You can trigger compliance effects with a can of soda. Of course there needs to be a correspondence in magnitude, but it's not really about the absolute amounts.

Much less than 6 months of a mortgage in Seattle, no? Or have I been spending too much time in New York?

Don't forget that this offer is for employees in the fulfillment centers, most of which are in areas with very low cost of living.

Ture - this would buy a lot in Iowa or Nevada.

Not in MK or Bedford which are the two bigest towns near the UK's main distribution hub

$833/month mortgage gets (I think) about $150k for a 25 year fixed rate loan.

It's not impossible to get a home for $150k in Seattle, but your choices are very limited.

Rents have been skewing much higher than mortgage costs for some time. I'd guess it's 2-3 mo. of rent, max. In silicon valley it might be 1-2mo.

But people often don't think rationally that way (and definitely not all the time). A large lump sum may seem bigger than it actually is. Which is why sales folks often try to peanut butter the costs over a range ("it's the cost of one coffee a day for a month!")

Are rents higher than mortgages on comparable properties in SF and Seattle? In NY the mortgages are even worse.

For the curious, 4 results:

http://www.redfin.com/city/16163/WA/Seattle/real-estate#!max...

I'm guessing for many people at amazon it might be two months salary.

$2500 a month is 30K. The average warehouse worker at Amazon is around $25K (1), so the temptation might be there for them. For engineers, that amount is not likely to be considered.

1 - http://money.cnn.com/2013/07/30/news/companies/amazon-wareho...

n.b. the vast majority of Amazon warehouse workers are not actually employed by Amazon; it is unlikely that they ever get these offers.

However the offer is for warehouse workers, not for engineers.

But it is for warehouse workers employed by Amazon - which isn't many of them.

Yeah, agreed, this is for their warehouse employees, not their software developers.