This is just straight-up false? My current home - not the land, the home entire - cost just under 3 years of my salary, or under 2 years of my total comp, and I can go door-to-door in 35 minutes on public transit or 20 by car. (and I'm under 40 and still getting good reviews, so can reasonably hope for my pay to increase considerably in the second half of my career)
Don't get me wrong, that's still way too expensive; but your exaggeration is _way_ off the mark.
Do you live in Socal, like the person is implying? You make >500k a year and still live in a pretty small house then? And if so, like basically no one in the united states?
> Do you live in Socal, like the person is implying?
Apologies, I saw "A West Coast software engineering career [...and...] a house from which you could reasonably commute to it" and assumed they meant San Francisco, which is accurate for me (I live in Berkeley, and my office is in the FiDi of SF). I had thought that the Bay Area was both more expensive and more tech-centric than SoCal, but I could be wrong there.
> You make >500k a year and still live in a pretty small house then
Just under 300k, but yeah - it's 3 bed 2 bath, so not huge but not tiny either. And I've saved enough over the ~5 years of living here to be looking at building a 3-4 room extension onto it into the yard next year.
> And if so, like basically no one in the united states?
Again, I didn't claim that my situation is a) typical, or b) ideal - housing in the Bay Area is far too expensive, and it's perfectly valid and reasonable to prefer living elsewhere for any number of reasons. I'm just pointing out that /u/closeparen's statement was a _wild_ exaggeration (if they did indeed mean Bay Area like I assumed and not SoCal. If they did, I have no data to contribute!)
An American middle class house in San Mateo or Santa Clara County will run you about $2 million, or ~$140k-160k/year. The take-home pay for $300k is about $180k.
Alameda County is cheaper because the commute to South Bay and to S.F. destinations not near BART is unreasonable. If you’re willing to rule out those jobs you might be able to get away closer to $1.5m at $120k/year.
I’m guessing you bought with a 3% mortgage and before the COVID asset price takeoff.
Another way to look at it is that for each $100m of company value created, you’re looking at perhaps $20m of employee equity, or about 10 employees being able to buy homes (before taxes) if the equity were distributed evenly.
Don't get me wrong, that's still way too expensive; but your exaggeration is _way_ off the mark.