Tech job opportunity is the only reason to move to Seattle.
I can look out one side of my building and see the Google buildings going up. I think the weather depends on what is your normal. The bay area is nicer, but Seattle is still better than a large percent of the country. Many places have colder winters with more snow. Summer here is amazing and better than most of the bay area. There’s no fog and no 90 or 100+ heat. It’s 80 and sunny every day for about 5 months.
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Don’t promote Seattle until you buy…lol
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time to buy?
So let’s take 40%. Take home pay of 350K would be 210K. After all expenses can they save 150K?
The engineer can use the 150K as 50% down payment to buy a 300K house, every year. Do it for 10 years and BOOM! FIRE!
Assuming no vacancies and cash flow positive
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Soon. I think I’ve finally narrowed down where.
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Hope you find a good deal.
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This is a really great question. What makes this hard is that you’re starting off at 0, the point in the economic cycle we are in, and that you already have the wife and 2 kids.
I think the way to get to FIRE in 10 years is to bet hard into where growth will be.
- I would bet hard into certain secondary and tertiary housing markets, as soon as possible. Not even Seattle or Portland. I’m talking about the cheap places where the millennials will go. Not California or New York. Pick up homes at 100-150K a pop in years 0-5. This plan isn’t risk free.
- Minimize expenses hard in the first few years in order to enable 1. Live where blue-collar people live and do what they do. Buy a small primary where they buy in east bay (San Leandro or Vallejo 2 bedroom condo)
- Do some ad-hoc speculation in years 5-10.
What you’re betting on is 2-3x home value appreciation and also rental growth in next 10 Years.
I have shared my Austin numbers a dozen time, you have not been paying attention.
If you have kids you have to factor in schools. These places have bad schools and so our 350k SWE likely won’t live in.
Maybe better to spend 3k to rent a house in Cupertino. Buying in places like Cupertino works against one’s FIRE goal.
Honest question. Are Austin numbers better than Seattle?
That’s the thing, 350K swe has to be willing to live 50k lifestyle to get to FIRE. That means going to the same, “bad” schools that kids with parents of low income go to. You can’t have both. Going to good school in Cupertino means that expectations will adjust in 100 other ways too. You’ll be expected to pay for activities for kids, to donate to school, have a decent car to pick up kids in, clothe the kids nicely…now you’ve spent too much of your salary to have enough left to invest in getting to FIRE.
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No need to do that at all. Just dress badly and drive a beat up car and let those weeds grow sky high in your lawn. If neighbors complain, tell them to shut up or chip in for your expenses. Your personal FIRE is more important than your neighbors’ feelings… 
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Compute like 3-4 years ago, so no idea. The best I can do is put in my numbers for your review.
Below are the numbers for one Austin rental (you can search for more in this forum):
Bought last year for $285k
Rent out for $2250 per month (can increase rent by $25 to $75, you can do some sensitive analysis). Hence yield is about 9.5%.
Property tax $8660 for year 2017 (it will increase as price goes up, so far manage to increase rent to keep pace, so you can assume same as rent increase).
Insurance $1160 for year 2017
HOA $744 for year 2017
Property Management $2160
Minor repairs & maintenance - So far nothing, but it varies. I guess you can pluck in 0-5% of purchase price for the year (glance through all the houses none of them have more than 5%, usually 0-2%) for sensitive analysis.
Cap rate works out to be about 5.7%.
Use your preferred mortgage loan & rate, compute the cash flow 
My cash flow is 5%.
So far no vacancy, always renewed. In other words, PM is worth it (again, can pluck in 0-1 month for sensitive analysis).
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If have kids, FIRE may not be the priority. So is a theoretical one for BAGB’s eyes only.
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Property tax and insurance both so expensive. HOA too. And property management… 
What we care is cashflow not the component costs and rent. For Cupertino, yield is less than 2%… can’t get cash flow positive if purchase now.
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For #3, let’s say take home pay is about $160K/year after taxes/rent/food, the person can buy something like this in the bay area after 3 years of working (assuming price is more or less the same since multifamily appreciates slow):
Live in one unit, rent out the rest. Then a year later, buy a condo for $800K or so for appreciation. Pay off condo at the end of year 10.