Hacker News Reader

Comment by SheepSlapper | Hacker News Reader

Only in the Bay Area do people say "Well, if your household is making half a million a year it's affordable!" It reminds me of the Wall Street Journal disconnect last year [0] regarding taxes (those single mothers making $250k a year are really suffering). The Bay isn't the real world by a long shot.

I just moved away from the Bay Area for this exact reason. I went from making $120k a year to $85k a year, but in Washington I can get a decent family home for $150k. The Bay Area can't come remotely close to matching that kind of deal, even with the ludicrous salaries.

[0] http://i.imgur.com/bdgZa.jpg, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412788732368960...

View on HN

>The Bay isn't the real world by a long shot.

Neither is Manhattan. From the NYT in 2009, and prices for schools and child care and real estate have only gone up since then:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/fashion/08halfmill.html "Five hundred thousand dollars — the amount President Obama wants to set as the top pay for banking executives whose firms accept government bailout money — seems like a lot, and it is a lot. To many people in many places, it is a princely sum to live on. But in the neighborhoods of New York City and its suburban enclaves where successful bankers live, half a million a year can go very fast."

A lot of this is real estate and private schools, of course. You could get a 5br/5,000 ft^2 house in Green Bay, Wisconsin for 400K: http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/3318-Whittier-Ct-Green-Bay...

While a 5br/5,000 ft^2 prewar apartment (not even a single-family home!) in Manhattan would be $24M, and that's with a kinda small and not very attractive kitchen: http://www.mironproperties.com/NY/NYC-Apartment-38737-Upper-...

Many folks, like you, are better off moving away from the Bay Area and taking a salary cut if they don't already own a house and would like to buy one.

NYC is very expensive, but $24m is hyperbole. Corcoran listings for 5+ bedroom townhouses in Manhattan begin at $2.3m, still a very princely sum: http://tinyurl.com/l7hukd6

(If you're willing to live outside Manhattan, in one of the "outer boroughs", prices drop dramatically.)

Um, I think you left off a zero. :)

If you use that Corcoran link you provided and restrict your searches to townhouses in the $2.3-$2.7M range with 5br, you get only Harlem, not Manhattan: http://tinyurl.com/nvftwqm

Harlem is in Manhattan.

Ah, didn't know that. I'm a non-NYC dweller and thought it was a separate borough.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com