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Cbach: with respect, I have to say that you are "spouting" a lot of generalizations that are misleading. Perhaps its out of frustration, I dunno. I work in Houston, in O&G, and its true that we have been hiring a lot of young people in the last few years. However, they are highly qualified. Despite that, we also have many open positions that we have not been able to fill because there are no qualified candidates. In the technology area, we have like crazy been hiring MS and PhD students who are from other countries, because there aren't enough US-born people who want study science and engineering areas, even at the undergrad level, much less graduate level.
Interesting thread... I live in Los Angeles area and when I read housing in Austin sucks I just about laughed my behind off. You have no idea what the situation is here in LA.
To summarize LA:
- Unless you are in a few select fields you will get paid crap, I know a lot of people in their early 30s, well educated with Bachelors degrees who get paid like $30-35k which is below poverty wages for what it costs to live here.
- It is EXTREMELY let me repeat EXTREMELY expensive to own and operate an automobile here due to fuel, insurance and commuting distances are huge with gargantuan and perpetual traffic jams, I am talking 1 hour commute to go 10 miles..how is that eh? And oh...public transport that gets your anywhere on time is virtually non-existent.
- Even dilapidated homes here in gang infested cess pools want half a million dollars for their homes that are little more than a size of a matchbox
- When you see the rents here in LA you will experience shock and awe and they are going up all the time, a 1 bd in a safe neighborhood in Orange County will run you around $1500-1600/month. You will need to pay $3000 just to move in and all apartments charge $50 application fees here too.
- The unemployment rate is just shy of 9% so don't expect to get a job and if you interview here the competition is intense. I am lucky I am in the tech field that is doing better.
- The last time I tried to buy a home, a 1200 sqft shoebox priced at $389,000 in a middle class area the property received 40 bids and it sold for $420,000. If you even tell your realtor that your budget is below $400k they will just laugh straight in your face because of how ridiculous your budget is and tell you that you cannot afford a home.
- LA's public schools are some of the worst in the country... you can research this!
LA does have it's positive points but what I am trying to portray here is that these types of problems exist everywhere...and Austin's problems seem trivial compared to some of the problems in the bigger cities.
redrocket2: from what (little) i know, you make good points. my sister lives in the south bay area of LA and even with a lot of college education, she is more limited financially than I would expect here in Texas. (This is in a medical-related field, but not as an MD). she absolutely loves the climate (lives in torrance), but the idea of retiring there is a real issue.
Interesting thread... I live in Los Angeles area and when I read housing in Austin sucks I just about laughed my behind off. You have no idea what the situation is here in LA.
To summarize LA:
- Unless you are in a few select fields you will get paid crap, I know a lot of people in their early 30s, well educated with Bachelors degrees who get paid like $30-35k which is below poverty wages for what it costs to live here.
- It is EXTREMELY let me repeat EXTREMELY expensive to own and operate an automobile here due to fuel, insurance and commuting distances are huge with gargantuan and perpetual traffic jams, I am talking 1 hour commute to go 10 miles..how is that eh? And oh...public transport that gets your anywhere on time is virtually non-existent.
- Even dilapidated homes here in gang infested cess pools want half a million dollars for their homes that are little more than a size of a matchbox
- When you see the rents here in LA you will experience shock and awe and they are going up all the time, a 1 bd in a safe neighborhood in Orange County will run you around $1500-1600/month. You will need to pay $3000 just to move in and all apartments charge $50 application fees here too.
- The unemployment rate is just shy of 9% so don't expect to get a job and if you interview here the competition is intense. I am lucky I am in the tech field that is doing better.
- The last time I tried to buy a home, a 1200 sqft shoebox priced at $389,000 in a middle class area the property received 40 bids and it sold for $420,000. If you even tell your realtor that your budget is below $400k they will just laugh straight in your face because of how ridiculous your budget is and tell you that you cannot afford a home.
- LA's public schools are some of the worst in the country... you can research this!
LA does have it's positive points but what I am trying to portray here is that these types of problems exist everywhere...and Austin's problems seem trivial compared to some of the problems in the bigger cities.
I agree with this assessment. I live in LA now and it is the pits when it comes to job opportunities and rent. People here with BAs in rather relevant stuff make good money when compared to say Little Rock, AK but crap in comparison to the COL in LA. This becomes even more embarrassing when you compare the wages in Houston to LA, considering your money will go way further in Houston.
Austin is no cakewalk, I am not trying to downplay it but at this point I would be sitting pretty if someone offered me 35-40k in Texas. LA has really humbled me in many ways. I know a lot of you in Texas are sopping up the gravy from the good job market and ample job opportunities and would proly spit at such an offer but after dealing with jobs that offer NO security (layoffs all the time here), low pay when compared to the COL, high as hell rent for small old boxes, high gas and a significantly lowered standard of living, that would be heaven.
radio, my friend ... my sister has a BA, an MA, an MBA, and hours toward a PhD, but despite that, doesn't have much earning power in LA. Even though I think she performs a function that provides terrific value to society.
i don't want to discourage anyone who wants to succeed on the west coast ... but, i would like to encourage people to have backup plans, in case their initial enthusiastic notions don't work out. i wouldn't recommend idealizing Austin, either. It's been highly hyped for a number of years, so it is growing fast, there are no guarantees.
A guiding concept I've found useful is not to bet anything you aren't prepared to lose. In this context, one way to look at that is to say that the younger a person is, the more risk they can take on and still recover if they lose. The longer one waits to make changes, the less able one is to deal with the consequences if things don't turn out well.
redrocket2: from what (little) i know, you make good points. my sister lives in the south bay area of LA and even with a lot of college education, she is more limited financially than I would expect here in Texas. (This is in a medical-related field, but not as an MD). she absolutely loves the climate (lives in torrance), but the idea of retiring there is a real issue.
It is true, the climate is amazing but at what cost? At some point one has to draw the line and say this is insane, I mean... one can't pay close to a million dollars to live here just because the climate is good LOL!
Southern California has always commanded a heavy premium over the rest of the nation due to it's Mediterranean like climate, however now that premium has risen into the stratosphere such that only the rich and famous can afford to live here.
Of late, there has been a huge number of investors trying to buy apartment complexes and trying to jack up all the rents to make money. This type of thing should be banned, free market greed can only be allowed to go so far and should not be allowed to decimate communities in the process.
Even if you make a 6 digit income it can be very challenging to buy a nice home in a good neighborhood, that should tell you something! I mean very average homes in safe areas are selling north of $750,000, someone earning $100,000 cannot buy those!
Last edited by redrocket2; 01-21-2014 at 09:22 PM..
i hear you. i remember visiting my sister when she rented a house in the eastern part of Torrance (but still with that wonderful CA coastal climate). The houses were modest, but much better kept than houses in Texas from the same era. Of course, they probably cost 4 times as much now ($400K vs. $100 K, just a guess). The neighborhood seemed well-kept, but there were problems with neighbors that seemed to me to be more than was worth dealing with. The guys next door were ex-cons and had friends with loud motorcycles that visited at strange times. That's just one example; I don't wanta be overly judgmental, but it is hard to deal with neighbors who party all night in a neighborhood where homes now cost $500K.
Her new neighborhood is better, but the quality of construction and the square footage is pretty low.
Interesting thread... I live in Los Angeles area and when I read housing in Austin sucks I just about laughed my behind off. You have no idea what the situation is here in LA.
To summarize LA:
- Unless you are in a few select fields you will get paid crap, I know a lot of people in their early 30s, well educated with Bachelors degrees who get paid like $30-35k which is below poverty wages for what it costs to live here.
- It is EXTREMELY let me repeat EXTREMELY expensive to own and operate an automobile here due to fuel, insurance and commuting distances are huge with gargantuan and perpetual traffic jams, I am talking 1 hour commute to go 10 miles..how is that eh? And oh...public transport that gets your anywhere on time is virtually non-existent.
- Even dilapidated homes here in gang infested cess pools want half a million dollars for their homes that are little more than a size of a matchbox
- When you see the rents here in LA you will experience shock and awe and they are going up all the time, a 1 bd in a safe neighborhood in Orange County will run you around $1500-1600/month. You will need to pay $3000 just to move in and all apartments charge $50 application fees here too.
- The unemployment rate is just shy of 9% so don't expect to get a job and if you interview here the competition is intense. I am lucky I am in the tech field that is doing better.
- The last time I tried to buy a home, a 1200 sqft shoebox priced at $389,000 in a middle class area the property received 40 bids and it sold for $420,000. If you even tell your realtor that your budget is below $400k they will just laugh straight in your face because of how ridiculous your budget is and tell you that you cannot afford a home.
- LA's public schools are some of the worst in the country... you can research this!
LA does have it's positive points but what I am trying to portray here is that these types of problems exist everywhere...and Austin's problems seem trivial compared to some of the problems in the bigger cities.
I agree with you. Big reason me and my SO moved here was in hopes of me being able to find more work in my field (game development, Austin is 4th biggest game dev city in the country). I heard so many wonderful things about the job economy here and how it was blooming. Jobs being created by the hundreds day in and day out, stable working condition, all while the rest of the country's job market was falling apart. It sounded too good to be true, and count me as a sucker, I fell for it. Job market as crappy here as anywhere else I've been, but the media hasn't gotten the memo. People are still flocking here like crazy. Ironically I've seen nothing but recession since I moved here, not only in my industry but many others. Tons of company closures, mass layoffs (Dell just laid off a ton I heard). The competition is fiercer than ever and jobs are decreasing.
*also, jobs offer terribly horrific rates here. The median wage isn't catching up with the cost of living, amplifying that poor value for my money point I made. Entry level jobs in game dev here start 40-45k (for design, art, sound, engineering). That is a joke. That was the entry level wages in the last city I lived and the housing there was about 50% less. These jobs should be starting around 60-65k, but they aren't.
The housing is especially bad too. We were able to secure a good rental home, but we paid a premium for it, couldn't be picky, and generally jumped through as many crazy loops as you can imagine possible to make it work. It was a huge hassle! That aside, thinking of staying here and buying a home isn't sitting well for either of us. With people moving here like Austin contains the fountain of youth, the prices of real estate are soaring. I feel like the face value of my dollar is VERY poor when it comes to property here in Austin. Currently I would guess we could get a $250k budget for a home, but feel the most I can get with that here is a smaller 2000sq 3-4 bedroom house. Other places I lived that would buy you a 4+ bedroom 3000sq foot home with a big yard as well!
Lots of nice things to do here, but it's definitely not how the media describes it! Lot's of big problems that are a pain!
Last edited by the_grimace; 01-21-2014 at 10:08 PM..
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