BTW, getting back to the original thesis here, it’s not the engineers of the tech boom that did the driving, it’s the tech sales of the boom that pushed prices up.
I’m an engineer, I make around $85K, and unless I wanted to do one of those insane IO loans or crazy arms, I’ve been locked out of everything around here. There are plenty of engineers who I work with in the same boat, none of them are stupid enough to over extend themselves so badly, so we’ve all been sitting and watching what appeared to be the boat sailing away. (hoping it is making a U-turn and comes back for us)
But there are plenty of sales reps who make twice what we do, who’ve been flipping, upgrading, moving and shaking, over the past 5 years. The ratio of reps to engineers is about 5-1 in my office of about 30 total people.
My experience may be unique or different than most tech companies…. but I’ve watched first hand that any engineer who isn’t already in a home, is locked out unless they want to do a stupid loan. Meanwhile the reps have been making a killing on their real estate investments, with some of them doing multiple transactions over the last 4 years.
