patrick.net

Article doesn't mention how much she makes.

dodgerfanjohn says

So meh to someone making $120K as a single person claiming they can't afford $2K a month rent.

OK they'll crack their montly bills but they wont have much of a life. You move to towns like that, and pay the high cost of living. So you can enjoy playing in that high cost of living.
If you're only working to cover your montly spread, you'll burn out.

And don't forget, $2 grand is the starting range for rent.

The solution is so obvious

http://www.citylab.com/design/2015/09/they-finally-built-george-costanzas-sleeper-desk/406042/

Shower and change at the local gym, eat at restaurants and the company break room entertainment provided by your work. Who coudl want anythign more?

This is just one more step to the ultimate employer ideal:

Must assimilate more H1B! Resistance is futile!

New Renter says

The solution is so obvious

People in Bay Area tech firms were in fact sleeping in their cubicles during the previous rent insanity (2000-2001).

B.A.C.A.H. says

Straw Man says

Single SW engineer in SF not able to afford $2K rent? This shit doesn't add up.

Straw Man, are you an engineer who lives around here?

Just asking.

Should be pretty obvious by now.

Ironman says

Walmart lets RV's stay overnight in their parking lots for free.

The closest Walmarts are in Oakland and MountainView. ;)

The term "software engineer" rankles me.

Are you a programmer, or not?

New Renter says

Work for a startup with an all-included package:

Vicente said: The term "software engineer" rankles me.
Are you a programmer, or not?
What about coder? Is this the AppNation equivalent of "web designer" from the dot-com era?

EBGuy says

Vicente said: The term "software engineer" rankles me.

Are you a programmer, or not?

What about coder? Is this the AppNation equivalent of "web designer" from the dot-com era?

It means "not manager". Nothing more.

In 2013 the 10% income level for Software engineers in Silicon Valley was $92,570 and $80,040 for systems and applications programmers respectively. It's higher now and about the same in San Francisco proper. That's enough padding beyond the $55,770 earned by the lowest decile nationally to cover the high rent.

Without family to support, while an engineer may choose to earn less (like working for an unfunded startup) or spend their money differently things aren't yet bad enough to force them to live in vehicles.

Engineering ended at the compiler.

90% of coders could be described as Software Novelist.
Book writers don't create a new language to write their work. They are bound and limited to the syntax and grammar of the language they are writing in.
The language engineers were the ancient Greeks that figured out an Ox head looked like an A.

The whole software engineer term overuse annoys me as well, since I actually do have an engineering degree.

Straw Man says

Should be pretty obvious by now.

Sorry it's not obvious to me, because the B.A.'s got so many Snarky Smarty-Pants it's difficult to know.

I've worked with several people who had a 2+ hr commute each way each day. One was a CEO who during the week lived on a boat in the bay or on the company roof (presumably in a tent). Another was a lab tech who lived in a VW van in the parking lot but drive home on weekends. Others actually drove to and from work each day spending 4 or more hours in the car fighting bumper to bumper traffic.

A 23-year-old Google employee lives in a truck in the company's parking lot and saves 90% of his income
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-lives-in-truck-in-parking-lot-2015-10

I guess this qualifies as a middle finger to the establishment that farms engineers for big profits in the SV.

Heraclitusstudent says

A 23-year-old Google employee lives in a truck in the company's parking lot and saves 90% of his income

http://www.businessinsider.com/google-employee-lives-in-truck-in-parking-lot-2015-10

Loved how security there thought it was nice.

Heraclitusstudent says

A 23-year-old Google employee lives in a truck in the company's parking lot

He's into that celibacy...err... purity thing I guess...

I have a better idea for ALL the guys, living and working in Silicon Valley a/o the San Francisco Bay Area ... how about setting up a huge ex-pat SV/SFBA compound in Bangkok Thailand and then, the guys all work from 8PM to noon, the "graveyard" shift, for those US corporations. Then, when they're not working, they can bang hotties to their hearts' content.

I believe that this setup will beat all other scenarios in northern California.

Rin says

I have a better idea for ALL the guys, living and working in Silicon Valley a/o the San Francisco Bay Area ... how about setting up a huge ex-pat SV/SFBA compound in Bangkok Thailand and then, the guys all work from 8PM to noon, the "graveyard" shift, for those US corporations. Then, when they're not working, they can bang hotties to their hearts' content.

I believe that this setup will beat all other scenarios in northern California.

Sounds great until the CEOs realize they can just fire the ex-pat SV/SFBA types but not before forcing them to train their 90% cheaper Thai replacements. Then it'll be the CEOs banging the Thai hotties on "business trips" to the Thai campus.

FYI you can still bang Tenderloin hookers in your posh van.

Hardly seems necessary to move to Thailand.

dodgerfanjohn says

FYI you can still bang Tenderloin hookers in your posh van.

Hardly seems necessary to move to Thailand.

Yeah right, no guy in SF's Tenderloin is getting the following ...

Now that's "Tenderloin"!

Straw Man says

Heraclitusstudent says

A 23-year-old Google employee lives in a truck in the company's parking lot

He's into that celibacy...err... purity thing I guess...

He probably also figured out how to save dates money by going virtual.

High SF Rents are a Zionist plot to destroy the Bay Area and move Google HQ to Tel Aviv.

dodgerfanjohn says

You can afford $2K a month on $90-100K. Your take home will be ~4200-4600 per month(even putting $100-200/paycheck into a 401K). Thats even with all the CA taxes.

So meh to someone making $120K as a single person claiming they can't afford $2K a month rent.

$100-$200/month into a 401K is way too low! That, and maybe after taxes they can afford 2K/month rent, but there will be almost nothing left.

Rin says

Yeah right, no guy in SF's Tenderloin is getting the following ...

My guess is any guy in the SF tenderloin can get something *kinda* like that without spending a dime.

(Normally I'd normally include a poignant image but in this case I'll pass)

Average apartment rent within 10 miles of San Francisco, CA is $3512.
One bedroom apartments in San Francisco rent for $2965 a month on average.
Two bedroom apartment rents average $3853.

Solution:

thunderlips11 says

Solution:

They already have projects in SF.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/SBjXUBMkkE8

"Real estate prices have doubled in the last few years, a tent in the backyard can rent for $900/month, foreign investors are driving up prices, evictions and rent hikes are everywhere, people are commuting longer than ever, the middle class is disappearing, empty investment homes are everywhere, and locals are leaving in record numbers."

Silicon Valley.

A place where supposedly the greatest engineering minds of a generation congregate.

They can make cars that self drive.

They can build trains that go 300mph.

The can build computers that think.

But they can't build affordable homes for themselves.

So how smart can they really be?

curious2 says

"Real estate prices have doubled in the last few years, a tent in the backyard can rent for $900/month, foreign investors are driving up prices, evictions and rent hikes are everywhere, people are commuting longer than ever, the middle class is disappearing, empty investment homes are everywhere, and locals are leaving in record numbers."

This Deleon guy makes me laugh. He thinks it will double again because brilliant people from Google will come and buy everything.
But the truth is that there aren't enough Google couples getting $300+K to buy all of silicon valley.
The silicon valley is not made of rich people from Google. It's not made of finance guys getting millions in bonuses. It's made of many young engineers trying their lucks in startups. And these engineers get $100-120K.
Right now all other people earning less are being forced to realize it's not for them and out progressively.
Yeah young engineers can pay $2000 in rent. Yeah they can rent bunk beds, tents, garages, sleep in trucks on parkings.
But let it double again and these people will be forced to put 1 and 1 together and get the hell out too.
And startups with them.
And here goes the SV.

John Bailo says

Silicon Valley.

A place where supposedly the greatest engineering minds of a generation congregate.

They can make cars that self drive.

They can build trains that go 300mph.

The can build computers that think.

But they can't build affordable homes for themselves.

So how smart can they really be?

Affordable homes were already invented by our ancestors a long time ago. Mud huts...Straw huts....Caves....tents. Problem is....we are too picky.

she probably has a $300K student loan and a coke addiction.

Google is overvalued. They are going to be another Yahoo in a few years.

And I agree with someone above...salaries are just 2/3 of total income for SV engineers.

Strategist says

Affordable homes were already invented by our ancestors a long time ago. Mud huts...Straw huts....Caves....tents. Problem is....we are too picky.

Not so fast. Autonomous vehicle is self-aware not just self-driving. Yes, you get it. Is HOME.

What happened to the east bay-Hayward should still be cheap??

Foreign parents buying houses in the US for their children to live while attending colleges and graduate schools in the US is a late cycle phenomenon. They are little more than speculators counting on the houses to go up in price (minus transaction cost) more than the rent cost during their children's stay. It happened before, e.g. in New England in the late 1980's and the beginning of 1990's, mostly Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese parents; the real estate crash followed bankrupted the Bank of New England. Oil Sheikhs sent their kids here for decades before 9-11. There is nothing new about newly minted Indian parents and their kids. These are all late-cycle behaviors.

It's part and parcel of Dollar Repatriation. What it means is that you will be looking at a Rupee devaluation ahead.

mell says

The schools here are shit, all of them, the most expensive ones barely compete with some across the pond

I enjoy most of your posts mell, but the schools here aren't shit compared to the schools in India. If the schools in India are so great, why the hell do they need so much after school tutoring to get top scores on exams? Also, a lot of people of school-going age in India and China aren't even getting an education.

Really, most of the teachers here or in India are terrible. And for those who are self motivated (i.e. the people in asian dominated schools), school is probably a waste of time and they would be better off following an online curriculum with their parents overseeing their education, which is essentially what these parents already do anyway.

cloud15 says

And now they are here ,working for these Tech companies and they can certainly afford these prices.

A lot of the H1B workers live in dilapidated apartments like the one I lived in in Fremont, presumably to be close to BART. Many people share apartments also if they are single.

cloud15 says

you obviously need access to best education , best tuitions to get into the best Engineering and Medical schools in India and then finally are able to afford doing MS etc over here

That's not just true for people from India or China; that is true for Asians and Indian Americans also.....Also, the trend now is shifting from people coming here for MS in favor of them coming for their undergrad studies.

Several of my cousins came from India in the last 4 years: One went to Northwestern on a scholarship and left because he couldn't grasp that being a 'topper' Bishop Cotton Boys school in Bangalore and bragging about it isn't going to impress his mostly American classmates who are almost as good as him while not wasting time on garbage 'tuitions'. The American counterparts balanced much more activities in high school than him and scored only 50-100 pts less on average.

His brother picked Purdue instead of UCSD because thats where his friends were going. Another cousin is a freshman at Vanderbilt...Another cousin is at NYU on the tennis team after training every summer at Bolletieri.

Another cousin graduated from University of Chicago

Part of the reason why others are coming to the US for undergrad is that the archaic Indian system is overwhelmed by the volume of applicants: With about half of India’s 1.2 billion people under the age of 25, and with the ranks of the middle class swelling, the country’s handful of highly selective universities are overwhelmed.

As a result: Indians are now the second-largest foreign student population in America, after the Chinese, with almost 105,000 students in the United States in the 2009-10 academic year, the last for which comprehensive figures were available

American universities have now become “safety schools” for increasingly stressed and traumatized Indian students and parents, who complain that one fateful event — the final high school examination — can make or break a teenager’s future career.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/14/world/asia/squeezed-out-in-india-students-turn-to-united-states.html?_r=0

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/education/news/Enrolment-of-Indian-students-in-US-up-by-28-Report/articleshow/45162920.cms

cloud15 says

but mostly , the system is rigged and to crack into best schools you already need to be RICH and most probably sons/daughters of folks who have been sitting on some serious cash

Again, true here for Chinese and Indians; being a lower middle class person of Asian Indian origin (such as myself) and coming from a rural place was mostly a disadvantage. I tell my dad all the time, I would have been better off growing up in India if med school was the goal. The standards weren't as high 20 years back as they are now.

mell says

Best thing you can do is join an Asian-dominated school.

Best thing for an asian is to enroll in a mostly white school and kick ass or homeschool. When every asian at your school has the same scores as you and are all applying to ivies, the most likely scenario is that your application would get lost in the mix.....

cloud15 says

but mostly , the system is rigged

most of my upper caste relatives agree with this, except it is them who whine about having to pay donations for their kids to study medicine in India because of the quotas for BC, Scheduled Castes etc.

Most of the upper caste complainers have plenty of money, which, in many cases is ill-gotten.

Ironman says

Call it KKKrazy says

All over the US there are good drinkable wines

Yep, you of all people, should know... You've probably sampled all of them, this week alone...

-

I heard there was a shortage of cheap wines. Now I know why.

Call it KKKrazy says

Dude, wine snobs are fucking snobs, so fuck em', but there are no world class wines being produced in Baltimore county. All over the US there are good drinkable wines for good value and I'm sure Baltimore county can produce its share. Even the Texas Hill country makes good varietals worth drinking. But comparing Baltimore county to Napa is like comparing Outback Steakhouse to The French Laundry. It's one YOU should get over.

It was someone visiting me from northern CA, who has been to a shitload of wineries in CA who said that the Baltimore wine was one of the best he had ever had. I am not a wine drinker (I am a beer drinker, when I drink) and all I can say is that I normally hate wine, but I really liked the wine I had at this place. One thing that I am sure is true is that the wineries in CA are probably a LOT bigger than the one in Baltimore County that I went to.