DD moving to bay area

[Linux Top Gun]

On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 6:34 PM, Geoffrey Thomas <debian at ldpreload.com>
wrote:

> (Apologies for the discussion of salary, but it's unavoidable for a proper
> reply.)
>
> On Mon, 15 Jun 2015, Linux Top Gun wrote:
>
>  Sky-high rents: agreed, SF and bay area rents are higher than LA or
>> other parts of CA.  Sky-high rent doesn't put me off as long as there
>> is a good prospect of a sky-high salary.
>>
>> Who is really paying $4000/month for a 2-bed apartment in central SF?
>> Are developers really paid enough to pay those rents?  Are these
>> apartments
>> only suitable for power couples where both partners are
>> earning above-average incomes or people like doctors who have
>> weekend/overtime pay?
>>
>> I've lived in cheap cities and expensive cities and I've always found
>> a developer salary (net of tax) that was at least three times the rent.
>> Does this hold true in SF today?
>>
>
> In 2012, my straight-out-of-college offers in SFBA were all $95K, before
> negotiation, and without counting the Google offer that I didn't have the
> patience to wait for. I have heard rumors of good college grads being
> offered 2-3 times that amount. If you're working in the private sector as a
> software engineer/SRE/sysadmin, with experience, and you have an offer less
> than $100K, something is very wrong. (I did Debian packaging/debugging,
> which is a somewhat hard skillset to hire for, and got promoted up to $140K
> by a company that ultimately didn't have the money for it. So I imagine you
> can do better if you want to work at a better-funded company.)
>
> So assuming a post-tax salary of at least $72K as a nice round number,
> one-third of the monthly salary comes out to $2K. You can definitely find
> housing in the city for less than that, e.g. you could get the $4K 2BR you
> mentioned and split it with a housemate. You


Its actually quite a few years since I left college and housemates behind,
now married and we were ideally hoping to have a 2BR unit with one room to
sleep in and another for a small office for hiding away all the computers.
Do you think that is a reasonable thing to aspire to in SF itself or the
ratio of salary/rent just doesn't make it viable?



> probably won't be able to find 1BR housing for that price, though I bet
> there are studios. My friends who live with housemates pay, I believe,
> somewhere from $800-$1500/month. If you can bump your price range up a bit
> for a 1BR, $2500 is probably doable in good areas, which gets you a $90K
> post-tax salary, which isn't uncommon at all.
>
>  If a short commute (using any means of transport, walking, car, bike, bus
>> or train) is a primary concern for somebody, which locations are
>> feasible?  Who thinks it is better to live and work downtown?  Are
>> there other hotspots in the valley (or even further afield)
>> where there are a range of job opportunities, shops, restaurants, other
>> services and stuff all within 10-15 minutes of home?
>> Or is this really impossible except for those people who already
>> bought/rented a home in a desirable area when prices were lower?
>>
>
> In 2014 I lived in north Oakland, paying $1700/mo for a nice,
> new-construction 1BR. Part of why I moved there is that my employer opened
> an office in Emeryville, which was a short bike commute. But I could
> definitely find tons of shops, cafes, restaurants, groceries, and other
> businesses within a 15-minute walk or really a 5-minute bike ride, and
> given the geography and the lack of precipitation, biking is rarely a
> problem. The BART station was about that far away, at which point I could
> head into SF (with my bike) without too much difficulty. Berkeley was also
> an easy option, either by BART or bike. This area (sometimes called "NOBE",
> North Oakland/Berkeley/Emeryville) is getting increasingly popular, as is
> living in downtown Oakland close to BART, as a way to get larger or
> single-person apartments without the high rent. (Or houses, in fact, for
> some of my friends who have several years of savings.)
>
> Downtown Palo Alto is also nice and very walkable. However, it's harder to
> get to SF from Palo Alto, so I'd advise against it unless your employer is
> in that area of the Bay and you're not optimizing for access to the city.
> BART runs much more regularly between Oakland and SF, and even the transbay
> buses are more frequent and faster.
>
>
Thanks, that is great feedback, it will help a lot.
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