slantvaliant (Forum Supporter) said:Countercounterpoint: There are 1.4 Billion people who live in China, up from 1.1 Billion in 1990. Must be something there people like, even more so than the Bay Area.
As much as the Chinese government tries to put limitations on it, people like doing that everywhere.
As long as they are paying you 2.5-3x what you would expect to make remote/ then absolutely do it. I love many parts of California.
I've lived about 25 miles South of San Jose for the last 20 years. We bought a big house with a 3 car garage but I pay for that with a longer commute. Traffic sucks, but it's a trade off for living in a less crowded area. Find out if you can WFH or work a flexible schedule to miss the worst of the commute. I've also been WFH 2-3 days a week for the last few years.
Getting out of town is a PITA on Fridays and coming back is a PITA on Sundays. The drive to/from Monterey is bad on the weekends.
I'd take a look at house rentals in the area and then ask your prospective employer to cover the difference between your house payment and the rent. If you haven't accepted the job ask if the pay is negotiable. They can't retract an offer if you ask to. It sounds like they are willing to work with you. Don't be afraid to ask.
If you'd like to talk send me a PM and I'll give you my number.
Do it while you can - the salary jump will stay with you the rest of your career! There is a lot of great things about CA to go along with the well documented costs etc.
slantvaliant (Forum Supporter) said:Countercounterpoint: There are 1.4 Billion people who live in China, up from 1.1 Billion in 1990. Must be something there people like, even more so than the Bay Area.
I've never been to China so I can't comment on what it's like to live there, but this is not a valid comparison. China is a nation with significant limitations on immigration, their population growth is due primarily to birth rate. The bay area is a region within a much larger country that has little-to-no interior movement control, so that growth is due mainly to people voluntarily moving here for jobs. I don't have any official stats, but I suspect the birth rate here is lower than average -- the local school districts keep complaining about enrollment being low and wanting to close schools, for example.
In reply to 84FSP :
Assuming you keep the same career. And it may limit you - Milwakee isn't going to pay San Jose money.
I was born in California and lived there for the first few years of my life, 90 percent of my family lived in the Bay area too, none live there now and are all estatic that they've left. Capitola was great as a small child, we lived across from a park, very close to the sea and there was a community garden close by. They built over most the cool places now.
Without getting political I will say there are some oddnesses about the laws in Cali, remember that it's pretty much illegal to work on your car in your garage in Sacramento. Whether that mentality spreads or not is up for debate but that's kinda stunning.
As for price....from Wisconsin to the Bay Area you'd probably need 3x the salary you are taking now to break even from what I'm told. One person told me making 80k in San Francisco is like making federal minimum wage elsewhere, I'm not sure what that means in San Jose though. The same person said he wouldn't move back unless him and his wife made over 300k each because everything is expensive. Gas prices are over a dollar more a gallon than what you are probably used too even.
Personally I'd take a few day vacation in the area first and see if I liked it, it's not all sunshine and roses. In fact the thing I remember most about Capitola was the unrelenting fog every morning
Keith Tanner said:In reply to 84FSP :
Assuming you keep the same career. And it may limit you - Milwakee isn't going to pay San Jose money.
Exactly, and even though the number is inflated......your quality of life isn't really going up, it could actually be less even
Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:Keith Tanner said:In reply to 84FSP :
Assuming you keep the same career. And it may limit you - Milwakee isn't going to pay San Jose money.
Exactly, and even though the number is inflated......your quality of life isn't really going up, it could actually be less even
Yep, that was my point in my post on the first page. I looked at LivingwageMIT site mentioned on the first page as well. At least for my area, OKC, with a Journalism degree, I have a salary that beats the "typical" Architecture & Engineering salaries in my area. Only "Management" was higher, and only just.
I constantly get recruited, when I point out the salary, insurance, stock options, we typically end the conversation.
Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:Without getting political I will say there are some oddnesses about the laws in Cali,
"This site contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer."
remember that it's pretty much illegal to work on your car in your garage in Sacramento. Whether that mentality spreads or not is up for debate but that's kinda stunning.
Those laws only matter if anyone gives a damn about them. I worked on my car lots of places.
Beer Baron said:Antihero (Forum Supporter) said:Without getting political I will say there are some oddnesses about the laws in Cali,
"This site contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer."
remember that it's pretty much illegal to work on your car in your garage in Sacramento. Whether that mentality spreads or not is up for debate but that's kinda stunning.
Those laws only matter if anyone gives a damn about them. I worked on my car lots of places.
You are not wrong
Yea, what Beer Baron has said in both of his posts.
California is wildly diverse so anything you say about the culture is both true and incorrect at the same time; just can't generalize.
I'm a So Cal lifer but I've spent a lot of time in No Cal (San Jose, Santa Rosa, Davis, Sacramento, & Tahoe).
In terms of not working on your cars, I once grenaded the transmission on a RX-7 and left it parked on the street in a high end community for two weeks with the back filled with parts and a hole where the shifter should be...I received a British level polite note from the homeowners association saying "We think the car may not be operational. If this is the case, we would appreciate your letting us know when it'll be repaired or moved".
"may not be operational"...bhahaha, you can see ground where the fricken shifter is supposed to be.
IMHO, the higher wages offset all of the higher CoL except housing...the way to win playing California is to commit to it, buy a house, struggle for years and years until you've got it paid off and then you're totally set.
I just turned 57, traded up houses three times in my life, now have ~97% equity in my forever house, and it'll be paid off well before my kids start college.
Honestly, California hasn't been easy for me, I've had to work hard and live lean but it's looking really sweet at this point in my life.
Beer Baron said:"This site contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer."
OK, you win.
That by the way would be a great name for a book or documentary about the absurdities of California.
-------------------------------------
For those that are not aware, that is a law that states anything that can possibly cause cancer must have that label, and... any building or item containing anything that can possibly cause cancer must also have that label. Which of course, means the label is everywhere and on almost everything... which of course makes it almost entirely useless, and probably actually has the exact opposite effect to it's intent (e.g. desensitizing people to potential cancer dangers).
This is a pic I took in a parking garage. You may note that the air you breath contains the same things that are outside the garage (at higher levels of course)
RX Reven' said:Yea, what Beer Baron has said in both of his posts.
California is wildly diverse so anything you say about the culture is both true and incorrect at the same time; just can't generalize.
I'm a So Cal lifer but I've spent a lot of time in No Cal (San Jose, Santa Rosa, Davis, Sacramento, & Tahoe).
In terms of not working on your cars, I once grenaded the transmission on a RX-7 and left it parked on the street in a high end community for two weeks with the back filled with parts and a hole where the shifter should be...I received a British level polite note from the homeowners association saying "We think the car may not be operational. If this is the case, we would appreciate your letting us know when it'll be repaired or moved".
"may not be operational"...bhahaha, you can see ground where the fricken shifter is supposed to be.
IMHO, the higher wages offset all of the higher CoL except housing...the way to win playing California is to commit to it, buy a house, struggle for years and years until you've got it paid off and then you're totally set.
I just turned 57, traded up houses three times in my life, now have ~97% equity in my forever house, and it'll be paid off well before my kids start college.
Honestly, California hasn't been easy for me, I've had to work hard and live lean but it's looking really sweet at this point in my life.
I'm going to point out that you can do this anywhere... But the advantage that you have is you're now in your peak earning years, earning California wages and your expenses are about as low as they can be, as your largest expense (a home) is now limited to taxes and maintenance. At least until college tuition hits.
Thank you all for the advice, I really appreciate it!
I've wanted to leave Wisconsin my entire life but never got up the gall to really go for it until COVID times made me rethink my whole situation, so I'm under no delusions of getting a California salary in Wisconsin some time down the road. SWMBO and I ideally want to end up in the Northwest when we are really ready to settle down, and that's a lot closer to California than Wisconsin, so if nothing else this could be a fun detour on the way to the ultimate destination.
The offer is still very much in the negotiation stage, I'm expecting to get the first set of hard numbers on the relocation/remote compensation variance tomorrow. However I'm also keeping in mind that the job market here in Wisconsin sucks for what I do, and my earning potential is *significantly* higher in the Bay Area, so I'm evaluating the possibility with an eye to career growth opportunity too.
Obviously when I get and start crunching the numbers the goodness/badness of this idea will come into focus more clearly, but overall it sounds like I'd probably have a great time ripping around the Bay in a S2000 or Boxster for a few years. It's not like I can't move again if I don't like it.
Keith Tanner said:In reply to 84FSP :
Assuming you keep the same career. And it may limit you - Milwakee isn't going to pay San Jose money.
While I want to agree with you I have paid CA money for the right talent on multiple occasions in Ohio.
In reply to 84FSP :
So you would have underpaid them if they hadn't worked in CA? 
About Prop 65 - it's the lawyers. There's no real way to prove something can't cause cancer, and there are roving packs of lawyers looking to hit businesses with lawsuits for not having proper labeling. So the answer is to just put the warning on absolutely everything, rendering it valueless. We do it to protect ourselves even though we know it's stupid.
mtn said:I'm going to point out that you can do this anywhere... But the advantage that you have is you're now in your peak earning years, earning California wages and your expenses are about as low as they can be, as your largest expense (a home) is now limited to taxes and maintenance. At least until college tuition hits.
I did something vaguely similar with houses in the bay area (on my third currently and all of the transactions have been fortuitously timed in terms of good values when selling and not-low-but-less-crazy prices when buying). I'm not sure if it's still possible here though, even the starter condos have just about tripled in price since the late 90s when I bought one.
pointofdeparture said:Thank you all for the advice, I really appreciate it!
I've wanted to leave Wisconsin my entire life but never got up the gall to really go for it until COVID times made me rethink my whole situation, so I'm under no delusions of getting a California salary in Wisconsin some time down the road. SWMBO and I ideally want to end up in the Northwest when we are really ready to settle down, and that's a lot closer to California than Wisconsin, so if nothing else this could be a fun detour on the way to the ultimate destination.
The offer is still very much in the negotiation stage, I'm expecting to get the first set of hard numbers on the relocation/remote compensation variance tomorrow. However I'm also keeping in mind that the job market here in Wisconsin sucks for what I do, and my earning potential is *significantly* higher in the Bay Area, so I'm evaluating the possibility with an eye to career growth opportunity too.
Obviously when I get and start crunching the numbers the goodness/badness of this idea will come into focus more clearly, but overall it sounds like I'd probably have a great time ripping around the Bay in a S2000 or Boxster for a few years. It's not like I can't move again if I don't like it.
If you have been looking to get away from Wisconsin for awhile it changes things, at that point it just depends if you like the area then and can make it work financially.
Have you ever been to San Jose? It sounds like you've lived in Wisconsin your whole life from your posts, if so I would definitely take a little vacation to San Jose and see if you like it first as it's hugely different from Wisconsin
Word of warning about the CA Bay Area. It can simultaneously be one of the best and worst places to live. The good things are great, the bad things are awful. But everyone is different. The good things might carry a lot of weight with you, while the bad things might not be that important, and you would love it. Or it could be the complete opposite for you.
The good- one on the nicest places on the planet to live geographically. If you are an outdoors person, it's a dream. Amazing roads, perfect weather- and if you don't like the weather that day, you can change it with a 45 minute drive. Lots and lots of stuff to do, everything is here.
The bad- everything is expensive. Traffic can be bad if you get the timing wrong. Crime is high and rising. Schools are bad and getting worse. Fires suck, and even those far away can have an impact. Cars are particularly expensive. Gas, high registration cost, insurance.
I'm sure you are aware of the politics, so not going to put it in the good or bad column. I'll just say they are either love or hate for most people with an opinion. Cities can vary greatly politically if you have a preference.
California is great for young, poor people who enjoy being young and poor in CA a lot more than they would enjoy being young and poor in a state with less to offer. California is great for those who have a good income and aren't struggling to build wealth. California isn't great for those in the middle who are trying move up, buy their first home, and can't get a high paying job. It sound like you are at the high paying job part, so you would just need to decide on your cost of living- proximity to work factor. The closer to San Jose the more expensive. The longer you are willing to commute, the less expensive. This is actually rapidly changing due to Covid. With so many people working remotely, the prices in the suburbs have been driven up.
Keith Tanner said:About Prop 65 - it's the lawyers. There's no real way to prove something can't cause cancer, and there are roving packs of lawyers looking to hit businesses with lawsuits for not having proper labeling. So the answer is to just put the warning on absolutely everything, rendering it valueless. We do it to protect ourselves even though we know it's stupid.
And that's sort of my point about most of the things that non-Californians complain about CA. Most of it is just stupid details that don't matter. You get weird stupid rules everywhere. California probably has more weird stupid rules than other states, but it also has a much bigger population and a higher concentration of wealth with more types of industry. All that added together means you're bound to get more absurdity.
The things that *are* genuinely problems with the state are ones that most people don't really understand. Like Prop 13 - which caps property taxes once you buy a house. I could go into the major problems that has caused for the state. (It's a very non-partisan issue.)
One data point: We live in a rural area in Maryland. The farm house next door to our farm house (so, about 1/4 mile down the road...) just sold and I happened to see the new owners unpacking one day as I drove by, so I stopped to welcome them to the neighborhood. Turns out they had just moved here from...NorCal. They were tired of the cost of living, the fires, and the fact that it never rains. They homeschooled their 2 kids- because the schools there were terrible. They paid 25K over asking on the little farm house and think they got a steal.
In reply to Beer Baron :
The Prop 65 thing isn't that it's a stupid rule, it's that it's effectively being enforced by lawsuit. The simple matter of being hit by a lawsuit - not the result - is expensive enough to make it really punitive. It's a guilty until proven innocent situation.
There's a feel to coastal California. It seems to be where the draw of the American Dream is strongest, and everyone is hustling the hardest for it. It's stronger in SoCal but even NorCal has a flavor of it. It's all about leveling up, about reaching that level of lifestyle (or attractiveness, or media attention if you're in the LA area) that you can see all around you. Whether this is good or bad depends on your view of the American Dream :) Do you put in your time to hopefully bootstrap your salary for the future and boost your career? Or do you make your life choices depending on other factors?
Desert California is a different place. It's where the people who don't want other people around and who want to do weird things without being bothered go. The line in the LA area is around Lancaster, which is why I stay in Lancaster or Mojave when I'm in the LA area for business. Also, it means I can meet people on Angeles Crest without having to go through LA traffic :)
Beer BaronThe things that *are* genuinely problems with the state are ones that most people don't really understand. Like Prop 13 - which caps property taxes once you buy a house. I could go into the major problems that has caused for the state. (It's a very non-partisan issue.)
I don't see any issue with Prop 13. If you drill down on the numbers you'll find that more houses sell often (thereby resetting the taxable value to current) then stay long term.
But there is a MASSIVE loophole that needs to be closed. And it has nothing to do with residential real estate. It has to do with the way commercial real estate can transfer between owners. Rather than sell the property they sell the company that owns the property. As far as California sees it the same owner owns it so no tax reset.
But the loophole will never be closed because Prop 13 is the third rail of politics in California. No one will touch it.
In reply to 67LS1 :
I'm also looking at the effect that has had on municipal revenue. Property taxes are a major source of revenue for cities and counties. Whether people are still selling houses, it definitely cuts the revenue local government needs for things like surface roads, schools, police, fire departments, etc... (And I still think Prop 13 disincentivizes selling. Doesn't mean people don't sell. Just that they are less *likely* to.)
My grandfather was a city councilman for West Covina when Prop 13 was passed, and they immediately had a dark room secret meeting about what that was going to do to the city. They moved around funds to build a mall in a way they didn't really have authority too because they knew the city was going to need the increased sales tax revenue to make up for a loss in property tax.
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