6 figure individual incomes in Southern California

[sdrealtor]

The real money in this boom was made by the loan officers and thats where you should look for collateral damage. The just arent that many realtors making $75,000 or more. The construction industry is dominated by unskilled and semi-skilled laborers many of which are not legal immigrants counted in those figures.

In the RE community there is a big thought that you need to create the perception of flash and success. The truth is most of those cars are leased and the clothes are from Marshalls.

[mixxalot]

Good point

I just got my haircut at a local Supercuts and the stylist lady drives a fairly new BMW- easy credit. For me, I drive an old car and save. I dont care what foolish poseurs (which are common here) think. When I can retire before 50 in the Caribean or South Pacific then I will have the last laugh.

[Ozzie]

Juice,

Actually the data provided by NSR shows that about 50% of the households in the Encinitas Union Elem School Disrict (Enc. and South Carlsbad) make over $100k per year. I think that is accurate and perhaps low. I’d estimate 75% of the households at my kid’s elem. school earn over $100k and probably 25% earn over $250k. Heck my neghbor’s wife earns about $50k per year in pharma sales and she probably works 10 hours per week tops.

[blahblahblah]

When winter comes you will be able to tell the ants from the grasshoppers. Until then you’ve really got no idea. In this land of easy credit, you can’t tell how much money someone has by looking at them, their house, or their car. All you can see is how much they’re spending…

[ibjames]

I’d like to know where these 100K+ tech jobs are, because I don’t see them anywhere

[Anonymous]

Ozzie:

This data is better and newer than the one I used. I just calculated that 40% of the families in the Encinitas district earn over 100k. In my earlier post, I used 150k as the marker. It looks like approx 10-15% of families there make 150k+. I was initially responing to vrundy who claimed that 250k incomes are ‘common’ in San Diego. In reality, based on the data, approx 4.5% in the entire county make 200k+.

[bob007]

Tech salaries are low in San Diego. I made 80k in San Diego. I make 120k for the same job in San Jose.

[mixxalot]

I agree- San Diego employers are notorious for paying low salaries for well educated tech workers. A senior level Oracle person can easily make over 120k in SF, San Jose, Los Angeles or Orange County. Here the firms want to pay peanuts like maybe 80k for same exact person. Sad reality is the cost of living in San Diego is now about same as these expensive places that pay well.

[Anonymous]

I’m confused. I have seen a whole bunch of tech folks on here claiming that engineering salaries in SD are easily over 100k a year. And then others who claim 80k is the norm. Does anyone have any data that shows what % of SD engineers make what salaries? My own sense is that most make 75-100k, with perhaps 20% earning 100k+.

[Ozzie]

Juice, I did another search with the San Deiguito Union HS district and it showed about 15% earning over 200k per year. If anything those numbers are low because I don’t know too many people who overstate their incomes on tax returns and of course those are net of 401k’s, IRA’s, SEP’s, etc. It’s also net of a lot of recent Captial Gains which are offset by losses that a lot of people took in 200-2002. I know I still have a lot to work off. It also doesn’t include all of those who have established residency out of state, but really live here year round. I think there’s a lot more money here than most people think. I’d say 30% of my neighbors work for companies that are not located in the county. One’s main office is in Asia, two others are outside of Boston and another two are in the LA area. And those are all guys who live on my street and I guarantee they make 2-3 times what I make and I do OK. Maybe there’s a big downturn coming and no one will be able to afford their mortgage (assuming they have one), but I have doubts that it’s going to be as widespread as some think.

[slackerboy]

Too many of us Americans live in financial la la land…
I live in Palm Desert and work at a very upscale restaurant. This blog caught my eye because many times in the past few years I’ve commented to friends that I have seen an increase of twenty somethings driving 75k cars and coming into our restaurant with friends and dropping $500 on dinner. But since last year I have seen a real drop in these kind of guests. Our business is down about 10-15% and I think the contributing factor is that the “ATM” machine of refinancing has shut down. My partner and I own our house without a mortgage, drive a 2001 Toyota, and have zero debt. We make around 120-150K a year and have 750k saved for retirement. With the income from our portfolio (which we don’t touch) and our savings we put away between 120k and 150k a year. But we don’t live like paupers…we keep a boat in Coronado (instead of buying a overpriced dump at the beach, which we could afford anyways) and have a white trash villa with wheels (a trailer) at the beach in the South of France, where we spend three months a year at, when the restaurant closes. You can have the lifestyle you want,it is all about choices, and I would not trade ours for a big McMansion in a mind numbing boring suburb for the world. It is nice to know that we can sell our condo (we sold our house a few years back and paid cash for this place as a bank repo) and live very well off our investments. We obtained our financial security the old fashion way by working hard and always saving as much as possible. We have seen these bubbles in the past and the people that get creamed are the ones that a few months back were telling you how stupid you were for sitting on all the equity and not pulling it out and doing something with it…well you live your life the way you want and I will live my life without laying in bed at night stressed out about debt.

[mixxalot]

Credit bubbles and consumer spending

Tend to go in cycles. Americans do not save very well at least compared to folks from Asia and India. That and high gas prices will affect matters in San Diego.

[bob007]

easy way to make close to 100k is to get Cisco network certifications. Focus on cutting edge technologies like wireless LAN and VoIP.

[Author]

Posts