Unpopular opinion: I grew up near NY and now live in bay area. Wife and I (no kids yet) are considering buying a house. It seems to me that for all the complaints about how expensive RE is around here, its actually a lot cheaper compared to major metros factoring in tech salaries. You spend ~1-1.25MM for a 1000 sqft starter home in both places for a 30 min - 45 min commute In NYC that’s prob going to be a - condo in a high rise. - HOAs are a lot higher. - smaller sq ft - co-ops can have dodgy financial structures In bay area its likely to be - a small house or a condo in a condo complex - a bit larger - patio and outdoor space - no co-ops Most importantly large tech cos have more headcounts for good paying jobs (300k+) in BA. I’m betting that once you progress to mid career level there are more jobs here that pay large enough salaries to afford kids, schooling costs, and a larger house. What are we missing? household tc 350k
happy to hear you’re feeling good
Trains are better in NYC e.g. subway to Queens vs BART and CalTrain. MetroNorth to Connecticut vs ACE to Stockton
I think you’re right. But consider that most people in the Bay Area aren’t NYC transplants, so their baseline expectations are different. For the money, most places in the USA will get you a much larger, much nicer single family home. And I assume international markets vary, as well. It’s all about perspective.
You should be looking at cost per square ft, since that’s the standard. Public transit blows in the Bay Area. The biggest issue is that you can’t just ‘buy’ a house here. Any reasonable area to live in will get at least 5 competing offers. Generally you’ll get one that’s all cash. You also can’t get a mortgage for more than the appraised value of the house. So if you bid is higher than the value then you are legally obligated to make up the difference in cash.
Yeah it was offer driven for a long time. But this year on zillow at least you can see some price cuts wrt original list price from sep-dec 2019
? why is it hard to understand you get a bigger space here compared to nyc for less money
NY easily has more inventory (bigger and denser)