Its been a year since I was on here: How bad is the job market? (Austin: foreclosure, how much)

[achtungpv]

Originally Posted by jobert

Why are people on this board b****ing about getting average salaries in Austin, while making it seem that everywhere else pays them six-figures for the same services?

Average salary isn't a fair comparison if you're a degreed professional since it includes everyone that's not in similar positions or even working full time.

Austin does pay much lower for professional jobs than other comparable cities. The fact that State employment is main competitor for employees and they pay less than the private sector keeps wages down. The pipeline of thousands of college grads every year from within a 30 mile radius helps keeps wages down.

[jobert]

Originally Posted by sliverbox

Median incomes in my opinion don't mean that much. For example, where I work in Silicon Valley the "average" house costs around $700k-$900k.

'median' and 'average' are two different animals. Median illustrate how weighted any set of numbers are towards either extreme. Take income, for example - If the median is lower than the average, then it points to a large gap between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' in terms of income with a relative lack of middle-class incomes. If the 'median' is higher than the 'average', that points to a large middle class, with a small population of impoverished.

[sliverbox]

I think what it all boils down to is that 3 years after the initial bust in real estate, a great many of the major metros across the country are still heavily overpriced. Otherwise you wouldn't have the extreme levels of domestic migration primarily to lower cost sections of the country. The median income to cost of housing is still grossly out of whack in places like NY, MA, NJ, CA, and select metros across the country. As long as the cost of living is considerably cheaper in other areas- there will continue to be this migration away from the traditional metros to 2nd tier metros.

[Nomadic9460678748]

The job market here sucks. Period. I know three people who have left Austin in the last month to live with family and look for work in other states. These were not transplants, these were people with children who had been born here, but are unable to find work. Know someone and you might have an in. And I agree with the poster who said that if you're serious about trying to get a house in the supposed "hip" parts of South Austin then $200K is not going to get you much, even in East Austin. People in those ranges are usually forced out to the periphery or out of Austin entirely (i.e. near Pflugerville, Kyle Slaughter Lane, etc), and are living in tract housing without any nearby, walkable amenities.

Can I take your place back out in the Bay? I don't ever want to own a home and just want out of Austin and Texas. No? Oh well. Good luck.

[sliverbox]

I think its probably bad all over the country. We're still hovering around 12% where I live. I personally know of at least 5 people who are out of work, several that have been unemployed for a year or more. Some had senior positions. So as I previously mentioned I'm probably not interested in moving yet for that reason alone.

As far as the desire to live in a "hip" cool community, well I grew up in the sticks so I'm perfectly ok with living in such a place. I guess I should've been more clear. Basically I really don't want to live in a generic subivision- namely something that was built in the last 20 years. I'm fine with an older one with smaller houses. Think 70's rancher homes or single level 2-3 bedroom deals.

When we visited we visited a few outlying areas that were pretty nice- Like Georgetown and Lockhart. Some were pretty far away from Austin so maybe not practical. I did not like Round Rock at all. That or Bee Caves. Round Rock seemed to be mostly cookie cutter homes and Bee Caves was like an upscale Mcmansion community for retirees.

I guess at the end of the day I'm just looking for a halfway decent aka- not perfect house in a semi-interesting town either near or somewhat removed from Austin. We did look at parts of South Austin too and parts were pretty affordable. Obviously more for couples without kids, which might be why it was cheaper. But that was a year and a half ago so who knows? Maybe yuppies bought it all up.

[atlanta hope]

Originally Posted by jobert

How is it that everywhere else pays more than Austin? Not possible. I think people are romanticizing a little bit.

When I spoke to potential employer HR people they reinforced the idea that the "cost of living was cheaper here" and thus the incomes were a bit lower. Also they were clear that there were lots of candidates available -- happy to work for less money to live in Austin.

Personally I have not found the cost of living to be cheaper... specially when I see my property tax bill!

[sliverbox]

That's just the thing- property taxes. I figured that if we bought a boring ole' 200k home there, we're talking like $4,500 a year. Also- that amount is going to go up as the house appreciates. So that brought to mind the thought that if you stayed in the same house for 30-40 years, by the time you were retired you could be priced out of your own house from taxes alone. I'm guessing there's some sot of cap for older residents?

As far as lots of candidates, yup- the company I came close to getting in at in Austin had well over 100+ applicants. I consider myself fairly well-versed and know how to write CSS, HTML, Ruby as well as use any number of design applications and design for everything from software UI to advertising, consumer retail, web pages, mobile apps and so on. I've worked for numerous companies and startups and done so in the heart of Silicon Valley. Even so, I still didn't get the job. Thus Austin companies must be picking from the absolute pick of the litter. Most job postings I see have a HUGE laundry list of requirements to the point that the job scarcely looks like a design job and more like a CTO position as many requirements have nothing to do with design. Oh well.

[txtoal]

Originally Posted by sliverbox

I hear you on Denver. We were there a few months ago. My first time. I was actually really impressed with it. Loved the atmosphere, cleanliness, and scenic beauty. But... when I looked at the cost of housing it seemed like anything decent was kissing north of 300k... which is a bit more than I care to pay for a house and it also snows there. After living on the East Coast ( I'm a Southern boy) I have no interest in living where it snows again.

I've also been eyeing Nashville. Smaller city, pretty cool vibe, and quite a bit cheaper with low property taxes.

You mentioned Nashville. I have alot of friends that live there because of exactly what you mentioned, especially the cost of living, propery taxes and the schools. All of them have lived in Texas at one point. One even moved to Nashville after living in Texas, moved back to Miami where she is from and ended up moving back to Nashville. Not to mention, it is beautiful there and like you said, has a cool vibe and is not bad for a big/small city, depending on where you come from. Not to knock Austin, but you might have a better chance in Nashville. As much as I love Texas, sometimes the grass isn't always greener here.

[orbius]

Some of the cost of living calculators factor in property tax now. In the past they didnt I think thats why Texas always had such low cost of living.
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitor sites is not allowed

Outside of the traditional sky high areas. Austin's cost of living is ranked fairly high.

[sliverbox]

I'm familiar with Nashville as I grew up 3-4 hours away. Austin and Nashville are very different cities. Nashville is a pretty small city. You can walk through the downtown area in about an hour. I think there's only like 400,000 residents. The two main industries are healthcare and music/entertainment. Its cleaned up a lot since I was a kid but given its fame in the country music biz the culture and industry involved seems sort of closed off from the general public. When I bring friends or family that have never been there, they're like: " Is that it?!"

But... it is a lot cheaper than most cities. I also wouldn't say the weather is fantastic. It does get winters and it does get hot as well. Its allright I suppose. Its still on my list but not as high as Austin.