What $800k in Silicon Valley looks like
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Anonymous
what is "normal". A two person working family making close to $350K is not unusual there. |
Anonymous
| 21:21 - the problem with that house is that it's on a pretty busy section of Old Dominion, right next to another major road and near a pretty dangerous intersection. If I had $1.5M to spend on a new house (which is what new builds on smaller lots go for around there), I'd look for something on a less busy street. Backing out of your driveway would be traumatic. |
Anonymous
people who aren't making 6 figure salaries. where do they live? |
Anonymous
Hoodbridge |
Anonymous
Wrong thread. I meant in the Silicon Valley area |
Anonymous
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I have always wondered where the police officers, teachers and firefighters live in these large cities where a burned shack is almost a million.
How does anyone live on a salary of $50,000 or lower? Seriously? |
Anonymous
East bay. Or far far away from SV. Or, they bought really early when it wasn't as expensive. |
Anonymous
All housing in the city isn't a single housing unit on an 8,000 SF lot. There are plenty of townhouses, apartment buildings, condos, and SF also has pretty expansive rent control. That doesn't mean there isn't a housing crisis, there is, but it's just like anywhere else. People with more money live in nicer places, people with less money may be living in small apartments, under rent control, maybe have lived there long enough to own something before prices got out of control, maybe don't live in the city. A good sized lot in a very desirable area isn't the right metric to decide how everyone who work in an area lives. |
Anonymous
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I've lived in both places. The DMV is nowhere even close to anywhere in the Bay Area -SV/SF/East Bay. Townhouses are just as expensive as SFH on small lots. A small TH in Mountain View is easily 1.9 M. A 1.5M house in Bethesda would easily be 6M in Menlo. Mountain View, Palo Alto, Cupertino, Los Gatos, Saratoga are all more expensive than SF.
The problem with Silicon Valley is there isn't the far out growth and vertical high density housing that you see around DC. The traffic goes all over and you can't live in South Bay but work in East Bay or live in East Bay and commute to Menlo without a 2-3 hour commute each way -it is that crazy. The mountains cut off outer growth so the constant low inventory drives up the cost each year. There is Morgan Hill and Gilroy but Morgan Hill's market is more like McLean not exactly cheap. You get more house for your money but you are still in the 900-1.2M range. East San Jose is cheaper but this area is downright dangerous with real gang activity. In CA, your property tax is based on when you bought the house so very few retirees move out. The weather is so nice that there is no reason to go to a warmer climate. Our neighborhood has retiree firemen and teachers in small 1500 sq ft houses not remodeled since the 50s next to 2M slightly bigger but upgraded houses with tech folks. This keeps the inventory low. Rents have gone crazy too so renting is almost as much as 1M mortgage. People see the double digit appreciation every year and see home ownership getting further and further away if they don't jump in. So basically, they stretch as far as they possibly can go and compromise on everything they can. Its not uncommon for extended family to give adult children large loans so they make a cash offer and then turn around and do a mortgage. In six months, you can easily see 6-10% equity appreciation. People take a lot of risks but since the appreciation is so high and the houses sell in a 1-2 days from hitting the market, they can easily get out if they need to do it. People tend to see their houses and the stock options from their company as retirement. Everyone in CA wants to go to the state schools so there is less worrying about saving for private colleges. I don't think DC will ever get to this level of crazy. There just isn't the cash and wealth to sustain 2M as the norm across the region. Rents are not crazy and the commute patterns are predictable. There is still lots of space to develop. Feel good about living in the DMV! Its not as cheap as Kansas but it is nowhere near as crazy as Silicon Valley. |
Anonymous
I hope not. This lifestyle seems so depressing and stressful. |
Anonymous
I used to live on the Peninsula, about 6 years ago. I thought maybe San Bruno and Gilroy would be more affordable these days, but nope. I looked on redfin, and even those areas are super expensive - over $1mil. Who the heck thought that the garlic capital of the world and foggy San Bruno would become so expensive. Crazy. My coworkers there are basically slaves to their mortgages. |
Anonymous
My family is from SF, my parents fled in the 1980s and the rest of the extended family came south in the 1990s. It's CRAZY how much our old family properties have increased in value. My great aunt died in the mid 90s. I remember we sold her small SFH in South San Franciso for like $200K. That 'hood is now around $1m for her old 3BR/1BA house. Similarly, I remember my grandmother's GORGEOUS home in Lafayette. It was built into the side of the hill and that entire town is just enmeshed perfectly with nature. They sold it for, I think $600K around 2000 and now the home is worth north of $2.3m. That's crazy. Still, I think this home in Daly City is a solid deal: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Daly-City/72-Oceanside-Dr-94015/home/1043482 We live in Burleith NW DC in a small SFH that costs roughly same. It blows my mind that I'd probably have to take a 90 minute one-way commute to keep my housing cost the same in the Bay Area. |
Anonymous
I used to live on the Peninsula, about 6 years ago. I thought maybe San Bruno and Gilroy would be more affordable these days, but nope. I looked on redfin, and even those areas are super expensive - over $1mil. Who the heck thought that the garlic capital of the world and foggy San Bruno would become so expensive. Crazy. My coworkers there are basically slaves to their mortgages. My family is from SF, my parents fled in the 1980s and the rest of the extended family came south in the 1990s. It's CRAZY how much our old family properties have increased in value. My great aunt died in the mid 90s. I remember we sold her small SFH in South San Franciso for like $200K. That 'hood is now around $1m for her old 3BR/1BA house. Similarly, I remember my grandmother's GORGEOUS home in Lafayette. It was built into the side of the hill and that entire town is just enmeshed perfectly with nature. They sold it for, I think $600K around 2000 and now the home is worth north of $2.3m. That's crazy. Still, I think this home in Daly City is a solid deal: https://www.redfin.com/CA/Daly-City/72-Oceanside-Dr-94015/home/1043482 We live in Burleith NW DC in a small SFH that costs roughly same. It blows my mind that I'd probably have to take a 90 minute one-way commute to keep my housing cost the same in the Bay Area. So tiny, but such an amazing location. But I still couldn't afford it. |
Anonymous
LOL, winner! |
Anonymous
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My family left the bay area in the 50's for Fresno. It was the culmination of four hundred years worth of terrible real estate choices on both sides, starting with leaving Manhattan and Virginia.
I'm still sad about this. What I don't understand about the bay area is why they can't work in a decent transit system. I know it's a lot of NIMBY... But the situation seems untenable now. The other difference between here and there--most of silicon valley was basically built to be Rockville or Kensington or silver spring: working class suburban houses, built modestly in a post-war boom. There's not a ton of interesting stuff or charm. Well, I think there's more in Rockville or Kensington. |