Which state should I move to, Portland, OR, Salt Lake City, UT, Seattle, WA, Austin TX, or Denver, CO?
Here’s a background about me: I’m Chinese American. I have a few years in Software Engineering and looking to transition to sales engineering and/or product management roles. I grew up and raised in NYC basically my entire life and I’m looking to relocate for a better quality of life while I can earn more and save more (reason I don’t want to stay in NYC and neither want to go to SF due to cost of living) A couple of things I choose these location is one of the followings: * Great weather all year long and amazing national parks around the local area. (I love hiking) * Tech Job Opportunities (I’m looking to grow my career into the sales engineering and product management path) * Opportunity to make higher income while saving more money and taxes. * Opportunity to house hack (not looking to pay high house mortgages that SF and NYC currently has) * Looking to build a real estate empire Questions: * Do anyone have gone through a similar situation and would love to share? * How would you rank those states to live and work towards the FIRE (Financial independence and Retired Early) path from 1 - 5 (most prefer and least prefer)? * Any thoughts you can comment on this post?
Phoenix Az Lower COL Than anywhere listed and higher QOL.
Weather not so great
Except for summer, AZ weather is prefect especially if one wants to hike.
Based on what you are saying I think SLC is the choice. You have great access to mountains (most of silicon slopes is right on the mountains, and moan/Zion is a short drive). Here's the biggest win though - property is still cheap in utah and the rental market is insane. Very easy to CoC positive with minimal risk. Utah is full of Mormons who have 5 kids each. They all want to stay here. 10 years ago there weren't enough jobs, now there are. Byu and other local universities cause rent prices to fly up. Right now you can buy a house where you can rent out the basement for $1k/mo and the top level for $1300k/mo and it will only cost you 250k. The property market will drop at some point, but because of the aforementioned points, UT is insulated. Plus there is little room left for development in the salt lake valley. You will have abetter ability to jump from tech company to tech company in other markets, but Utah has great access to hiking (silicon slopes is in the mountains, Denver is a 1hr drive to mountains) and great (low risk) real estate options. The downsides to SLC are limited tech job hopping and poor air quality
don’t austin has better RE opportunities than SLC? the mountains is not like a must but would be a bonus to me
I haven't check the Austin market. It likely has higher upside than the UT market. The UT market I would argue is safer. Depends what you want. You can also start in UT at a lower price point. Austin has a better tech presence, especially for large companies. The 'large' companies in UT are companies that have 3-4b valuations or smaller offshoots of Adobe, eBay, snap, FB or google
If you wanna be in sales engineering your compensation will be tied to the business. Salt lake and Portland do not have that many businesses but Denver probably does and is central enough for traveling.
i’m curious why a lot voted austin and seattle the top 2. Any comment on that?
There's only one place in America with great weather all year long: North California. It also has got great job opportunities, as do every other city in your list (Seattle, Austin, Denver, and a bit less in Portland and Denver). However, while income is high in NoCal, taxes and COL are also really high. BUT! Saving 30% of your income in California is worth more than saving 30% of your income in any other place. WA has no state income taxes, and that's a huge bonus, especially because it also doesn't have capital gains tax. Apart from that, WA is good for house hacking, since there's no rent control. Housing is expensive, though. It's going through a correction right now, but I don't know if it will be significant
are you from nocal?
I'm foreigner, living in Seattle WA.
RIP your dating life
what u mean?
Are you male? Single?
Austin has all the things in your list. - Almost every big Tech company has a presence there - the weather is great for 9/12 months(except summer and even that is bearable if you ask me) - Real estate market is good. Very affordable to buy a house in TX - Low COL. No state income tax - Happening city life with a large young demographic (because of UT Austin) The one thing lacking in Austin is the mountains. Although there is still lot of activity in the city like kayaking, hiking, etc.
👍🏾you live in Austin too? Just moved here and fucking love this city. A little hot, but fucking beautiful
I actually live in Dallas which is a 3 hr drive from Austin. But will be moving to Austin in a few weeks. Yeah Austin is amazing. Wait for one month and you will love the weather from Sep - April.
Any idea how the public schools are in Austin?
Austin and Dallas have some of the best school districts in the country. I am including the suburb cities also here
Denver or Boulder. Forget Austin — too crowded, too edgy, too... something. The Boulder area will give you Google, Uber, Amazon, Microsoft, Salesforce, Workday, SendGrid, Carbon Black, Splunk and so forth. Weather isn’t a cakewalk, we have winter, but it’s not like fucking NY. The snow will melt the next day. Also, 300 days of sun. You’ll get an amazing skiing experience, crazy hikes during the winter and several fourteeners. I’ll never leave Colorado.
I didn’t know that boulder has so many tech companies. Are these Tech/corporate offices? Or only for sales, customer care, etc?
1. Austin 2. Seattle 3. Denver 4. Salt lake city 5. Portland Austin and Seattle are the only 2 cities in your list which have a significant Tech presence. If it were not for Seattle’s gloomy weather it would be the perfect city to live in.