[xeromal]

I make a decent salary as a programmer (150k) but my house only cost 250k and my mortgage is about 1400. How I see it, if I have to flip burgers to keep my house, I can pull it off. I can't imagine have a mortgage that's 10gs a month.

[jrs235]

>if I have to flip burgers to keep my house

Sadly it seems it's unlikely they'll hire you even though they might need the help that bad because they're afraid of paying to train you and then you leaving once something better, and in your line of work, comes along.

[xeromal]

I mean I just meant a low paying job. During COVID which even have more oversupply, I was bored and I was drive around doing doordash and other delivery services even though I had my tech job. There is always a surefire way of making one or two thousand a month here in the states if you're properly motivated.

[johnnyanmac]

You underestimate how bad the job market's been the last 2 years.

And no, 1k a month is under minimum wage in my state. It's not even covering my mortgage, which is much cheaper than rent.

[angoragoats]

Not sure what you mean. Job growth is continually rising, and unemployment continues to remain at historic lows (where it has been since 2021-ish). [0]

The job market is doing just fine, unless you’re in very specific areas such as the automotive industry or certain types of manufacturing.

[0] https://www.npr.org/2024/10/04/nx-s1-5140039/labor-market-jo...

[johnnyanmac]

These charts use "employment" in a very pedantic way. They don't look much at underemployment nor the shifts in proportions of salary ranges.

I believe they also count gigs. So I could run Doordash for under minimum and be "employed" technically.

The other dangerous thing is "averages". This is one of the special cases where you need to look at the lower quartiles. The average/median can look great, but if we have an entire quartile unable to pay rent we'd be in trouble as a whole.

[angoragoats]

To be clear, I was only responding to your first statement about “how bad the job market's been.”

You can click through to the BLS survey to read more about their methodology, but the job growth number of +254k jobs in September only includes payroll employees. And reading the report would tell you that they do, in fact, track underemployment (people who worked part time but would have preferred full time employment). And neither job growth nor the unemployment rate has anything to do with “averages.”

Can you provide any data to refute the numbers I shared? Because again, the job market is looking pretty good to me.

[mvdtnz]

For a lot of people this isn't possible. You won't find a liveable home in my country for under 600k.

[red-iron-pine]

Sounds like any major city in Canada.

Maybe Edmonton, and in not great parts. The parts that give it the reputation as "Stabmonton".

Rural is a different story -- seen some damn nice places for $300-400k CAD -- but rural Canada has its own challenges.

[xeromal]

For sure but that would mean saving for it is even more impossible.

[andruby]

I'm curious what country that is. Monaco?

How are housing prices in the neighbouring countries?

[mvdtnz]

New Zealand.

[andruby]

That doesn’t leave you with a lot of neighboring countries.

When you said 600K, did you mean NZ dollars or US dollars? If the former that would be about 360K USD.

On a median NZ income of NZ60K per year, that’s indeed rough.

Top 3 worst affordable according to claude.ai, behind Hong Kong and South Korea. The most affordable housing countries are USA, Germany and Ireland

[jokethrowaway]

And salaries are likely not 150k either

[firesteelrain]

> my house only cost 250k

I find it hard to believe you can flip enough burgers to pay that mortgage and still survive. Not many fast food places will pay over 30 hours a week to burger flippers. Managers yes. You would barely survive.

[JumpCrisscross]

> find it hard to believe you can flip enough burgers to pay that mortgage

To keep a $1,400 within the 28/36 rule [1] you need to make $60,000 a year. That's around the median wage for a fast-food manager [2].

[1] https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/twenty-eight-thirty-six...

[2] https://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/fast-food-manager-salary-...

[johnnyanmac]

Can I just walk in with no management experience and ask for a manager job anywhere?

[red-iron-pine]

Even fast food managers will want to know you've been slinging burgers for 2-3 years.

like it's not an amazingly complex job, but you can't just hire some rube off the street because he had a CS degree and knows a bunch of node.

[Izikiel43]

> I make a decent salary as a programmer (150k) but my house only cost 250k

I'm guessing remote work, or a high position in the midwest or some other place?

In SF/Seattle/NYC, 250K is not enough for a studio apartment.

[HDThoreaun]

There are tons of apartments for less than 250k in nyc right now, just gotta accept the bronx or maybe far out queens. https://www.zillow.com/new-york-ny/?searchQueryState=%7B%22p...

[attentive]

sure, ignore $1k-$2k/month HOA

[Grazester]

That is nonsense. That's more than enough to afford a studio in New York City. You can easily afford a luxury studio with a doorman and a pool making half of that!

[marcuskane2]

Is a "luxury studio" a real thing in NYC real estate or was this a joke?

The term itself sounds absurd and oxymoronic to me, but also I know NYC housing is absurd and I can imagine that there are places that do nice interior finishes on studio apartments and call them luxury so maybe it's real?

[Grazester]

A door man is considered a luxury here bud and an indoor pool is as luxury as you get.These apartments also include a patio, a washer and drier.

[johnnyanmac]

really depends on CoL and remote work and a half dozen other factors. My house is around the same mortgage but also twice as expensive in a suburb that is arguably the boonies. Even with the $20/hr miniumum wage for flipping burgers It'd be a tight fit after utilities and other payments.