$698,000 for a 5 bedroom, 2.75 bath house on .24 acres!
So on Tuesday we learned that if you lived in Seattle, WA, that your grocery bill for a BBQ this Memorial Day weekend would be almost 17% less compared to here.
But then again, the food there is always soggy due to rain. Imagine, every meal you eat will be like oatmeal because they don’t have our amazing Californian sun!
For fun, let’s take a look at what $700k (the current median price in Santa Clara) buys you in the area where Amazon/Nintendo/Microsoft employees live!
REALTOR.com: Find a Home – Listing Detail
$698,000
5 Bed, 2.75 Bath
2,570 Sq. Ft.
0.24 Acres
Bellevue, WA 98005MLS ID# 27032724
Single Family Property, Area: Kirkland/Bridel Trails, Subdivision: Cherry Crest #3, Approximately 0.24 acre(s), Lot is 10400 sq. ft., Year Built: 1977, Single story, Basement, Fireplace(s), Hardwood floors
Wow, that’s a pretty big house!
And just for more fun, according to this cost of living calculator, if you make $100,000 in San Jose (practically the starting salary these days) and you moved to Bellevue/Redmond/Seattle WA:
Equivalent income in the city you’re moving to: $72,891.74.
You may take a 27.11% decrease and still maintain your standard of living.
So your groceries would be cheaper, your house would be nicer, and your general cost of living would be lower. And sure they my have tech jobs, Fry’s, schools, water, diversity, etc.
But ask yourself: Do they have El Camino Real there? Do they have the sun?
Accept no substitutions – accept only perfection: The Bay Area.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:07 am
I have a question, What’s a 0.75 BA???? Toilet, sink and garden hose?
May 24th, 2007 at 8:33 am
2.75 bath is a toilet, sink, and a cold water only shower.
May 24th, 2007 at 11:41 am
Also it doesn’t look like I see any shanty towns nearby or any broken cars parked out front. Where are the East Side gangs? Cmon burbed.. you’ve missed some of the most important ingredients that make the Bay Area special.
May 24th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
.25(sink)+.25(toilet)+.25(tub)+.25(shower)=1.0 bath
May 24th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
I don’t know if it’s included in the standard of living calculator, but there’s also no state income tax in WA.
May 24th, 2007 at 7:53 pm
Yeah… but what’s 9% of your income anyway? Chump change.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
You’re right, burbed, plus you get all those great CA services, like public schools, and… well, alright, they stink, but… I know there’s something we get in CA for that 9%… prisons! Lots and lots of prisons! And… oh! It must cost a ton to pay Arnold to be governor, and he’s probably got some back end deal in place, points, etc., so that’s gotta be pricey. I mean, who’s governor of WA? That’s what I thought, some nobody who probably’s never even been in a private jet, let alone starred in an overblown B movie. Stupid Washington. Rainy mossy godforsaken hellhole, that’s what that place is.
May 24th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
To be fair though, Redmond has a sky high sales tax. People I know from that area always complain about it.
Apparently, it’s 8.8%.
Unlike us in California. So… score one for us!
May 24th, 2007 at 9:12 pm
Of course, if the cost of living (and your salary) go down 30%, that $699K mortgage gets that much harder to pay. So what’s that equivalent price at our incomes? $1,000,000. So that house is the equivalent of a very nice ranch in Sunnyvale, or a 3/1 in Palo Alto…
We ought to be looking at the $490K houses in Seattle if we want a decent comparison to Santa Clara…
May 24th, 2007 at 9:37 pm
>>Of course, if the cost of living (and your salary) go down 30%, that $699K mortgage gets that much harder to pay.
That assumes that there’s a correlation between cost of living and salary.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2006/snapshots/PL5305210.html
Bellevue, WA
Top 100 rank: 21
Population: 117,100
Median family income
(per year) $88,342
Family purchasing power
(annual, cost-of-living adjusted) $57,514
Median home price $405,000
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bplive/2006/snapshots/PL0649670.html
Mountain View, CA
Population: 70,524
Median family income
Family purchasing power
(annual, cost-of-living adjusted) $46,220
(per year) $89,159
Median home price $663,000
So let’s assume you move from Mountain View, CA to Bellevue, WA and you got a median salary job. You’d make $817 less a year – but you wouldn’t have a 9% income tax, and you’d pay for cheaper housing.
But then again they don’t have the Boardwalk in Santa Cruz.
May 25th, 2007 at 9:28 am
If you wanted the California weather, you could always move to Milpitas. Average income goes up to $97K, and average house price goes down to $590K.
Makes me feel silly for living in San Jose when I could be raking in the big bucks and cheap housing just a few miles up 880.
Robert
May 25th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Yeah, but it’s milpitas.
May 25th, 2007 at 10:59 am
Please don’t inform them they are getting a bargain in DC as they are not! The Bubble sucks here too and we don’t need any more people moving out here to make it worse!