[quote=bearishgurl]AN, I maintain that the avg salary in SF is 40% higher that the exact same position pays in SD County. This includes the counties of SF, SM, SC, Alameda, Contra Costa and Marin. Housing is NOT 40% higher in SF (or any of the abovementioned surrounding counties) than SD County. It is between 0 and 25% higher, depending upon the micro-area there and its comparable micro-area here.
Salaries are higher there because they don’t have a captive audience of thousands of employees (Americans incl) living cheaply in MX and crossing the border everyday to work in the US. And the weather in the SF Bay area isn’t as consistent as it is here. Periodically, the wind is very high in SF and SM counties. And commuting traffic can be much worse than here for residents of SC, Alameda and Contra Costa Counties (and beyond).
I understand you grew up here and your family still lives here but I feel that the SF Bay area has MUCH more opportunity for a “worker-bee,” ESP a Gen-Y worker, even in light of a so-called “affordable housing shortage” in the areas of the best jobs. I also feel it is entirely worth it for a young San Diegan college grad to relocate there for work, even one with a family. Most of the public schools there are better than here, as well.[/quote]
Wrong, wrong, and wrong. I’ll respond to all of your points. Average salary in SF is not 40% higher. It’s around 5-25% in my industry and my industry is one of the biggest industry in the Bay Area. I know, because I seriously considered moving to the Bay 2-3 years ago. Did a lot of interview, got a couple of offers and did a living cost analysis. Although the pay is 20-25% more, the cost of living for a comparable place is at least 50% more. If you don’t believe me, look around and tell me where I can get a 2000 sq-ft house on a >5K sq-ft within 15 minutes from the beach, 3 miles from work (around Sunnyvale, Menlo Park, etc), HS API in the mid 800s and elementary and middle schools API >900? I look for exactly these requirements and all of them are >$800k while I can get all of these for mid $400k.
If you don’t believe me on the salary, feel free to do your own research at salary.com or better yet, apply for a job up there and see how much you’d get pay there vs here. I don’t need to give reason why they get paid only 5-25% more than here because not only did I look it up on salary.com but I also got offers from both locations a couple of years back.
Again, I disagree with your statement that it’s entirely worth it up there. The numbers doesn’t work out at all. Not only do I HAVE to have dual income to barely just to survive up there, I’d have to put up with the cold and gloomy up weather as well. Also, the most important thing of all (if I have to have a long commute due to lack of affordable housing near work), is that I won’t be able to eat lunch with my wife everyday and see my baby everyday during lunch. I’m not talking about hypothetical or about things I have no personal experience with. I’m in that age group, I did apply for jobs and got offers up there AND I did tried to find housing up there AND down here.
