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| ▲ | qurren 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I promise you not. Houses here cost $2M+ for something livable and $1M for something with mold and other safety issues. When half that $50K gets taxed, half of what's remaining has to be saved up for retirement in a place that deeply discriminates against age, you don't have much left to save up for buying a $2M house. | | |
| ▲ | skissane 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > half of what's remaining has to be saved up for retirement in a place that deeply discriminates against age, you don't have much left to save up for buying a $2M house. Buying a $2M house is saving for retirement. Owning your own home in retirement is a massive financial win. And if you own a home in an expensive market, you can sell it, buy one in a more affordable market, and then the difference is unlocked retirement savings. | |
| ▲ | onraglanroad 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Ok, I made my other comment before seeing this but I find it very difficult to believe you can't find something reasonable for far less. | | |
| ▲ | arjie 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It’s untrue. Unstated assumptions are the quality of housing desired and location desired. In practice, because of the rent/price ratio being low here in SF most people will be taking a downgrade when going from rent to 1.25x that as mortgage after putting down $300k for a $1.5m. It is true that the marginal rate can be very high, though, so heuristics based on pre tax income break down at these numbers. The place we live in costs $7k/mo but to buy it we’d have to spend $450k and then $9.5k/mo. | |
| ▲ | qurren 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Nah it's the reality here. I'd say minimum income to safely own housing here is $100K-150K/month. OR cash already saved for the home, in which case income doesn't matter. Yes, lots of households make that much, especially people at e.g. Nvidia with unvested appreciated RSUs. Yes, the US economy is that badly fucked. And the people on mortages were brainwashed into buying something they can't afford, and in for a foreclosure disaster when the economy corrects. | | |
| ▲ | polairscience 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | In every thread about housing people on HN post wildly outlandish claims about expenses that belie their totally out of touch perspectives. If you make 100K a month (the lower bound of what you just wrote). Let's say you put 25K into retirement. You eat out every meal so 4K food/living budget. That leaves 60K (I'll give you 10K slush fund for savings money or as a general keeping-up-with-the-jones' fund). 60K per month will pay a 4.5 million dollar mortgage. 4.5 million will buy you some of the nicest houses in the bay that aren't mansions. See: https://www.realtor.com/news/unique-homes/midcentury-modern-... You are either insane, or out of touch in a way that makes you insane. Of course, you can get a much cheaper very nice condo and "safely" squirrel away phenomenal amounts of cash savings. Expecting to own a high end house in a dense metro are on its own, is a pretty insane expectation. | | |
| ▲ | onraglanroad 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Thanks for your comment. It makes a little sense that the average person might struggle with costs in the US, but it doesn't make sense that the highest earners do. | |
| ▲ | nostrademons 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Don't forget taxes. In that bracket, in California, you're paying 50% of your income in taxes, and so $100K/month is actually $50K/month. I think OP is overselling the point, but not by nearly as much as people think. | | |
| ▲ | Symbiote 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | That's not how tax brackets work. The effective tax would be about 26%. | | |
| ▲ | nostrademons a day ago | parent | next [-] | | It's quite a bit more than that. I get total taxes paid of: Federal: 1240 + 0.12 * (50400 - 12401) + 0.22 * (105700 - 50401) + 0.24 * (201775 - 105771) + 0.32 * (256225 - 201776) + 0.35 * (640600 - 256226) + 0.37 * (1200000 - 640601) = 399938.83 State: 0.01 * 11078 + 0.02 * (26264 - 11080) + 0.04 * (41452 - 26265) + 0.06 * (57542 - 41453) + 0.08 * (72724 - 57543) + 0.093 * (371479 - 72725) + 0.0103 * (445771 - 371480) + 0.0113 * (742953 - 445772) + 0.0123 * (1200000 - 742954) SF property tax on a $4.5M property: 1.18268325% for a total of about $53,220.75 Total: about $493K for an effective tax rate of about 41%, assuming this hypothetical SF resident is single and just purchased their $4.5M property this year. | | |
| ▲ | Symbiote a day ago | parent [-] | | Sorry, I'm used to people quoting annual salaries and misread the GP. |
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| ▲ | qurren a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | No. There are many, many more taxes besides what your "effective" tax calculator reports. Every time it seems people have to come out of the woods to educate about "effective tax", but it's not really how it works, and it's how the system has poisoned people into thinking they are paying less tax than they are. Besides your tax return you have all these taxes: * Self-employment taxes: Lower-income people are usually 1099, and are typically subject to additional 7.5% tax * Sales taxes: Lower income people typically spend most of their dollars on sales-taxable items, so an additional 10%+ on post-tax amounts, which figures out to additional 15%-ish on pre-tax income * Health insurance: Lower income people typically have to buy their own health insurance, something that should have been provided by the country but isn't, and is effectively a systematic tax on everyone * Health deductibles: Insurance sold to lower income people doesn't even cover the first few thousand dollars a year, while higher income brackets pay close to zero deductibles. In many other countries "deductibles" isn't even a thing; they too are an effective systematic tax on lower income brackets fueled by the oligarchy of government and financial powers * Car registration fees: Registration really only requires paperwork done once; recurring annual "registration" is a tax rebranded as a registration * Property taxes: Even if you don't own, you pay them -- your landlord passes them through to you The list goes on and on. Taxes are split up like this only because there would be an uprising if they lumped it all together, so they split it up and tax you in pieces and chunks (April 15 is only one chunk) so that you think you're paying less, psychologically. But yeah, 50% is about the right number for that income. |
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| ▲ | toasty228 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's 2026 on a self proclaimed big brain forum and people still don't understand basic things like tax brackets... A sight to behold |
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| ▲ | qurren 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > 60K per month will pay a 4.5 million dollar mortgage A mortgage is NOT owning! So many people are poisoned by this propaganda promoted by American society and banks. They prey on the masses by infiltrating the public with this live-on-borrowed-money ideology. Your 60K/month may end NEXT month and become 0/month if you are subject to the next round of Zuck's layoffs, or you end up stack ranked and PIPed at Amazon due to internal politics. One of these things happen and poof you're in the 0th percentile of income. In the bay area, if you want a $4.5M home, you need to have $4.5M in cash or liquid assets. Period. Otherwise you're risking a foreclosure disaster if you accidentally say something wrong in a leadership update meeting, or if this AI heyday comes crashing down. Borrowing money does not mean you own something, and is a very American way of doing things. | | |
| ▲ | DontchaKnowit 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Pretty sure lending is common thw world over | |
| ▲ | tenuousemphasis a day ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Never go full crazy. | |
| ▲ | close04 a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | You’re playing with words here. Mortgages are considered ownership around the world. It’s only fair I throw a creative wrench in your idea of ownership then: eminent domain. You can never own something if it can just be taken away even if you are compensated. | | |
| ▲ | qurren a day ago | parent [-] | | > Mortgages are considered ownership around the world. Only because the people in power have successfully brainwashed everyone into thinking so. I don't care what brainwashed people consider it to be. I only consider it what it actually is. From first principles, it is objectively not ownership, if the bank has rights on it. | | |
| ▲ | em-bee a day ago | parent | next [-] | | i don't think this is helpful. it is pay towards ownership, whereas rent isn't. | | |
| ▲ | qurren a day ago | parent [-] | | I don't believe in paying "towards" anything. Either you buy it or you don't, in full. Anything else is financially irresponsible, unless you have the collateral but are only preferring not to liqudate. | | |
| ▲ | em-bee a day ago | parent [-] | | fair enough, but that's a different argument. and when it comes to a mortgage your alternative option is renting, and the worst case scenario that you can't pay rent or your mortgage is the same. it's not like a car where you have the option to do without, you can't do without a place to live. i am pro renting, but unlike a car loan i don't see a mortgage less financially responsible because you can almost always just repay the mortgage by selling the house, in other words unlike any other loan mortgage is unlikely to put you into a debt that you can't repay because the house is your collateral. (unless the housing market crashes maybe) |
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| ▲ | close04 18 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > I don't care Then don’t worry your pretty little fingers informing us of your uninformed opinion. You get what you give. You also cowardly avoided my last remark, or just have no idea what that is. Eminent domain says that your government can decide to take something you think you own, thus proving you don’t own it no matter where you put your name on it or how you paid for it. |
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| ▲ | kbelder 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You can't make many national judgements based on the economics of the Bay Area. It's much more sane in nearly every other area (with some other outliers, such as New York City). | |
| ▲ | tenuousemphasis 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | You're shifting the goal posts, but I'll bite... what is 'safely' owning a home, to you? |
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| ▲ | dwa3592 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I am not even sure if you are being sarcastic. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/80-Prentiss-St-San-Franci... check this out. | | |
| ▲ | mikestew a day ago | parent [-] | | Man, that's nicer than houses in Redmond for the same money (though the SF one is a touch smaller), and you won't get that view. Bay Area house prices are insane, ya say? |
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| ▲ | 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | burner420042 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Does the website reference net or gross monthly income? Edit: So the numbers are not a direct exchange rate to USD. Q: How were dollar values assigned to households?
A: The households’ door numbers represent the consumption values (US dollars) that each adult in the household has per month. This figure comes from a combination of the household’s self-reported consumption and income levels. We then checked the official cost of living data in each country to adjust the values for purchasing power parity (PPP) and converted the value into US dollars. Read more about how we assigned the Dollar Street values here. | |
| ▲ | jt2190 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The housing market is highly dependent on the job market so no, it’s not “being fussy”, it’s “I need to live here so I can have a job and income”. Unless you’re suggesting that people should quit their jobs and go get that cheap house in the middle of nowhere? | | |
| ▲ | onraglanroad 2 days ago | parent [-] | | What does the person who fixes your toilet do? Or prepares your meal? Or basically lives the Fight Club life? | | |
| ▲ | qurren 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | If they didn't tax everyone so damn much, it would work out. They fix the toilet for $200, I need to earn $400 to have that $200, and the toilet repair person gets to keep $100 after their taxes. $400->$100 in one go. Government keeps $300. Make that make sense. | |
| ▲ | aianus 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Depressingly, they bought a house in 1995 before the prices exploded. You need a 94th percentile income in Toronto to barely qualify for the average house. |
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| ▲ | jltsiren 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Its more about where you want to live. I'm not familiar with the situation in San Francisco. But in Santa Cruz, the cost to own with a 20% down payment is ~50% higher than the rent for the same unit. If you can't afford a substantially higher down payment, you're not really in the market for a home. With $7k/month after tax, you would probably be renting an 1br, or maybe a cheap 2br. But your income is not high enough to buy anything, unless you start looking for homes well outside the town. | |
| ▲ | qurren 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You're not going to save up for a $1-2M house very fast on $7000/month, when you also have to live off that $7K, pay rent, pay medical bills, and save up for retirement expenses. | |
| ▲ | drivebyhooting 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | If you’re gonna have kids, fussy means:
* have decent schools
* not covered in lead or asbestos
* not next to a highway | | |
| ▲ | qurren 2 days ago | parent [-] | | + * in an area not going to get shot or mugged * structurally earthquake safe so that we don't die |
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