patrick.net

Ceffer says

We pass these developments every week on 680. Guess it may be another foreign 'scam and scram' fraud operation,

Yep. Passed it again last weekend.

Welcome to the Bay Area.

Patrick says

SunnyvaleCA says

If an engineer with a few years of experience joined Apple 5 years ago, they would have likely seen their initial $250k RSU grant (over 4 years) blossom to $1MM while simultaneously picking up $800k in salary and $200k from the ESPP (employee stock purchase plan).

The stock thing could happen, but salaries are nowhere near $800K

That was a summary of totals where they would be after 5 years with a conclusion that they could have accumulated in total $667k without much thought (way more than enough to think about buying a house). $800k collected in salary over 5 years is $160k/year, which is exactly what you'd be getting according to your graphic. Your graphic shows $124k stock bonus (presumably every year). The stock is up 4x from 5 years ago, so that's $500k right there ... and some more each of the next 4 years too.

B.A.C.A.H. says

BayArea says

Suburbs are in bidding frenzies

Maybe you can bid on this one.


https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2020/10/13/bankruptcy-default-crime-jolt-big-fremont-real-estate-housing-retail/

No, rentals are dropping

SFH are rising

#COVID

This is bullshit. A self-imposed crisis. If it's too expensive, move. Especially with a lot of jobs and industries moving to permanent remote. I'm guessing eventually all companies will slide the pay scale based on location, but for now, take advantage.

My current rent is less than 25% of my net income, by choice. It's not that hard...

Ceffer says

We pass these developments every week on 680

Reminds me of the I-30 condo scam in Dallas of the 1980's!

SunnyvaleCA says

$800k collected in salary over 5 years is $160k/year

Didn't know you meant that over 5 years, my fault.

NuttBoxer says

My current rent is less than 25% of my net income, by choice. It's not that hard...

I'm a unicorn at 6% net income to debt on my mortgage, but it is doable if you want to make it happen. I frankly got super fucking lucky, so that helps. Not really a risk taker, but put on offer in on my current house for cash. We didn't have it... lol. I wasn't expecting the offer to be accepted. It wasn't. 2 months later it was (HUD foreclosure home). Got my MIL to do a margin loan on her stocks and we bought the damn house 0% down, just paying the interest on the margin loan. Appealed the taxes and live without about a $1,250/mo mortgage. 1/3 of an acre, inground pool, fenced yard and full finished basement. It's sad that this happens, but people get visibly upset when I mention my taxes are $3,200/yr. All my neighbors are $6k+ and some $10k+.

It'll be tight when my boys get into their teens, but that's only 5 years or so of tight space. I can deal, especially with the yard and pool. Plus a couple of their good friends are farmers, so I'm sure they'll be out there fucking around on 4 wheelers and shit and not home.

Moral of the story, I agree with Nutt, just get the fuck out of CA. 80% of the time you're sleeping or working. Is that 20% of free time really worth it to live there? We've looked at FL, CO, AL, CA and AZ at one point or another. Can't remember if I saved the spreadsheet, but CA, assuming the same income or higher was the worst for our family by low 5 figures/yr. Basically we'd be paying 15-20k more per year for scenery and the same pay. Nah, I'd rather retire early. AL was the best for housing, but the work situation would be the hard part there and the humidity and hurricane potential. Panhandle of FL would be nice, but again hurricanes and wicked humidity. No income tax though is where massive savings come in.

If IL gets the progressive tax passed, we're fucked. So we may be looking in the near future. We'll see in November. Sad part is most people are too naive and believe the tv ads they see. If your family makes north of $120-150k in IL, you're about to get fucked if this passes. 4.95% will go to 8-10%. Democrats are awful.

WookieMan says

Moral of the story, I agree with Nutt, just get the fuck out of CA. 80% of the time you're sleeping or working. Is that 20% of free time really worth it to live there?

Wookie, until work from home for those lucky enough for that option, the 20% was spent commuting. Because of the long commute (and work) hours, less sleep.

That miserable commute is not even the worst of it for families with kids. The region is toxic for kids. Before I was in tech, I was a teaching major. Been in classrooms all over Santa Clara County student teaching, subbing, etc. For two years, I heard mentor teachers from across the county give their talks at the weekly seminars for the teaching candidates: from super-elite Palo Alto to rural places outside Gilroy, from private Bellarmine with kids of CEOs to ghetto schools plagued by gangs. From that experience I got a hypersensitivity to the K-12 milieu across the region. This is one reason I was a regular presence at my kids' schools K-12, as a volunteer. While my colleagues jet-setted "back home" to India or China, or to exotic places like Caribbean on their PTO, my partner and I burned ours one day at a time volunteering at the schools. Volunteering was a cover for being observer. From the oldest kid's kindergarten to the youngest's HS graduation. I have seen it all.

So many Smarty-Pants who moved into our region as adults have told me, lectured me, etc., that I just "don't get it". I politely listen and know that they don't know WTF they speak of. How my kids wended through intact and able to take care of themselves as young adults is a topic for a self-help book, I suppose.

There is a reason that just about every one of my homies from growing up in what became "Silicon Valley" left the region over the decades. Mostly they did not want their next generation to have its formative years in such a toxic milieu. Sensible folks on Patrick.net like joshuatrio, Goran_P and RC2006 have shared they made the move for the same sort of reason.

WookieMan says

Moral of the story, I agree with Nutt, just get the fuck out of CA.

Embarrassed to admit this, but we are back in San Diego. Feel free to pile-on for how financially stupid moving back was, you are justified.
The move just ended up being a lot harder on my daughter and wife and I anticipated. But we did not move back to the city. That choice was backed by my growing distaste for city living, the need for our daughter to attend a decent public school(not an oxymoron in the country), and insistence on not spending 30% of our income on housing.

I anticipate we will probably leave California again sometime in the future, hopefully for homesteading with family. But until then I can tell you if you are willing to leave the city, even in a high cost-of-living, lower-income region like San Diego, you can succeed.

NuttBoxer says

we are back in San Diego

Good thing you were only renting when you tried out the new region.

This is why it's so silly to buy when parachuting into a new, unfamiliar region. It's prudent to rent for a while, at least a year, to get familiar with the area, the schools, climate, etc.

NuttBoxer says

we are back in San Diego. ...The move just ended up being a lot harder on my daughter and wife and I anticipated.

Where did you move? Was it ID?

Lately, I’d like to leave California. With Covid and the extreme partisanship that’s arisen, the thrill is gone.
But our jobs... we make about $250k a year, and most of that goes to cost of living and advancement of our situation. Have the youngest in private school right now. Wife is doing her PhD in addition to working full time and that’s a major expense. And the mortgage did just get refied but still over 3k. Plus taxes out the wazoo and everything fun is still closed.
And it’s hot today. 90° in mid October, been hot all month. I crave some cool weather. Wouldn’t even mind some snow, but that’s never happened here.
I’m driving a car that’s 20 years old.

Long term plan is to GTFO when the kids go to or finish college. I got like ten more years most likely.
Oh well.

Eric Holder says

Where did you move? Was it ID?

Phoenix, Glendale if you know the area. Thought it would be easier if we were only 5 hour drive for SD, didn't make a difference. Bad timing on our part, and should have selected a location with relatives already living there. We'll see, maybe in a couple of years we'll try again.

I have lived in Phoenix - two miserable years. Been there in the summer? Unless you have the money to get a second home in prescott/flagstaff/sedona, you will fry your head.
Seattle - lived there as well. Too rainy (some years you can get lucky). Summers are AWESOME - but that is July/Aug/Sep. I was there 4 years and it rained every July 4th.
Oregon. And you think CA is left - wing? Maybe central oregon is okay... but that is changing.
Spent too much time in DC. I loved the politics/atmosphere (this was 20 yrs ago though). But humid. Very cold winters.

California - for covid, we relocated 1 week a month to tahoe. Just AWESOME. Kayaking, mountain bike riding, etc...
I also spent a lot of time in Yosemite over the years and back-packing all over the sierras. Fantastic.
Ever been to the Channel Islands? Like to fish the delta for stripers? Great as well...

I get it - if you aren't very outdoorsy then - I agree - moving somewhere else makes sense. But CA is a pretty magical place for weather and shear beauty and the opportunity to do activities year-round.

It's the weather, stupid! :)
CA is a beautiful place. Now if only Covid would kill off about 25% of us.... :)

Oh - and the wineries up and down California are wonderful as well.

Go out and enjoy this state! Sometimes we think about leaving, but then we think: why leave it for the assholes and the politically correct, guilt-ridden crazies? Do I want to be "driven" away by some smelly homeless person?
Sometimes you have to stay and fight - and you may lose. But enjoy it anyway....

Maybe get a gun though... :)

Gee, I'm so glad somebody manages to bypass all of the tyrannical shutdowns, shelter at homes, months of smoke etc. to enjoy the amenities of California in expansive, non-working, non-shutdown leisure. it's splendid that somebody isn't choking on freeway fumes hours a day in stop-go traffic just to get to work, and is bounding with energy in all of those non-competitive, non-regulated and uncrowded destinations in California, and has no worries about expense or dwelling in safe, clean neighborhoods full of friendly and helpful, kind citizens with no weirdos or whackos or homeless.

That baloney sounds like the promotional shit from the 60's, and yeah, that California is mostly dead. Even Kobe Bryant burned up in a helicopter trying to rise above the LA traffic, and yet you still hear the booster delusion that you can get up the mountains to ski, and then be at the beach the same day. Good luck with that one in reality.

Santa Cruz real estate is being boomed upward by work at home refugees from the urban areas, and 900 homes burned up (over 9000 in the state) and those people are also looking for some place to live. I bet they can hardly wait for that fishing trip to the Channel Islands or that wine country trip (oh, yeah, a good bit of that burned, too.)

Nice for once to see some counter arguments for leaving CA.

Leaving doesn’t always work out as pointed out above.

If you find a nice place to live, tell no one, especially Californians.

the life krc described is of someone who is so rich with so much f*ck you money they don't care. It's only money, plenty more where that came from. He can buy himself splendid isolation from our realities amid a life of leisure.

This is what California has become, a playground for the rich. And not the petty bourgeoisie, either: those are Tax Donkeys who are leaving the state's tax base in droves.

The rest of us below his 0.1%, live in the reality while he plays.

Ceffer says

900 homes burned up (over 9000 in the state)

Huge spike in our homeowners insurance premium the past couple of years, reflecting those losses and underwriting for future losses. Are these premiums a socializing of risk from people having homes where they shouldn't expect affordable premiums? (Like Oakland Hills, canyons near Malibu, east of San Diego; or Lord-of-the-Rings idyllic spots like Paradise, Boulder Creek). At first glance I thought so, but now I'm not so sure about that.

The Tubbs Fire in Coffey Park, Santa Rosa was a sort of a wake up call of what can happen. All it takes is fuel (plenty of that everywhere) and wind. The Tubbs Fire raced right down from the hills into the city and burned a whole neighborhood of tract homes, as completely as any WW2 incendiary bomb. Coffey Park was a large enough neighborhood to be called a town in many parts of the US, prudently built away from the hills, inside the city limits with good roads, water mains, municipal fire service, etc

If it wasn't for my wife and kids, I would never have moved back. Phoenix was sort of a compromise that didn't really please anyone, although the people were very nice, the desert was very peaceful, the hiking was great, and the heat, exaggerated. Don't believe that last, I spent the whole summer with no AC for my car, and outdoor parking with no shade. I just brought some shorts and a tanktop for after work, and I was fine.

But with my new job, I could live anywhere in the continental US timezones. Would love to go back to Michigan, pay 50% less, retire early, and visit California whenever I want, not to mention Hawaii, New Zealand, etc , etc.

If this is the only place you ever want to be, and are fine never owning a home without monstrous debt, then stay. I'll wish you luck when I'm gone after a few more years..