https://www.quora.com/Do-software-engineers-in-Silicon-Valley-struggle-to-find-affordable-housing
No.
Only people who are bad at math think they can’t find affordable housing.
Most software engineers are not bad at math.
If you make $120,000/year, then $30,000/year is affordable. It’s about 42% of your after tax take home.
$2,500/month is approximately the median rent on a mid-peninsula apartment in San Mateo County.
That may not sound like “affordable”…
But that leaves you $42,000/year for non-housing costs.
Or $3,500/month to cover car payment, food, savings, and other stuff you want to spend on.
Which you will not be able to make after housing elsewhere.
If you are smart, instead of rent, you will pay a mortgage on a manufactured home.
You can get one of those — with 2BR, 2BA, marble countertops, wood floors, and stainless steel appliances for a mortgage around $866/month (or less) — within bicycling distance of Google — and have a bedroom to rent out to someone else to further reduce your costs.
That’s $10,392/year = $61,608/year = $5,134/month in disposable income.
And it’s closer to only 14.5% of your after tax take home for housing… which is pretty much a solid deal, anywhere in the U.S…
It’s only the people who are picky as a 5 year old with a just-out-of-reach booger, and who insist on living in San Francisco, who can’t find affordable housing.
I understand the drive to do this: all the other yuppie larva live in San Francisco, and you want to live there, too.
Don’t be a fool and insist on San Francisco, be prepared to think out of the box, and be prepared to buy something that on the outside looks down-market, and you can easily find housing.
Note that if you overpay * 4, you can still have about $2,500/month disposable — and own the place in 7.5 years, instead of 30 years.
Faster if you rent out the second bed/bath, and apply your rent to further paying down the mortgage — say 5 years.
At which point you can do a 1031 tax exchange, and buy a house worth $560,000, instead of one worth $230,000.
Only people who are bad at math think they can’t find affordable housing.
