Are you from SV? There are plenty of affordable places to live in SV. Just because everyone is talking about how SF is sooo expensive, does not mean you can't live in Berkeley/Oakland/East Palo Alto/other areas.

I'm from Santa Clara, and "affordable" is an extremely relative notion. Silicon Valley itself isn't much cheaper than San Francisco. Berkeley, Oakland and East Palo Alto are not in Silicon Valley. And frankly, they're not as cheap now as they were even 18 months ago. It's still possible to get a one-bedroom apartment for $1000 a month if you look around hard enough, but it's almost certainly going to be small and old.

The big issue is that right now, $1200, even $1300 a month for a one-bedroom apartment in this area would seem quite reasonable, even a bargain. That's banana crazypants. In Sacramento you could get a two-bedroom, one-bath place with all the amenities for under $900 a month without looking too hard. That means that if you were able to telecommute three days a week -- maybe even just two -- it would cost you less to live in Sacramento and take the Capitol Corridor train in to San Francisco on your office days than it would to live pretty much anywhere in the Bay Area.

I'm not advocating that (the thought has clearly occurred to me, but I have too many friends here in SV to want to make getting to them that difficult), but I think it points to a genuine problem with the local economy. The median housing costs across the Bay Area show an implicit assumption that everybody is making Big Tech Money, but they're not -- and some areas are starting to get too expensive even for the people who are making top dollar. This just isn't a sustainable mix.

East Palo Alto isn't in Silicon Valley? It's close enough to the Google campus to bike from.

Hmm. I think I'd have to agree with you, actually, not just for the bike proximity. :) I've thought of Silicon Valley as running from Mountain View down toward Los Gatos -- the actual geographic Santa Clara Valley, essentially the South Bay region -- but it would certainly make sense to consider Palo Alto the northern end of it, given the importance of the city and Stanford University to all things silicon (literally and figuratively).

I'm a student in the Deep South, and getting out to the Bay Area is a dream of mine. Here's to hoping the price comes down in the next couple of years.

Don't listen all the whining. When I moved to San Francisco in 2008 to work on a startup, I rented a small bedroom in a house with an immigrant couple for $450 per month. If you want to make it work, you'll make it work.

Also, I'm from the south, so feel free to contact me if you need any advice. I've been there; done that.

It's not that bad if you're willing to split a house or apartment. And if you're working for BigCo, affording a place won't be hard. 100K is a lot.

Sure, if you get a 1 bedroom apartment =/

There are plenty of places with decent rooms you can rent for $800-1000. I paid $825 for my old place in South San Francisco (20 min commute to SF). It was a 2300sqft house shared by 3 others.

Renting just a room isn't always feasible, depending on how much baggage you have in both the literal and figurative sense. When I moved out here 11 years ago from a one-bedroom apartment in Tampa Bay, I did indeed rent just a room from a friend -- and I had to sell a lot of furniture. I've since bought new furniture, and I would not be particularly inclined to give it up. I realize this is my choice, but it's one that you're more likely to face once you get into your 30s (or at any point if you get a family, of course).

And, I think my larger concern about prices still stands. That $825 a month could get you a 1BR place with W/D included in many other cities. Actually, it could get you at least a 1BR/1BA place with W/D in many other cities, and we're not talking "middle of nowhere" type places, either. There are still certainly reasons to live in the Bay Area rather than those other places, but we're paying an awful lot for the privilege.

SV = technology region. SV != actual valley.

Just like Wall Street != actual street.

This is how the media and public use the term SV.

Have you looked at SF rents lately? A studio is $2,000+, and a friend just moved into a two bedroom apartment for $4,750/month.

Well, going by Craigslist you can find 2BR places for less than that -- but it doesn't look it's easy to get much under $3000, and the median seems closer to $4000. I suppose Silicon Valley is still a relative bargain, in the sense that the third or fourth most expensive place to live in the country is cheaper than the first most expensive. :)

SV != SF. East Bay -> SF, especially near BART is easy enough. East Bay -> SV is ... may as well be Portland ... Maine.

SV = technology region. SV != actual valley.

Just like Wall Street != actual street.

I do it every day.

Me too. Forty minute drive from Oakland to Menlo Park.

I would be troubled by the thought of spending 80 minutes each day trapped in a steel cage. That's 400 minutes per week, or about 300 hours per year just sitting in traffic.

Even if SV were the best place to be an engineer, it's hard to imagine it being worth sacrificing 300 hours per year.

A 10 minute commute is 25% of that, which is 75 hours per year, which is still a lot. But for me, there is a huge psychological difference between a 10 minute commute vs 40.

Is it worth it? What are the benefits?

Cutting commutes up into hours per year doesn't seem all that useful. Lots of stuff takes up what sounds like ridiculous amounts of time if you look at it like that. I'd rather look at it in terms of your day.

If you plan to spend 8-9ish hours actually working, and another 10 per day on sleeping, eating, shower, and other such necessities, that leaves about 5 hours of real free time. A hour and a half a day of commute time is a pretty solid cut into that. 20 minutes of commute time is hardly noticable. Personally, I'd sooner take the 10 minute commute and have that mental seperation between work time and off time than have an extra 20 minutes a day and work at home.

I've done a not-quite-so-bad commute, Seattle to Redmond, only 20-40 minutes on the way to work, 50-70 minutes on the way home. I found it soul-crushing. Most of the wait on the way home was in the line to get on the freeway. I became a worse person, unwilling to let other cars merge in, always assuming the worst of other drivers.

Currently I have a 20 minute pleasant bus commute to work, and I wouldn't go back to that commute. For me, it wasn't worth it.

You drove from Seattle to Redmond? Why would you do that to yourself. (Assuming you're talking about MS) why wouldn't you take the 545/542/Connector?

For about six months I commuted from south San Jose to Mountain View. It was a fucking nightmare. I will never in my life live in a situation that requires such a commute.

Of course, now I live in the midwest and am hating the weather. My commute? Not so bad. But I miss the weather.

I came to the conclusion last time I was visiting SV that Northern California actually has terrible weather, everyone there just calls it 'traffic.' ;)

Commuting from Berkeley/Oakland to SV is not fun.

Yeah, they are practically laying out the red carpet for tech transplants. http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/01/23/google-engineer-...

east palo alto ? are. you. serious ?

East Palo Alto Struggles to Remain Affordable for Low-Income Residents [http://www.kqed.org/a/forum/R201401171000]

It's not 1995 anymore.

If you write code or do something meaningful in tech, the money and housing will come in SV. If you are reading hacker news, you probably are planning on doing something of the sort.