[quote=spdrun]Again, housing expectations are purely local. Yeah, you will get a 3/1 or 3/2 for $600k instead of a 4/3 on more land. That doesn’t make it a worse place to live, just a DIFFERENT place to live.[/quote]
No, it makes it A LOT more expensive to live all the while, the pay is not that much more. Which was my point. BG tried to say pay was 40% more while housing is 0-25% more. I completely debunked that with DATA. Now, you’re saying a 3/1 or 3/2 is 80-100% more than SD while pay is 15-25% more? Yeah, no thanks. Which is why I didn’t move up there. I want to escape the rat race, not get deeper in it. If I move up there, my chance of retiring early diminish to almost 0. So, please explain to me why it’s entirely worth it for gen Y to get deeper in the rat race by living in an area that pay 15-25% while the same living standard would cost them 80-100% more?
I know the two places are different. Every place is different. There’s no point in debating that places are different because there are no two places that are the same. But, it does make it a worse place to live when it put you that much deeper in the rat race.
Now, back to my original statement, which is, the Bay area folks are more likely to have to pay this new tax. An average S/W Engineer 5 in Palo Alto makes around $143k in Palo Alto while a similar Engineer in SD makes $123k. Since SD is a lot cheaper to live, one can choose to live on a single income with $123k salary and still live very well. in the bay, it’s much harder to live on a single $143k income. So, if both spouses work, their combined income is $286k. They will be hit with this new tax. Even if the couple in SD decide to have double income. If they have similar income at $123k, their combined is only $246k, which means they still won’t be affected by this new tax. So, yea, I still stand by my original point that the W-2 folks in the bay area will be most affected by this.
