Anybody relocated to Los Angeles due to high COL here? (San Diego: for sale, apartments)

[AngusHsu]

I love living in SF. With rent control, limited supply, and high demand, housing here is ridiculous even in the surrounding areas. Some 3 bedroom apartments in the Sunset were going for 3000, back in 2008, and even then the conditions of the walls and windows for example were deplorable. Rent control is amazingly...unsound economically.

I saw a 2bed/2bath in the Hollywood area for around 2000 recently. Try getting that comparable apartment for 3000 in SF. I am not in the tech industry- banking instead.

Has anybody relocated to Los Angeles due to high COL?

[ccm123]

I did and lived there for many years. Back in the Bay Area though.

I lived in Southern California in the 80's, 90's and 2000's. The job market there was always decent, but it seems that the area has been slow recovering from the "great recession" and job growth has been anemic. In the 80's, 90's and early 2000's, the job market in Southern California was much better than it is today. I hope it improves.

The COL in Southern California is less than in the Bay Area. Homes are generally less expensive and eating out is also much less expensive. Other costs are lower. There are also more properties for sale/rent down in Southern California, so you have a wider selection of choices in neighborhoods.

But, the availability of high paying jobs is very scarce and hard to obtain, even with a good formal education. Unlike the Bay Area, where these qualities are usually in demand.

[dalparadise]

I'm not sure LA is that much less, especially considering the car or two you will need down there.

[ccm123]

COL was noticeably less (probably 10-15% less overall) for me in LA. We owned two cars in LA and two here. Your mileage and experiences will vary, these were just mine.

Originally Posted by dalparadise

I'm not sure LA is that much less, especially considering the car or two you will need down there.

[peninsular]

LA is a good place if you can keep your Bay Area salary when you move down there. However, 10-15 COL difference seems much lower than income difference. Here are some stats I compiled from the NYT "What Percent Are You?" site. These are the percentiles that a certain household income puts you into.

LA* SF**
500K 1% 2%
300K 3% 7%
250K 4% 10%
200K 7% 14%
100K 25% 40%

It's obvious from this that there are many more people in SF that are paid very well.

(*LA - Los Angeles/Long Beach, **SF - San Francisco/Oakland/Vallejo, looks like these are neither MSAs, nor CSAs, so it's not exactly apples to apples)

[Isebiel]

I certainly think about it a lot. Also about San Diego and some other coastal CA cities. Seems like everything everywhere is cheaper!

Except now I'm constantly involved in things that are only local. Augh. Guess I better work harder.

[dalparadise]

If you live in the City, you can do very well without a car. Commuting from outside, I would agree with you.

My wife and I had two luxury/sport cars in Houston. We sold them and purchased a Mini Cooper to share. I take Muni. She commutes to Berkeley three times per week. All in, our transportation costs now run about 20% what they once did. It's a big equalizer.

[mayorhaggar]

Well I kinda moved to LA because it's cheaper, I quit my job last year and the cheaper rent has let me live more cheaply. (got a new job starting soon though! But not in the US.)

You can't really compare the LA area to the SF area as if they were equals. While rents are definitely cheaper in LA, they're still fairly high compared with other parts of the country, and the difference in wages between the two regions is sizeable. Work that is $16-18 an hour in SF is more like $10-12 an hour in LA. On top of that you just about HAVE to have a car in LA, and maintaining a car adds up. Also something I noticed while looking for work here is that it's way rarer than in the Bay Area to see working people who have college degrees at all. In the Bay Area, every barista at Starbucks has at least a master's degree. Also jobs are way more spread out in LA, and a lot of job centers like Century City and parts of Orange County are quite far flung.

So I think on balance it's kind of a wash. And the job market in LA, despite being larger in geographic area, is still overall really weak. It's not like the Bay Area where at least the tech market is strong.