What would be a comfortable salary in bay area?

[mysticaltyger]

Originally Posted by move

I have been looking at house prices in the bay area. Is a salary of $200K what it takes to be comfortable in this area? Even if both husband and wife work full time, it looks to me that one salary will be spent towards mortgage alone...How do you bay areaites do it?

I think the bottom line is you have to drastically reduce your expectations in terms of the kind of housing you live in. I'm single, make 50K, and live in a studio apartment. In other places, 50K is a family income that puts you solidly in the middle class. Here 50K is ok for a single person, but would put you low on the totem pole if you had any dependents.

Immigrants from the 3rd world live 2 or 3 families to a 3BR house (and yes, even 7 per house really does trash the neighborhoods, as these houses & neigbhorhoods are just not designed for it).

Others live 50 miles away and commute in. This appears to be a less and less viable option since the traffic is horrible (and getting worse all the time) and gas is well over $3 a gallon. But people are still doing it.

On 200K you can most likely own a 3BR 2BA house in a decent neigbhorhood fairly comfortably without living payday to payday. Ordinary nice, but definitely not fancy.

Where people get into trouble here is when they think they should be able to live in upper middle class neigbhorhoods on a 200K income. That might be possible if you bought your house 20 years ago, but if you are just buying now, you can forget the upper class places like Palo Alto, Cupertino, the nicest neighborhoods in San Jose, etc. unless you like the constant stress that comes from having a demanding job while still living payday to payday.

[Don Vito]

I would say if you want to raise kids, nothing under 150k with a double income family. If you want to live in a house. If you don't mind living in a town house or condo, you can reduce costs and enjoy the benifits of living in a safe area.

[mgs333]

for a single person, would $120k+ be enough to live a comfortable life?

[Terry O'Nolley]

Originally Posted by mgs333

for a single person, would $120k+ be enough to live a comfortable life?

Depends - do you want to rent or buy?

$120K is only $10K a month. After taxes, $7K. If you are renting, then that leaves you $5K and you would be golden.

If you are paying a mortgage, then you will probably only have $3K per month to live on. $750 a week.

-Gas
-Home-owner's inurance
-Home owner's association costs
-Electric bill
-Trash pickup
-Auto insurance
-Water/sewage
-Groceries

You are looking at living very near paycheck to paycheck.

[onyva4]

To buy a 3/2 house in the Bay Area, you need to make more than $200 K if you want to buy anywhere within an hour's drive of San Francisco, i.e. you can buy in San Jose or far into the East Bay. My household makes $200 K and we have never been able to buy because we are not willing to commute for an hour or more. So... we rent a hideous house for an outrageous price and are considering leaving the state altogether. Sorry, this is not very helpful. guess I just needed to vent tonight.

[moovin]

Not true unless one assumes a 3/2 house can only be had for 1.5m.

Originally Posted by onyva4

To buy a 3/2 house in the Bay Area, you need to make more than $200 K if you want to buy anywhere within an hour's drive of San Francisco, i.e. you can buy in San Jose or far into the East Bay. My household makes $200 K and we have never been able to buy because we are not willing to commute for an hour or more. So... we rent a hideous house for an outrageous price and are considering leaving the state altogether. Sorry, this is not very helpful. guess I just needed to vent tonight.

[kathleenssal]

Move-
I recently bought a house out of state because I just can not afford to buy in this area. I don't think that $200K is enough to live on, especially if you have not yet bought a home.
You may want to rethink this area. I am still here because I am making a decent wage and contributing to my retirement fund with this wage. But I am looking at jobs in New Mexico where I recently bought my house.

Good luck to you.