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Originally Posted by njbiodude
How about Seattle or NYC or San Jose or some other tier 1 job metro? For 5-10 years at least? Buy a condo then move up rapidly. Most likely you’ll be able to hit the 200k mark eventually. When you’re done at least you’ll have enough for probably an entire house in a LCOL area if that’s what you want and wages don’t matter as much. If you want a lot of land then it’ll be easy to acquire.
The problem is once people get to their later years that only lived in a LCOL area they don’t have enough equity or retirement savings to retire well if they didn’t make enough.
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I lived in Indianapolis for years. I have no desire to really go bigger than that. It was spread out enough to not feel too dense. Housing costs were reasonable. Job availability was much higher.
Could I make more in Indianapolis than western NC? Maybe. It's not that high paying of a market. When I came back from in IN to TN, I made just a few thousand dollars less. It was a wash with the state income tax savings. I also make about 30% more now than I did in 2016, and that's working from home for a county government in a cushy position vs. a high stress position in office. Since I work remotely from TN, I don't pay NC state income taxes on days that I don't go into the office. I might be in the office once a month.
I wouldn't want to move back to Indiana simply due to the grey, cloudy winters, warmer summers, and lack of outdoor activities. I lived in Iowa for a year too - same story. Great quality of life for typical suburban stuff, but not my cup of tea as an outdoors guy.
I spent about a year in the Boston burbs during that time on business. I'd gladly live there if I could afford the housing, and didn't have to go into the office often. I'd like to live in the city of Boston for a year or so just for the change of pace. However, the odds of me ever earning enough to buy a place as a single earner are probably pretty low.
I've been with my girlfriend for three years, so legally single, and we have no plans to marry. There's no way she'd move somewhere like that. Most of her friends have located to the Greenville, SC area from Asheville, NC. The housing costs have run them off.
I love it there. It has the amenities I need with reasonable housing costs and a pretty good job market should I need to go back to the office. Good weather. Easy access to the mountains and reasonable proximity to Charleston and Hilton Head for long weekends at the beach.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ohio_peasant
This is doable, under two provisos. First, the incumbent has skill-level, or can rapidly attain it, commensurate with the high-paying jobs. Being a top-10% contributor in East Podunk, might render someone only middling at best, in a tier-1 market. Then the capacity to rise, is muted. Of course, one does not know, until one tries.
Second, I'd not venture into housing-ownership at all, but rent a small apartment. A 5-year stint doesn't offer sufficient upside as an owner, given the high property taxes, the vicissitudes of the market, the transaction costs and so on. Better to ratchet-down one's material standard of living, rent a studio-apartment in the crummy part of town, and save one's nickels, for example in the stock market, or at least in higher-yielding (relatively speaking) low-risk alternatives.
Since we have a particular person in mind, when dispensing such advice, we also have to consider age. At say 27 this is quite doable, but knocking on 40, with a relationship and ailing parents and so on, such drastic and speculative changes may be too much.
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I work to live, not the other way around.
When I left this area, a decade ago now to the month, I was making $11.68/hr. at a 36 hour/week position with no benefits. I went up to $55k immediately. I had several jumps - $60k, $68k, $79k, $100.5k. I'm now making about $85k with the government.
The extra $15k didn't improve my life meaningfully. Sure, it would be nice to make more money, but at my peak earnings, I was routinely working 50-60 hour weeks, crazy on-calls, rarely had a holiday off, etc. My QoL is much better now. There were a lot of days last summer I'd log out at 3:30-4, take my laptop with me, and be on the lake before 5.
I have two friends from my Indy days who are now principal engineers at Salesforce. One of them has always been very frugal, the other guy spends like it's going out of style. Neither do much in the way of travel. They work long hours. One has had marital issues from the long hours. Neither seem to spend time outdoors.
I'm not making $11/hr. anymore. My life has never been about generating the biggest pile of money. I don't like this area, but I'd be plenty happy in plenty of other areas where the housing cost is fairly reasonable.
The thing that hurts is the combination of near record prices with near record rates, although both have eased a bit in recent months.
Around here, we've gone from about thirty days of inventory in the $250k bracket this time last year to about ninety days. It's not a perfectly balanced market, but there is some improvement for buyers.
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