[acchow]

TBH, when making $250k+ as many engineers in top bay area companies are, "standard of living" costs don't really affect you that much anymore... They don't take into account the luxuries of the exorbitant lifestyle you can afford. And there aren't really any other cities in the world you could move to where you can still just be a programmer and afford the same lifestyle (and still have a lot of money saved up every month)

[closeparen]

As a $250k Bay Area household, you are not even starting to scratch the position of a $90k (i.e. $50k accountant + $40k teacher) household in a Midwestern metro, i.e. comfortably afford to own a 3-bedroom in a pleasant neighborhood with good public schools and a sub-30-minute commute to the central business district.

The rest of the standard-of-living costs (food, toiletries, etc.) would be vanishingly small, but housing would still be a big deal.

[dx034]

A $250k household in SV with children will have very significant costs of living. It won't be that hard to get a comparable lifestyle in Europe while your children are living at home. Once they're at university, most jobs in a country like Germany will give you a comparable standard of living (if you support them financially).

It's not the cost of groceries that count here, it's healthcare, education, housing and pensions that can easily consume $100-150k more per year than in a German town of comparable size.

[acchow]

Stop trying to own. Just rent.

[closeparen]

Look at the volatility (and especially the upward trend) in the last ~20 years of rents here. Renting is a fine strategy if you accept:

- That your stay here is temporary, you will be priced out within a few years, and any lease renewal could be the one that necessitates a cross-country move.

- That until you reach that breaking point, your "anything but housing" budget will decrease rapidly as rents rise much faster than wages.

It's a fun thing to do in your early twenties when your only worldly attachments are a backpack and a laptop, but people are not AWS spot instances. I do not intend for my eventual children to be scheduled onto communities preemptibly.

Owning is desirable because even if the payment is a stretch, it can get no worse, so barring catastrophe, your life is indefinitely sustainable. Renting in any volatile market is a bad idea if you're looking for a stable, long-term home rather than a short-lived adventure. Of course, there's nothing wrong with doing some adventuring while young and single.

[schmichael]

This is generally terrible advice in the US. The tax breaks for ownership (mortgage interest + property taxes) is huge, and it is likely - although far from guaranteed - that your real estate investment will become more valuable over time.

Rent - generally - never goes down, you have no tax breaks, and you have no asset.

There are many lifestyle reasons to rent but few financial (in the US).

[mywittyname]

This has been argued ad nauseam, but there absolutely are financial reasons to rent, especially in cheaper regions.

My yearly rent is twice what the property taxes alone would be on the condos across the street. I considered getting one of them, but after doing the numbers, it didn't make since. After interest, taxes, maintenance, and HOA fees, there's no way these people are coming out ahead until they've been there 10+ years.

It's all well-and-good that some of that is tax deductible, but the standard deduction on a couple is still more than taxes+interest on a 250k loan. So it really doesn't matter unless you have many more deductions.

Now go from the mid-west to a west coast boom city, and you'd be a fool not to buy.

[Daishiman]

Realistically it's not a terribly relevant point for most engineers, even on the Bay Area.