Here in North Texas, I make around 100k/yr, and due to cost of living I can squirrel a lot of that away. We have no state income tax, and our property tax, while high, isn't nearly as high as California's (and will vary depending upon which county you live in -- massively expanding counties like Collin will charge more than rural ones like Johnson).
With that income I was easily able to buy a ~1800sqft two story house in a good neighborhood. My total consistent expenses for each month are maybe 2/3s that of your rent, which includes non-consumables like mortgage, insurance, utilities, etc.
In all of this, of course, I don't have kids and my wife doesn't (currently) work. If your spouse does work, then your spending power here becomes so much greater.
Trust me. Get out. It's the best decision I've ever made and there's absolutely no fucking way I would ever live in CA again.
Erm...guess you don't count some of the largest metroplexes in the country as "cities", do you?
>when it comes to recreations, vacations, day trips, road trips
That's fairly accurate. We don't have a ton of touristy crap, but that's no big deal for me.
>Acceptance of LGBT lifestyles
Did you live in the country or something? Never seen a problem with it here. In any of the urban/metro areas it's no big deal.
>Very church oriented
So? I'm an atheist and I've never had any problems with it. You'll only find a problem if you're actively combative with people about it. Otherwise most people don't care.
>Low salaries, tech opportunities
Houston I can understand. But not Dallas. You must not be looking very hard is all I can say. Even when I haven't been actively looking I get hit up by recruiters all the time. Either that or you're in a very, very specialized field with very low overall demand. My salary has also been going up constantly, and with the cost of living I can live very comfortably with what I make (and I'm not even in the top parts).
>>That's fairly accurate. We don't have a ton of touristy crap, but that's no big deal for me.
I get what you're saying (though Texas definitely has a fair share of tourist traps). I think it's worth mentioning this is potentially a large lifestyle component for some (possible deal breaker too). The difference between California and Texas is vast.
Texas has extreme weather compared to the west coast and it should not be ignored. There is less geographical variety through the entire state, and what variety there is can potentially be very far (Dallas to Big Bend Park is an 8 hour drive!). If you enjoy the outdoors and outdoor activities and your only reference is California, you may be surprised in the summer when the temperature does not cool in the evenings like a coastal city (even on the gulf coast). The gulf coast water temperatures in the summer can be 90 degrees! A July beach trip in Galveston is not enjoyable and potentially deadly just from temperatures. No mountains or large points of reference can be dizzying. Living in an air-conditioned bubble for 8 months of the year can get frustrating. If you live in southern California, you can go from the beach to snowy mountains in the same day. You can drive an hour or two and be in some of the most beautiful coastal cities in the country, or wineries with some of the best wine in the country. You can go hiking in December without a jacket and you can go hiking in July and need a light coat. You can basically switch any month of the year and still be comfortable. Obviously there is some hyperbole in my examples but the main points stands.
It's worth mentioning that if none of that matters much to you, then you'd enjoy Texas a great bit. There is a ton of culture. Depending on the city, there is a mishmash of everything social you could want or imagine. Food is great and cheap (or expensive, they can suit any taste or appetite to spend money or not).
>Acceptance of LGBT lifestyles
>>Did you live in the country or something? Never seen a problem with it here. In any of the urban/metro areas it's no big deal.
I have a good friend who still cannot come out at work for fear of mistreatment - in the city. I agree that it's generally friendly and accepted in the cities but nowhere near the same as the west coast. I'm gay and I've lived in California and Texas and there is no comparison on the two in terms of acceptance. I would hesitate to hold my partners hand or come out to new acquaintances in Texas. Not so much in California (or the west coast in general). You may not see it but the pressures exists and the difference is real.
>Very church oriented
>>So? I'm an atheist and I've never had any problems with it. You'll only find a problem if you're actively combative with people about it. Otherwise most people don't care.
Agreed, I've never had problems with it, but it is more in your face. There are benefits to being atheist in Texas, travel is lighter and shopping/etc is much easier on Sunday mornings. I got asked what church I attend much more frequently. I've also witnessed more extreme views in Texas that I don't appreciate, but this is what shapes a person, so it's not all bad. One anecdote comes to mind: Driving to work at 7am and seeing a large line of people (maybe 100). Turns out they were all protesting abortions outside of a clinic. Normally I wouldn't think much about them but they held giant signs of unborn bloodied fetuses and encouraged their children to hold signs and yell violently as well (kids no older than 5, 6, 7). This scene affected me more than normal because a family member recently needed a late term emergency abortion which these people found despicable.
Anyway, I lived in Texas and found my way. I met some of my best friends there and know they will be there for life. I made do with hot and cold weather. I enjoyed the amazing food options and wonderfully low cost of living. It's central to the US so getting to the east or west coast is not a big deal. Airports are huge and you can fly a lot of places direct. I've seen some amazing storms in Texas, more lightning than I thought was possible, and some great sunsets.
I encourage people to keep an open mind about Texas. There are great people there and it offers a lot of opportunity, but it's not for everyone.
Texas seems so far behind when it comes to things like parks, transportation, and publicly available goods that coming to California is like a dream.
I'd happily pay more taxes to be able to have these things be available for everyone.
Been to a lot of very nice parks out here, nearly every city has one or more. Some of which are huge with large trails.
>transportation,
You might be confusing the Bay Area (or perhaps even LA) with all of California in general. I'm from San Diego originally. Public transportation there is a joke, plain and simple. BA and LA are both special in that regard.
>and publicly available goods
What is this?
You may make less money in terms of income in most other cities, but your retirement savings will grow a lot faster regardless. I work on a traveling/remote team. One of my teammates lives in Chattanooga. His 3 bedroom house with I think 2 or 3 aces of land put him back a whopping $200,000.
Can confirm. Founder in Chattanooga. About 13 of our people live here / TN.
Housing options (that appear) much better than in this thread with good public schools and sub-30 minute commute available. Specific ethnic communities may be harder to find.
Pretty great housing from $250-600k all over the place
Not that there aren't a lot of places in the country with good schools and affordable housing prices, but for a lot of people with kids schools matter as much or more than housing prices.
Contrary to apparently-popular belief (based on some other comments in this thread), the Bay Area is not the only place in the United States with ethnic-minority communities/enclaves, or the only region in the entire United States where "brown people" are not, apparently, shot on sight. Otherwise, how could there be articles about how "white" is on the verge of becoming a minority?
(I won't deny that the Bay Area is very, very liberal, but you're really in a filter bubble if you think it's the only one, or even remotely close to describable that way.)
Because the people writing those articles are full of shit.
Edit: there are other communities on the East Coast AFAIK, but I would be trading this for that.
There are a lot of Indians in Dallas; GP can come here. Or if GP doesn't want to live in a solid red state, there's always Millbourne, PA, which is over 40% Indian.
I'm only half jokingly considering becoming an off the grid hermit.
Also, If your commute is 30 min, then you are probably living around Fremont. Is the rent for 900sqft that high over there? This is touching SF territory.
Now it'll likely be a condo, not a single-family home (that'll be more, or further way, or not as nice) but it's doable for sure. Not in SF, but just outside (Oakland, Fremont, Daly City, etc)
What you can get will depend on what you can wrangle as a deposit but there are plenty of options if you can get 10% down.
Source: it’s what I did recently and I pay less than that for a 1300sq ft place in Oakland
There are some really nice places that show up in Rockridge that are reasonable and if you're ok with a little less nice of an area the NoBe area is good too. In Oakland you can do surprisingly well near Highway 13 in the foothills or nearish Mills College.
If you don't mind the commute (I would) then Pleasanton is affordable (just) for large single-family homes, but it's a long ass commute.
There's a ton in the Fremont/Hayward area if you're doing a South Bay commute tho, and that opens up Pleasanton a bit more too.
If you're already driving to work then look to neighborhoods nowhere near BART as reasonable proximity to that can add a 1.5-2x multiplier to the price.
Whereas I live in Oakland and door to door it’s about 45mins if I time it right.
So I’m not sure what your objection is. Working in a big city (be it SF, NYC, or London) means you’ll have commute time.
If you can save that much, it's not really 'squirreling'..
I'm also interested in REI, but not sure where the returns are in this market.
Like, tuck away the money to buy a place somewhere else? Or are you waiting for a housing correction?
California has a number of Asian communities, but depending on which culture you want... there are plenty of other cities out there.
Filipinos are basically everywhere in the USA as far as I can tell... Vietnamese and Koreans are a bit more rare but still exist in virtually every major Metropolian area in the USA (New York, DC, Austin).
A bit of exploration / tourism can go a long way. Visit other cities and look for a new home. Locals often can point you the way towards "Chinatowns" (even if they're mostly Vietnamese or whatever).
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1052-Montgomery-Ave-San-B...
Here's a 1200 SQFT 4 bedroom home in San Bruno for only 700k.
The fact is that you are looking at homes over your budget, especially if you haven't saved a sizable down payment. Yes it's worse than other areas, but there are a lot of opportunities for people here.
But yes, the OP should be able to easily afford it.
With his income, he can comfortably afford a monthly payment of $7,140.
My payments are insane, basically 4k a month. I'm able to get by because my wife works too so we aren't entirely living hand to mouth.
Since I bought in June, an identical condo in the same complex sold for around 600k.
It really burns when you consider that even in Sacramento you could probably get a full sized single-family home for what I paid...just at the cost of being further away from work.
I've been living in the Bay Area since I was 7, and I've almost been priced out of it. Does not feel good.
However..remember that buying a house does not save you rent. You become an owner, so either you pay rent to the owner, or you stiff him, which happens to be you.
Can you expand on what this means? Have you faced a lot of racism in SF?
being harassed and ridiculed endlessly for being non-white (i'm guessing asian or indian) somewhere inexpensive and 90% homogenous (white or hispanic or black) will produce extremely negative results, to put it mildly. dealing with racism on TV and in movies is one thing, dealing with it in real life is an entirely different proposition.
Don't get me wrong, my daily 30 minute commute on BART isn't the worst. The worst part is that I make $185,000-$238,000 (with bonus and all) and still can't afford to buy a home because I can't compete with other investors that have deep pockets filled with cash, not to mention buying a semi-decent home in a semi-OK neighborhood sets you easily back by $850K-$1.2MM. It's insane! The best I'm able to do is to pay for a $3550/mo rent and tuck away as much money as I can while providing for the wife and kids, which isn't the cheapest.
Anyway, thanks for reading. Back to work.
Edit: Armenian. Also, I'll check myself, there are others in far worse financial/living condition in the Bay Area. Comparatively speaking, I have it easier than most.