Even Apple and Google Engineers Can't Really Afford To Live Near Their Offices (fastcompany.com)

That's according to the Y Combinator-backed real-estate startup Open Listings, which looked at median home sales prices near the headquarters (meaning within a 20-minute commute) of some of the Bay Area's biggest and best-known tech companies. Fast Company: Using public salary data from Paysa, Open Listings then looked at how many software engineers from those companies could actually afford to buy a house close to their office. Here's what it found: Engineers at five major SF-based tech companies would need to spend over the 28% threshold of their income to afford a monthly mortgage near their offices. Apple engineers would have to pay an average of 33% of their monthly income for a mortgage near work. That's the highest percentage of the companies analyzed, and home prices in Cupertino continue to skyrocket. Google wasn't much better at 32%, and living near the Facebook office would cost an engineer 29% of their monthly paycheck.

Comments

Re:Huh?

[Scarred Intellect]

Hell, I pay over 40% of my paycheck to NOT live that close to work!

Yo! Taxes, fool!

[registrations_suck]

Maybe you've heard of taxes? In a place like California, between paying local, state and federal income taxes, plus social security and medicare taxes, the government is probably letting you have only HALF of your paycheck. Perhaps 60% of you're lucky. So of the 50-60% you're allowed to keep, spending 28-30% of it on a place to live is going to give you maybe 20-30% for ALL other expenses. I certainly wouldn't want to live that way.

Re:Yo! Taxes, fool!

[Hussman32]

I live in Silicon Valley. The nominal tax rate for the top bracket was 52% in California, not sure what it is with the new tax bill. Last year, my effective tax rate was about 38% excluding sales and property taxes, which would bump me up to an effective tax rate of about 43-45%.

The hardest part is the down payment and the lack of inventory. Every time you put in an offer, you're competing against a lot of people with fresh RSUs and no contingencies, so unless you have 25% to go down (usually 200-400K), you're not likely to get a place you want. A lot of people are paying almost 50% of their after tax income to mortgages.

Re:Yo! Taxes, fool!

[serviscope_minor]

And yet, people don't see the problem.

That's because they're not hallucinating.

Once I decide that civilisation is not prefereable compared to paying more taxes, I'l move to the Libertarian Paradise of the Congo. Until that time, I'll enjoy a stable civilisation and be happy to pay for it.

Re:Yo! Taxes, fool!

[ranton]

Civilization happens in spite of government, not because of it. Good government is the result of civilization, not the cause.

What are you talking about? There has never been a civilization in history without some form of governance. Property rights, dispute resolution, mutual defense, etc. are but a few of the many things which are universally necessary for anything that resembles civilization. All are functions of government, no matter what each civilization calls it.

Re:Yo! Taxes, fool!

[MachineShedFred]

You know it's possible to have government regulations and taxes, and not be a globally shunned despotic autocratic wasteland, right?

See: Europe

Re:Yo! Taxes, fool!

[another_twilight]

So is waste, fraud, and abuse

All systems have inefficiencies and in human systems, waste, fraud and abuse are just that. You cannot eliminate them, although they can be reduced. So long as the benefit of co-operation outweigh the costs of organising same, including inefficiencies, then societies will keep forming and some kind of pooling of resources will happen.

Using the existence of waste, fraud or abuse as the (only) reasons for abandoning a system is simplistic. Can the system be improved? Is the cost of trying to improve the system likely to return more than is spent?

Perfection is a direction, not a destination.

If you want to give the government all of your money and have "smarter" people than you decide how to waste it

It has nothing to do with 'smarter' people spending 'your money'. If you want to participate in and benefit from the advantages of society and civilisation, you need to contribute. If you want to be the one with your hand on the wheel and more control over the purse strings, stand for office. Personally, I don't. This argument is a straw man.

Or maybe move someplace with a communist system and not have any money of your own to begin with.

Believe it or not, there are political and economic systems that lie between the extremes you offer. Some of them have considerably higher standards of living for more people than either 'pure' communist or 'pure' libertarianism (or whatever tax-free system you seem enamoured of).

But you're probably not interested. You've used the word 'communist' as an epithet while using a service and system made possible only because of the taxes paid by generations before you. You live in a place and period of peace unknown in history due in no small part because of the sacrifices made by people who were paid by taxes. The life you lead and the wonderfully narcissistic position you are allowed to hold is all because better people than you have realised that co-operation works and who have been (relatively) happy to keep their end of the bargain.

Re:Taxes!

[Ichijo]

California has the highest US taxes on everything.

Except property taxes!

The reason California taxes everything else so high is partly because of its social and environmental protections, partly because it has such a low property tax and must make up the difference, and partly because it and other blue states subsidize most of the red states.

Re:Taxes!

[tsqr]

Property tax in California is not a source of much revenue to speak of for the state, and hasn't been for over 80 years. Since 1933, the only property tax directly levied, collected, and retained by the state has been the tax on privately owned railroad cars (source).

Re:Huh?

[bluefoxlucid]

There's a financial guideline about only paying a third of your income for rent or mortgage. That's based on HUD's guidelines about how much of your income should be rent or mortgage when on assistance, not on any sort of sound financial advice.

Mind you, higher liabilities means bigger risk. My mortgage is about 12% of my after-tax income, so I don't have to worry about money ever getting too tight. A Congressional salary would be $100k more than I make now, which is cool, but I'm not about to argue that Congressmen maybe need to get paid more--not on the east coast, anyway. On the other hand, the legislators in my state make less than some struggling families I've met; I would argue they should be paid better, despite legislature being in session only 4 months of the year, because they shouldn't be distracted seeking some kind of supplemental income for those other 8 months when they should be speaking with us about what we want done in Annapolis.

Re:Smallest Violin

[bobbied]

Oh, this really isn't poverty... I've seen poverty, this isn't it.

You want to see poverty? Try some of the third world countries I've been to... It makes "poverty" here in the USA look like a walk in the park..

I've also seen some of the poorest people in the USA too, it's just not as bad here. Take a trip on the back roads in and around the poor parts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and surrounding areas. There are some seriously poor (for the USA) people living there.

I don't consider having to spend 30% of your income on housing to be poor, especially when someone is making more than $100K/year.