life

I don't think you are in touch with the reality of the housing market right now. That "posh" neighbourhood that you're referring to is most likely where people were born and raised and the first place you want to buy a home. I live in Etobicoke, Canada. My neighbour across the street growing up recalled a time they built the houses in the neighbourhood and it was previously farm fields. My parents bought their house, a cottage, and paid both off quickly. Property is now selling for almost $2 million. In 2 generations it went from field to affordable to completely unaffordable, and Etobicoke is far from any kind of "rich people lifestyle".

Here's a fun game you can play: https://www.crackshackormansion.com/part2.html

I believe a plan exists to welcome 3 million more people through immigration over the next 10 years. That's going to push up prices.

> If your complaint is that you need to be a millionaire to get basic housing, it's because you live with other rich people.

Hawaii would like to have a word with you, unless you suggest every single non-rich local would just have to move to the mainland. I believe the cheapest home I've seen available, where the neighbors aren't cooking meth, is probably in the $500-600k range and going up.

That is also happening--lots of Hawaiians are being forced to move to the mainland because they can't afford housing in their home state. https://news.yahoo.com/native-hawaiians-flock-las-vegas-1357...

The sad reality of it is such expensive neighborhoods as we see on east and west coasts, don't actually _feel_ luxurious - there's barely enough infrastructure and convenience associated with them, compared to living far away. The standard of living just isn't as high as the price.

“Rich” is highly relative. If someone lives in an area where everything costs on average twice as much as somewhere else, their money is effectively equivalent to half of what it would be somewhere else. The reality is they’re probably looking to afford a upper middle class lifestyle and make an upper middle class household income. They don’t sound “rich”.

On the other hand, wealthy is not quite as relative.

A person having a jet that costs $100 can do about as much with it as a person with one costing $100 billion.

Same goes with housing, mostly, with some obvious wealth breakpoints. The confounder is location, as defined by time to travel and job availability.

Quantization artifacts dominate. Having access to basics vs not has a much bigger effect than either quality or quantity.

This is why having just one house is not an investment - you cannot afford to not have one unless you're so rich you could outright get multiples of them in some places, get there and live comfortably.

But why does everything cost twice as much as somewhere else? Perhaps living there itself is the wealth. Access to high paying jobs, rubbing shoulders with other high achievers, the weather, the beach, the mountains, year round fruits and vegetables, better labor laws etc.

As the saying goes “I would rather be dead in <X> than live in <Y>”.

I live in rural BFE utah, (Cedar City, 45 minutes east of St George). Average home prices here have gone from 200k to 400k in 3 years. I'm a freelance dev, earn maybe 80k, but that fluctuates a lot, and 400k is a tough number to swallow when it was 200k a few years back, I keep hoping it'll go back to those days, but I doubt it will.

Not really true. Urban areas suffer from this everywhere due to chronic lack of building (due to government policies mostly driven by nimbyism and similar factors). As a result absolute dumps on the bad side of town go for ridiculous sums.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com