Yeah, as someone whose salary has been around that amount recently (though at the moment it’s slightly higher) 110k is not at all poorly paid. You can have a very high standard of living for that much in a lot of places in the US; I’m in Philadelphia and consider myself very well off making that much.

As a single person or with a family?

Philly suburbs are quite expensive for housing. It seems about $100k to support a family is decent but not "very well off". I image that extra $10k could make a big difference. A single person making that (or a dual income family around $200k) would certainly be well off.

I was single at the point when I was making around that much so that’s probably the only fair comparison I can make. You’re right that a family on just that income would be tighter. Between my girlfriend and I right now we’re definitely not making $200k though and I still feel pretty comfortable. No kids yet though :)

Philly suburbs can be expensive (although that’s not universally the case) but Philly proper is relatively affordable.

I guess it depends on where in Philly and the suburbs you want to live, and it's tough to go apples to apples given that most of the suburbs are detached sfh with a yard and most of the stuff in the city is attached and have little to no yard.

In either case, it's $300k+ to be in a decent neighborhood for about a 1500sqft house. Cheaper than many cities, but more than smaller cities or rural areas. And anything with land is outrageous ($500k+). And property taxes can be high.

It really seems to be a tale of two cities. On one hand, housing can be affordable for the people making six figures, but on the other we have the highest extreme poverty rate for any big US city (not sure if that's still the case, but was a few years ago).

Yes, that’s true - it’s not affordable for a lot of people who live here, because a lot of people who live here are very low-income. Seeing $100k described as “poorly paid” felt weird for just that reason though. By the standards of just about everyone I know outside of my cushy tech job, $100k from a single job is extremely privileged.

Slight aside on yards, front yards are typically out of course, but I was astonished when I visited one of my coworkers in South Philly and he had a sizeable backyard behind his rowhome. Don’t know how common that is, satellite imagery is too low-res to tell, but I see a decent number that look like they’re 1/3 of the lot!

Also, perhaps my standards are skewed - walkability and bikeability are pretty important to me, which means I’d want smaller lot sizes anyway. Big SFHs on big expensive lots aren’t so appealing as a result :)

Yeah, I agree that $110k is decent and the median for devs.

Most of the yards are small - a couple hundred sqft. So maybe we have different preferences for yards. I have fruit trees, a garden, bees, playset, etc. That takes up a lot of room. The garden alone is about the size of many of the yards I've been to in Philly.

Yeah, walkability isn't great here. I don't feel safe biking on any road. There are quite a few cyclists around though, so it can be done (bunch of stores within 2-4 miles).

I hate how expensive land is around here. I'd love 10+ acres. Rural areas are much cheaper.

That’s the direct tradeoff you make though - if you want to be near other people (which typically also means being where the jobs + interesting things are), you get less space. If you want more space, you can go live somewhere rural, but everyone else around you also gets more space, so there won’t be much nearby.

If you want a lot of space and to be near a lot of people, you’ll have to pay more. You’re basically paying to have more than your neighbors at that point.

(That aside, if you want that much land, why haven’t you moved to a more rural area then?)

I don't really care to be that close to thar many people. But I do need a job, which is why I moved here.

"That aside, if you want that much land, why haven’t you moved to a more rural area then?"

My wife won't go for it.