Comment by linguae | Hacker News Reader

Comment by linguae | Hacker News Reader

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In the San Francisco Bay Area, renting is considerably cheaper than buying at current home prices and interest rates. For example, I just moved into a two-bedroom apartment in San Ramon, roughly a 45 minute drive northeast of Silicon Valley without traffic, for $2720/mo in rent. By comparison, a Zillow search shows two-bedroom condos in San Ramon ranging from $559,000 to $875,000. With a 20% down payment of $111,800 on the $559,000 place, assuming excellent credit and an interest rate of 6.03%, the monthly bill for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage, including taxes, insurance, and HOA dues, is estimated to be $4,077/mo, where there is a $651/mo HOA fee. It’s a big leap going from $2720/mo to $4077/mo, and this is for the absolute cheapest condo in town.

I’d love to own my own place, but it’s extremely expensive in the San Francisco Bay Area. Personally the best I could hope for is commuting from an exurb like Tracy or Fairfield. However, while rents are very high here in the Bay Area, they are still considerably lower than mortgages for similar homes.

Well in the Bay Area, as I hear it, EVERYTHING costs WAY too much.

Where I live though, ownership only costs a little too much and renting costs WAY too much

Means rent is going to go up.

Why live in the Bay Area?

Because that's where many good paying jobs are. If I buy a home in a lower cost of living area, and my employer decides to do away with remote work, I may not be able to find another job that can pay the mortgage even though it is in a cheaper area.

A house in a cheaper area may not require a Bay area salary to cover the mortgage. If employers did away with remote work, getting a job that pays less but doesn't require moving can be a viable choice but it is all a matter of lifestyle choices and priorities.

Sure, it almost certainly won't unless you buy a mansion. However, a job is still required to pay a mortgage, save for retirement, have health insurance, and cover living expenses. In a lower cost area, there are fewer job opportunities. If I spend 40+ hours a week at my job, I'd prefer it to be a job where I don't spend my days looking at the clock waiting for the day to be over every single day.

What good is a high paying job in a high cost area? You'd have the same or better outcome with a lower paying job in a lower cost area.

Exactly. When people complain about not being able to afford a house in a place like the Bay Area or Manhattan, it's like saying you can't afford a car because Ferraris cost a fortune. Buy a different car.

1. My family is from Northern California. I grew up in Sacramento, and my family still resides there. I spent all of my life in California except for eight months in Japan and three months in Seattle, both for internships.

2. I have a tenure-track faculty position. Academic jobs are hard to come by and are competitive to get.

3. The Bay Area’s tech opportunities are unparalleled. Even though I’m no longer working in industry, I can still take advantage of summer consulting roles as an academic, and I also can easily reach out to various companies for other academia-industry partnerships. I can easily keep up to date with the latest technological developments through local Meetup groups. Resources like the Computer History Museum are commutable to me. If I want to start a small tech company, I have plenty of networking opportunities.

4. The Bay Area is culturally diverse and has a high level of acceptance of ethnic minorities.

5. As someone who travels to Japan twice a year, it’s convenient being a sub-$100 Uber or Lyft ride away from a major international airport with direct flights to my choice of Tokyo airports (Narita or Haneda).

6. There are many cultural amenities in the Bay Area. If I want to see a concert from a world-famous musician, chances are high that he or she will be stopping in the area. I can choose between plenty of museums and performance halls.

7. I know this is cliché, but it’s hard to beat California coastal weather.

8. Wonderful Asian food!

I thought about leaving the Bay Area earlier this year. While it’s very expensive and while I’ll never be able to afford to buy a home on my professor salary alone, as a lifelong Californian I don’t know if I’d be happier somewhere else. Sure, I could afford a home in the South, the Midwest, or another part of the country with low housing costs, even with a 30% pay cut, but I’d give up many of the things that I’m accustomed to in California. I love Seattle, but it is also expensive. I could see myself living in Japan, but the weak yen plus lower salaries and less vacation time (compared to American academics) are major downsides for me.

Thus, I remain in the Bay Area, though I’m actively searching for side business opportunities so I could find a way to increase my income so that way buying a home would be achievable.

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