It's true that rent is expensive in the bay area, but some of the examples just don't add up:
Another tech worker feeling excluded from the real estate market was 41-year-old Michael, who works at a networking firm in Silicon Valley and last year earned $700,000. Sick of his 22-mile commute to work, which can sometimes take up to two and half hours, he explored buying a property nearer work.
From the article:
Another tech worker feeling excluded from the real estate market was 41-year-old Michael, who works at a networking firm in Silicon Valley and last year earned $700,000. Sick of his 22-mile commute to work, which can sometimes take up to two and half hours, he explored buying a property nearer work.
“We went to an open house in Los Gatos that would shorten my commute by eight miles. It was 1,700 sq ft and listed at $1.4m. It sold in 24 hours for $1.7m,” he said.
At $700,000 a year, a $1.7M house is affordable.
“We will be unequivocally better off than we are now.” He said he won’t miss some of the more mundane day-to-day costs, like spending $8 on a bagel and coffee or $12 on freshly pressed juice.
Demonstrated poor spending habits. How hard is it to make these things at home?
“We make over $1m between us, but we can’t afford a house,” said a woman in her 50s who works in digital marketing for a major telecoms corporation, while her partner works as an engineer at a digital media company. “This is part of where the American dream is not working out here.”
At a combined annual income like that, a house is affordable. Other spending habits are probably getting in the way.
Perhaps the article oversimplifies the financial situations of the people discussed, but I feel like I know plenty of people who work in tech and aren't struggling financially.
Submitted February 28, 2017 at 04:43PM by 120psi http://ift.tt/2llom5W
