Seattle, Austin, Denver or So Cal? (Kirkland, Mercer Island: home, tech job, buying)

[homesinseattle]

Miami boy originally, living in Seattle 28 years now. When I go back, the mosquitoes, intense humidity and racist comments that seem all too common make me want to leave pretty quickly.

[thatguy950]

Originally Posted by homesinseattle

Miami boy originally, living in Seattle 28 years now. When I go back, the mosquitoes, intense humidity and racist comments that seem all too common make me want to leave pretty quickly.

Racist comments? I travel to Miami/Ft. Lauderdale quite regularly for work and have never seen/experienced racism, and I'm a mix-breed.

[homesinseattle]

Yes, that guy, I'm born and raised there and hear them regularly when i travel home. I guess my tolerance and detector for them is on high alert, having lived in the PNW for years.

[blaserbrad]

Originally Posted by RotseCherut

Moving away from the Silicon Valley to Seattle because of insane housing costs seems rather ironic. I mean the housing costs here are going to soon even go past the Silicon Valley.. That is my theory. Many IT companies are bailing from the valley due to California's 3rd world conditions and bloated taxation. Washington's tax system is considerably more business friendly.

Sadly, Seattle metro is trapped between mountains and water which means there is not a lot of place to build and housing prices are going to be Hong Kong style and even worse as the population here will become much larger and more affluent than Hong Kong.

I cannot believe my eyes but even gritty, grimey Tacoma is now very expensive. I cannot believe what I am seeing, small 1 bedroom apartments in South Tacoma going for over $1200/mo.. YIKES!!!!

Don't call Tacoma grimey. It's not grimey. It's actually a very nice place to live, in most neighborhoods. It seems that a lot of Seattlites are stuck in time about twenty years ago. They miss their old city and the think Tacoma is "grimey". Times have changed. See for yourself.

[GatsbyGatz]

Originally Posted by blaserbrad

Don't call Tacoma grimey. It's not grimey. It's actually a very nice place to live, in most neighborhoods. It seems that a lot of Seattlites are stuck in time about twenty years ago. They miss their old city and the think Tacoma is "grimey". Times have changed. See for yourself.

People are realizing Tacoma has awesome city bones and it's sort of becoming a mini Portland. Developers realized that Tacoma is really pretty, has a cool downtown, and has awesome waterfronts and a massive city park.

[dav51lin]

endless cold damp weather u never get used to the dreary grey wet mossy place

[the topper]

Seattle got this one over

[mmgoodies]

Your posts have been very helpful to me. I am also looking to move my family in the next 1-2 years, with similar goals. I have followed all of your threads in different cities, and would love to know what you decide.

Here are my current thoughts:

Austin: Eanes ISD is the best school district in Texas, and I stayed one week in Westlake Austin (Lost Creek to be more specific) area to check out the schools and neighborhoods last month. I absolutely love the scenery, there is a feeling of strong community, school buses are very convenient (I went to middle and high school in Irvine, school buses were almost non-existent). Housing price are going up, but really not that fast. 1M still gets you a pretty decent house in a great neighborhood. Property taxes and insurance are much more than where we live, but that's expected.

Seattle: I have a trip scheduled to visit Seattle next month. Vancouver is my favoriate city (being Chinese and all), and I like rainy weather, so I think I personally will like Seattle just fine. I am looking at Redmond/Bellevue area. Seattle's housing market has doubled its price in the past few years, I would be hesitant to move if the market continue to heat up.

Dallas: I know this is not on your list, but I truly believe Dallas is a great area to look into. It's a huge area with a lot of fortune 500 headquarters (lots of tech companies too, but all different jobs are well represented in Dallas). My favoriate neighborhood is University Park (highland park ISD), amazing schools and amenities, very safe, beautiful houses and walking distance to SMU and lots of stuff. I think I might suck it up and pay the 20-30k property taxes.

Irvine: I lived in Irvine for 10+ years, went to Irvine ISD and then UC Irvine for my undergraduate. I loved there, it's a great fit for an Asian girl growing up (lol). However, I don't think Irvine ISD is as good as some people say, it's good for a So California public school, but I think there are much better public districts in other states. Given our income, we prefer to live in a state we don't need to pay state income tax right now. California tax alone can be as high as 12%, if you are making mid-6figure or higher income, state income tax would be much much greater than million dollar property taxes in Texas, with an addition 1% property tax in Cali anyways. I still own a house in Irvine (so rising home price is not an issue), I might be moving back if the other cities don't work for us. Also during a recent visit, I was shocked how much traffic it had on surface street. The 405 and 5 freeway has always had a lot of traffic, but I think surface street traffic has grown so much worse it's not the city I once knew.

[MayouInSeattle]

Originally Posted by Xanathos

LA is sneakily actually the 2nd biggest tech scene in the country along the Silicon Beach region - most people aren't aware of that. I don't know what Irvine specifically is like, but it's still part of the greater region. The housing costs between LA and Seattle are pretty similar right now, but you don't find the insane bidding wars down here you find up there (up there, just ignore the asking price - the house is almost always going to go for at least 100K over that as you fight with some Chinese money parker). On 1-10, LA is a solid 8 on jobs, 9 on wages (you will make slightly more there than you do in Seattle), and a 3 on COL.

I don't agree that LA is the 2nd biggest tech scene behind Silicon Valley. Can you list some tech companies and why you think so? I see a bunch of mediocre companies like TrueCar, Rubicon, etc. Most companies are in ad-tech or they follow whatever fad of the month business model like subscription services. (Dollar shave club, Shoedazzle). The biggest tech company out of LA recently is SnapChat, and their business model and how well they will do is dubious at best.

Even the satellite offices of Silicon Valley companies are opening in Seattle and not LA. Not only is the tech talent not as good over there, the logistics of where to place your company to maximize where you can recruit employees is not good. Venice, Playa Vista, Santa Monica, Culver City, Downtown, Pasadena have drastically different commutes. Due to the fact that the west side has terrible schools and is really unaffordable, I think it'd be difficult to hire senior engineers with families.

I'm not sure about wages, but I think Seattle definitely edges out due to lack of state tax.

For pure tech, I think Silicon Valley > Seattle > New York == Los Angeles.

[kshockie]

Originally Posted by MayouInSeattle

I don't agree that LA is the 2nd biggest tech scene behind Silicon Valley. Can you list some tech companies and why you think so? I see a bunch of mediocre companies like TrueCar, Rubicon, etc. Most companies are in ad-tech or they follow whatever fad of the month business model like subscription services. (Dollar shave club, Shoedazzle). The biggest tech company out of LA recently is SnapChat, and their business model and how well they will do is dubious at best.

Even the satellite offices of Silicon Valley companies are opening in Seattle and not LA. Not only is the tech talent not as good over there, the logistics of where to place your company to maximize where you can recruit employees is not good. Venice, Playa Vista, Santa Monica, Culver City, Downtown, Pasadena have drastically different commutes. Due to the fact that the west side has terrible schools and is really unaffordable, I think it'd be difficult to hire senior engineers with families.

I'm not sure about wages, but I think Seattle definitely edges out due to lack of state tax.

For pure tech, I think Silicon Valley > Seattle > New York == Los Angeles.

I agree the office market is Seattle is much much stronger than LA as well: Seattle-Bellevue Market Had Higher Q1 Net Absorption Than Entire West Coast - The Registry