[leesalminen]

It’s wild to me that someone making 300k/yr would want to live in an apartment building.

I’m assuming they’ll be constructed like every other apartment in the past decade with paper thin walls and little consideration for natural light.

I guess I’m the outlier but I would never consider living in one of those ever again.

[telotortium]

You would be hard-pressed to afford an SFH near Mountain View on one $300k/year income, unless you've worked for at least 5 years (probably more) to save up a down payment. Even then, that's the low end - any house you can buy with that income will probably be small (1500 sq ft max), built in 1960s at the latest, and in need of $100k-$200k of renovations to bring it up to modern standards. You might be able to buy a townhouse that's decently modern, but that will charge you $500/month in HOA for very minimal amenities (not even a pool in many cases).

With these options, unless you're starting a family and need the space, these apartments seem like a good deal for younger people working for Google. It will be priced to be within a Google engineer's budget and will have much better amenities than any SFH for sale that costs below $3m.

[leesalminen]

That all makes sense to me. I don’t live in California so I guess I’m just really out of touch with the housing situation there.

I guess if you really want to work for Google, and they’re moving away from WFH options, this is as good an option as any as you point out.

[juujian]

I would prefer literally anything else over living in a McMansion in a liminal suburb. Only thing they could improve is putting some mixed use/retain in there.

[leesalminen]

Different strokes for different folks I suppose.

I also dislike living in McMansions in suburbia, I’m more of a rural dweller type.

I’ve wondered if it’s an introvert/extrovert thing. Maybe it’s just unique to the individual with no correlated personality trait.

I get there’s trade offs to each living situation and we all just assign different weights.

[juujian]

It probably won't make you more extrovert. In studies, behavior has been pretty consistently found to be linked to personality and vice versa, so it's always tricky to differentiate the two.

[pkelly]

I think it is all about what you can afford close to your work. If you are early on in your career in the bay area you are very likely living in an apartment building. Maybe you get a few friends together and rent a house.

I've lived in both poorly built apartments and very nice new concrete walled ones where you can't hear your neighbors at all.

To your point, under engineered buildings are a serious concern. Ex: I lived in library gardens in Berkeley before they had the balcony collapse in 2015 which killed 6 students. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_balcony_collapse

[rcpt]

Would you prefer 3 hours of freeway commute instead?

[leesalminen]

I prefer WFH.