Why is this board so discouraging? (San Jose, Orange: income, work, housing)

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by icazares

4. Also, and this may be just a coincidence, we have noted that in DC there is more civism. We have seen that in the streets (driving is waay more aggressive here) and in the malls (we basically don't get any help with the stroller).

I hope this helps.

I don't know about DC but I do agree that the Bay Area & Calif. in general are not very civic minded. It is hard to meet people here for the reasons stated (everything is spread out, and outside San Francisco and parts of Oakland and Berkeley, most of the Bay Area is suburban sprawl, which doesn't seem terribly oriented toward community living).

In general, I think it's really easy to get caught up in your own little bubble here.

[ranva]

I can't comment on the negativity, but I've done the same move, and have never regretted it.

I grew up, went to school, and started my first job back East (DC/Metro Area, NY/NJ Area).

When I first had the opportunity to move to CA, I told myself it would be for no more than 5 years, because I just wanted to experience life out West for a while before settling back down somewhere on the East Coast.

That was 14 years ago. It took me one season to fall in love with California, and I haven't had the urge to go back since.

Good luck to you.

[cardinal2007]

Originally Posted by icazares

1. Housing in Washington DC, Arlington, Alexandria, Chevy Chase and Bethesda is MORE expensive than in almost all cities of the Bay Area. Of course San Francisco, Palo Alto, Atherton and parts of Menlo Park continue to be more expensive, but the fact that the Bay Area is too expensive should not bother much a transplant from DC, especially if you rent. To give you an idea of how the business works, I'm renting a property valued at $810K for $2,700 a month. In DC a property valued at $760K in Logan Circle would be renting for $3,400 a month. The properties cannot be directly compared (suburb vs. city) but in general, rents in the Bay are more affordable and total price of ownership is equivalent. That makes the case for renting in the Bay Area, because the gap between an equivalent mortgage and renting is wider.

4. Also, and this may be just a coincidence, we have noted that in DC there is more civism. We have seen that in the streets (driving is waay more aggressive here) and in the malls (we basically don't get any help with the stroller).

I grew up in Northern Virginia (not DC proper itself), but considering this is a comparing a suburban job center to another suburban job center I think it is a fair comparison. I find housing in NoVA to be a lot more affordable than in the Bay Area by far, there are poor areas in NoVA within 30 minutes drive from job areas that sell SFH in the 200s. (Compare to Hayward or East Palo Alto where a SFH starts in the 500s) Average house in Fairfax Co. cost around 550k, and has over 2000sqft living space and a lot > 9000sqf. This is much cheaper than Santa Clara or San Mateo Co., both suburban job centers in the Bay Area. A lot of Arlington and Alexandria is less expensive than most of San Mateo Co, Santa Clara Co, or San Francisco Co. It of course helps that prices in NoVA have fallen about 10% from their highs.

I find drivers are a lot LESS aggressive in the Bay Area, they speed a lot sure, but they are not all trying to pass each other all the time like in NoVA, granted traffic is a lot lighter around here (or it may just be all concentrated around rush hour more). In both cases I was working 10 - 6, and I found traffic a lot lighter around here, and drivers a lot friendlier. People are a lot friendlier around here too, I noticed that in particular when comparing taking the BART vs taking the Metro. Everybody always seems to be in a rush in the DC area, even on weekends. People around here seem more relaxed.

[icazares]

Originally Posted by cardinal2007

I find housing in NoVA to be a lot more affordable than in the Bay Area by far, there are poor areas in NoVA within 30 minutes drive from job areas that sell SFH in the 200s.

I'm going to guess that you haven't been looking for a house in NoVA for a while.

Average house in Fairfax Co. cost around 550k, and has over 2000sqft living space and a lot > 9000sqf. This is much cheaper than Santa Clara or San Mateo Co., both suburban job centers in the Bay Area.

There may be a few houses around 550K, (I remember old townhouses with no parking in so-so parts of the county going for 500K), but the average is NOT 550K. I don't think you can find anything remotely close to that in cities like McLean, Vienna or Reston. In any case, if you are a renter you end up paying less for more in the Bay Area. Go to Zillow and check for yourself the price of the houses in Millbrae for example. They are in the $1MM range, but the rent is only in the $2,500-$2,700 range. Among other things, that means that if you have a house completely paid for in Millbrae, your 1MM asset is probably bringing you a return before-tax of $30,000 (3% before taxes, probably 2% after). What a poor return!! The reason? The exceedingly large percentage of houses for rent in the area.

A lot of Arlington and Alexandria is less expensive than most of San Mateo Co, Santa Clara Co, or San Francisco Co.

Not if you rent.

I find drivers are a lot LESS aggressive in the Bay Area, they speed a lot sure, but they are not all trying to pass each other all the time like in NoVA, granted traffic is a lot lighter around here (or it may just be all concentrated around rush hour more). In both cases I was working 10 - 6, and I found traffic a lot lighter around here, and drivers a lot friendlier. People are a lot friendlier around here too, I noticed that in particular when comparing taking the BART vs taking the Metro. Everybody always seems to be in a rush in the DC area, even on weekends. People around here seem more relaxed.

Your message brings me hope, because we want to live here for a long term. But we haven't seen that and when I think about it, it doesn't make a lot of sense. After all, DC is plenty of relaxed jobs (government, some non-profits, etc.) and the Bay Area is one of the most important hubs of the world economy.

I hope my views change while I fall in love with the region, like some other people in this forum.

[cardinal2007]

Originally Posted by icazares

I'm going to guess that you haven't been looking for a house in NoVA for a while.



There may be a few houses around 550K, (I remember old townhouses with no parking in so-so parts of the county going for 500K), but the average is NOT 550K. I don't think you can find anything remotely close to that in cities like McLean, Vienna or Reston. In any case, if you are a renter you end up paying less for more in the Bay Area. Go to Zillow and check for yourself the price of the houses in Millbrae for example. They are in the $1MM range, but the rent is only in the $2,500-$2,700 range. Among other things, that means that if you have a house completely paid for in Millbrae, your 1MM asset is probably bringing you a return before-tax of $30,000 (3% before taxes, probably 2% after). What a poor return!! The reason? The exceedingly large percentage of houses for rent in the area.



Not if you rent.



Your message brings me hope, because we want to live here for a long term. But we haven't seen that and when I think about it, it doesn't make a lot of sense. After all, DC is plenty of relaxed jobs (government, some non-profits, etc.) and the Bay Area is one of the most important hubs of the world economy.

I hope my views change while I fall in love with the region, like some other people in this forum.

1. Sterling Park is the poor area that is within 30 minutes of Reston and the Rt. 28 corridor, there are currently many SFH for sale there in the 200s. Sterling Park is in Loudon Co. near Herndon, and the houses are mostly from the late 60s early 70s, and the area is poor. I never understood how houses could sell in the 400s there.

2. According to Zillow the average for Fairfax Co. is 496k, according to city-data.com it is 514k. Most people in Fairfax Co. don't live in McLean or Great Falls or Vienna, these are considered and have for a long time been considered the pricey parts of the county. You must have really high standards relative to what the county has to offer, the bulk of the homes were constructed between 1975 and 1985, anything newer than that costs more than average. Anything in Langley or McLean HS feeding areas will cost more than average. Anything better than average in terms of age or location costs more than average as is usual for almost anywhere one goes. I don't expect to pay the average cost for SM Co. to buy a house in Redwood Shores, Foster City, or Belmont for example, and I don't think people should either.

For one thing it seems that you're demanding more from NoVA than you are from SMCo. (maybe to compensate for the weather), but houses in SMCo. are mostly from the 1970s are less than 1700sqft and are on small lots from what I can tell. The good schools are not as good as Langley or TJ.

I know I tend to be negative on the housing stock around here specially when people talk about relocating and think that a 10 or 20% raise will enable them to buy the same 1990s built house 2000sqft 1/4 acre lot that they own wherever they live. But I just try to be honest with people. I know as far as renting a comparable apartment in NoVA vs here it costs me about 20% more to rent here, unless I move to Fremont. As for Zillow I think it really likes overestimating the value of homes. Everytime I look at condo and townhouse prices it overestimates significantly over selling price, I don't know about houses.

4-5% of value a year is usually what I find as the rent in this area. Given 6.7% interest rate and 1.25% tax rate and the obvious maintenance and insurance, and an optimistic 97% occupancy rate a landlord would be getting back 51 cents for every dollar he/she puts in. On a payed off house it would be 2.61% return on investment. Anyway most people that post on this forum want to buy a house so that is usually what I talk about. I honestly have nothing against renting, I rent an apt in Belmont, and looked at some condos for sale back in October, I wanted something close to work, but decided that 380k was too much to pay for a 1bd condo.

People relocating here for the most part I think will find that they can't have the same standard of living that they had wherever they moved from, and most of them would be dissapointed by that, if that is discouranging to people so be it. There are good things to living around here and there are bad things to living around here, the cost of most things is not one of the good things.

[icazares]

Cardinal2007, I think you're bringing very valid points and I rated you up accordingly. Thanks. I just wanted to add that I still believe that renting here is cheaper, at least based on my own experience. IMO, owning a home in CA is hard to justify based on pure economics. If I owned a $800K 3-bdr house in San Mateo or a 1MM 3-bdr house in Millbrae I'd probably sell it and invest the money in a more diversified portfolio. The return of renting in CA is poor (worse than a significant percentage of investment grade bonds!) and the appreciation upside doesn't seem to be available anymore. In a way it's funny, because some friends feel bad about me because I don't own a house here, but I actually feel bad about them, especially because owning demands them to keep a 2-income approach with no flexibility, and because relocation becomes a pain (rents are way lower than mortgages and the housing market is sour, so what do you do if you must move out of CA?). Bad approach for families planning to have more than one child. Regards and happy 2008.

[Futcha]

Originally Posted by Mach50

I have my own 80-5 rule for internet forums:

80% of the people who come to the internet for "discussion" are unhappy and venting, therefore highly negative.

That 80% resembles 5% of the actual population.

This is my own % breakdown

The actual population doesn't care or know any better. I can say this because I'm around people all the time as I'm a junior in high school. They all believe people from other cities are vastly inferior. Many of them will dog kids not from the NYC area. I WAS the same way until I recently became good friends with a kid from Southern California. But in reality, people still think walking through Times Square after dark is dangerous and they still think New York is extremely poor. They think people from TX are rednecks. They think people from California are "yippie-kye-yay" surfers or Mexicans. They all think people from Alaska are eskimos, they all think Hawaiins are hula daners. We have a couple kids from Hawaii who always get asked to do the hula dance. This is a very cosed-minded country we're in.

[sonarrat]

Originally Posted by icazares

Cardinal2007, I think you're bringing very valid points and I rated you up accordingly. Thanks. I just wanted to add that I still believe that renting here is cheaper, at least based on my own experience. IMO, owning a home in CA is hard to justify based on pure economics. If I owned a $800K 3-bdr house in San Mateo or a 1MM 3-bdr house in Millbrae I'd probably sell it and invest the money in a more diversified portfolio. The return of renting in CA is poor (worse than a significant percentage of investment grade bonds!) and the appreciation upside doesn't seem to be available anymore. In a way it's funny, because some friends feel bad about me because I don't own a house here, but I actually feel bad about them, especially because owning demands them to keep a 2-income approach with no flexibility, and because relocation becomes a pain (rents are way lower than mortgages and the housing market is sour, so what do you do if you must move out of CA?). Bad approach for families planning to have more than one child. Regards and happy 2008.

Certainly for someone like me - just starting out with a music degree and resulting modest income - I'm grateful for how cheap rent is relative to the earnings potential I have. I think it's understandable that I wouldn't be able to buy a condo on an entry-level job, and that those with basic menial jobs would have to share apartments or houses. To me, that's just life in California.

[sheri257]

Originally Posted by worktolive

Given our exorbitant housing prices, why is it that there is such demand to live here? Hmm, could it be because this is one of the greatest places in the world to live?

Exactly ... I don't care what anyone says ... this is the truth.

We don't live in the area anymore due to costs but, we sure do miss it. Every time we go back to visit we still discover wonderful places we hadn't found before ... even when we lived there.

We're planning on coming back for at least some of our retirement years because we miss it so much.

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by cardinal2007

People relocating here for the most part I think will find that they can't have the same standard of living that they had wherever they moved from, and most of them would be dissapointed by that, if that is discouranging to people so be it. There are good things to living around here and there are bad things to living around here, the cost of most things is not one of the good things.

That last paragraph sums it up perfectly.