The High Cost of Valley Living

Small Hairy Troll writes "An ZDTV article (requires Realplayer, Media Player or Quicktime) on how insane housing prices in Silicon Valley have become. An income of $50,000 with a family of four qualifies for government assisted housing. Ties somewhat into the earlier Slashdot thread 'Too Old To Code?': What interesting times we live in. "

Comments

East Bay prices are fine, don't be scared away!

[Bruce Perens]

Over here in the East Bay, Berkeley area, I see lots of nice homes in the $220K range. Really good office space runs $2 per square foot, and I'm paying less because I found a sub-let. I'm at most 1.5 hours from any valley destination with traffic, but I can live in a nice place and work in the same town, and spend 10 minutes on the commute. There is every sort of culture and entertainment right here, and S.F. is a 20-minute train ride away. Outsiders think the food prices are high, but the fact is we eat better than many parts of the country because the standards for groceries are higher, and in my experience the food prices aren't any worse than the East Coast even though the quality is much better here. Gasoline does cost more because higher pollution standards mean we can't use the same gas as the rest of the country - it has to be refined differently, and we can't import cheap gas from elsewhere because it won't burn as cleanly.

I can see those expensive South Bay towns from the top of the hill I live on. Yet it costs much less to live here. Sure, it's even less expensive as you get away from the bay, but it's possible to find a happy medium.

What burns me is that some people think they can't afford to live where I am, because they confuse it with "Silicon Valley".

Thanks

Bruce Perens

This is why I no longer work there...

[BrianH]

When I first went to work in the Silicon Valley in the early 90's the cost of living wasn't nearly as bad. I had a $65,000 a year job and lived pretty damned well on that. I owned 3 bedroom house in Mountain View that I'd paid $190,000 for and thought I was on top of the world. Then the 'boom' began and everything changed for the worse. In the period of only a couple years I became the poorest person on my block. I thought I'd hit easy street when a job change catapulted me into a $110,000 a year position coding backend web apps (C) but even at that salary I quickly found myself stetching to make my paychecks last due to the increased cost of living. Couple this with the fact that the serious increase in traffic and increasing time at the office were keeping me away from my home for more than 15 hours a day and you can probably see why I began to get burned out on the whole 'Silicon Valley' mystique.

Like many people in this business I had always assumed that all of the 'good' jobs were located in the Silicon Valley, and that the rest of the country was a technological waste of time. Doing quick salary comparisons seemed to confirm this when I found that no other area of the US offered competitive salaries to the SV companies for someone with my skills and experience. Also, since I'm a Nothern California native, I wasn't exactly eager to move far :) Two years ago however, I decided that enough was enough. I sold my home for $600,000 and moved to Elk Grove. I found a job with a Sacramento based application development company that pays $70,000 a year in TWO DAYS.

I know all of you Silicon Valley residents are probably saying "$70k? That sucks!", but you cannot forget the lower cost of living and the intangibles that go with living out here. $70k in the Sacramento Valley probably lasts as long as $200k in the Silicon Valley once cost of living adjustments are made (I paid $225,000 for a 5000sq foot 4 bedroom home with a REAL YARD!). When you factor in things like a commute of less than 20 minutes, actual friendly neighbors, lower gas and utility prices, and weekend entertainment that wont break the bank, the move becomes TOTALLY worth it.

The point? All of you Silicon Valley techies that are complaining about the high cost of living over there should MOVE. Contrary to popular belief, there are good jobs elsewhere that you guys could be taking. I realize that I will probably never get rich on stock options from the latest startup, but I'm happy now...and enjoying your life is the only thing that really matters in the end.

Location, Location, Location

[Madd_Matt]

It's an interesting phenomenon, call it 'Gold Rush Fever' or 'capturing the face to face synergy'. Why are prices high? Because everyone wants to live there. Why does everyone want to live there? Lots of reasons I suspect. Reasons like:

a) If you want to be perceived as a hot mover and shaker, you have to live in California
(Note: Real movers and shakers can live anywhere they want ;-)
b) The people I want to work for/with are all there
c) I can't be a .com without a california mailing address.
d) What I really want to find is a California Girl ;-)
e) If I don't have a job, I go to where there are lots of jobs and look there.

Personally, I'm seeing coalescing trends like this also in Canada - in Ottawa, they are predicting that the city could double in size due to high tech growth. I don't think that the popularity of these 'hot spots' means that distributed collaboration doesn't work - just that there are other reasons to be in close proximity.

However, I have to say that I think there will be a self-limiting feedback involved. As the cost of living spirals upward, more companies will choose spots like Reston VA, Rockville MD or Ottawa ON.
Of course, the mob mind may rule, and in the land of illusions (California) perception is King.