Cost of Living vs. Tech Salaries in Mountain View area

[jk88cal]

I hear some negativity and complaints, that only those rich enough to make money from stocks options and IPOs can by buy nice homes in Silicon Valley. And home prices are driven thru the roof by these rich folks. That is just absurd and not true. I'm sure there are top 95 percentile in that category. They live in very nice house in great neighborhoods (large homes/lots in Los Altos Hills and Palo Alto). They do not compete with "middle class".

I work in HW, so most my colleagues are dual-income high tech workers. Almost all of my my colleagues who are interested in buying homes are able to do so (with whatever trade-offs that works for them). If I look at my friends and colleagues: hard work, promotions, minimal stock options, and savings are what enable them to buy homes. For those who have kids and care about school, they bought in Saratoga, Cupertino, West San Jose, Almaden, Los Gatos, etc. For those who are buying their 1st home or those who don't care as much about schools, they live in Cambrian, Evergreen, Sunnyvale, Santa Clara, Campbell, etc.

If you want to live in Bay Area, you have to be willing to accept trade-offs.
- You might not be be able to buy a home immediately. You have to clean up your debts and be able to save up for down payment.
- Instead of buying your dream home of 3,000 sq ft home with home theater. You have to compromise; maybe 2,000+ sq ft in average area; 1,500 sq ft home in better area. If you want new, you might have to settle for townhome. If you don't care for age, you might have settle for 60+ year-old single family home.
- Even after buying your home, mortgage payment and property taxes will eat up a lot of your income, so you have to continue to spend/save money wisely.

This is not for everyone. Those who don't want to make trade-offs can live much more comfortably elsewhere. For those who enjoy living in Bay Area (job opportunity, weather, community, etc), they can make it work. It does take financial discipline.

[80skeys]

Originally Posted by jk88cal

It does take financial discipline.

And the willingness to take on huge mortgage debt.

[neutrino78x]

Originally Posted by Karamia36

Hello!

I'm hoping to ask for a little bit of help in understanding the cost of living in the SV region--specifically Mountain View. From what I've read in the threads on this forum so far, as well as just piddling around on real estate sites, I have a bit of sticker shock...It's really left me concerned.

My husband is in talks with a large tech giant in Mountain View about a job in front end software development...He's a Senior Software Engineer with about 10 years of experience. If things work out, we would be relocating from Tampa, FL where the cost of living is significantly lower. Here, he works for a defense contractor and pulls about $90K/yr...that's enough for our family of four to live relatively comfortably on just his salary....we own a home (brand new, 4 bedroom/2 car garage), pay no state income tax, etc., so that figure stretches a good deal farther here than I imagine it would in the Silicon Valley.

ok, well, owning a "single family home in a good school district" is going to be very expensive. You're looking at 800k or maybe even over 1 million dollars. Although engineers in Silicon Valley are paid very well so you might still be able to afford it. I've seen engineers posting on here talking about making 200k, if you made that you could probably buy a 1 milllion dollar house, if you wanted to spend that much on a house.

However, you could get a condo in south San Jose or east San Jose or Campbell and commute via public transit (or corporate shuttle) and it wouldn't be a problem. Condo or rent an apartment.

[dburbs1975]

single family home in a very good district will run you 1.3 million and up up up up from there. don't know where the 800K SFH are with good schools.

[wsugrad03]

Originally Posted by jk88cal

This is not for everyone. Those who don't want to make trade-offs can live much more comfortably elsewhere. For those who enjoy living in Bay Area (job opportunity, weather, community, etc), they can make it work. It does take financial discipline.

Rep'd you for your post. This is really the way of the world here. I fell for that RSU stock option theory at first, but realized pretty quickly it's good old fashioned dual income and years of saving and all the other engineers you work with are brutally house poor and saving like bandits as well. RSU's and stock options are definitely a part of that savings plan though, especially when we have epic bull runs like we've had in recent years. What gets me is talking to realtors, and having them smugly ask you if you have any extra stock options to work with because your measley 20% down won't work for them. That is annoying.