Author Topic: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley  (Read 6420 times)

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Offline CatalinaWOW

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #25 on: June 29, 2018, 02:29:34 am »
I'm not going to advocate van living, but you are selecting all of the worst possible conditions.  A similar approach would make living in conventional housing look pretty horrible.  (Maintenance always required, can lose everything in earthquake/fire/flood, stuck with bad neighbors, horrible taxes, crime in some neighborhoods is a problem, noise or smell from a nearby fixed site......)

Many young folk eat out every meal.  No penalty in a van.  If you are out hiking, biking, partying whenever you aren't working the inability to stand up is not a penalty.  If you park in a good place noise, fumes, kids vandalizing and all those other problems go away.  And in much of the Silicon Valley lack of air conditioning isn't an issue.

In my mind the most significant problem with van living is the limited toilet/bathing facilities.  But there are options there also, so it is not like you have to defecate on the street and go without showering.  Those who do that are lazy or otherwise impaired.

It is certainly no worse than living on board a boat, which is an option many people idolize.  It isn't a desirable option for everyone, but certainly not guaranteed to drive someone insane or anti-social.
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #26 on: June 29, 2018, 05:48:49 am »
I suspect it’s like the old owning the boat mantra though. The best two events when you own a boat:

1. The day you get it.
2. The day the insurance pays out after it caught fire mysteriously.

I nearly owned a house boat about ten years ago. Something clicked in my head which pointed me to the fact that it’s like owning a trailer on a holiday park with the added bonus it could sink at any moment.
« Last Edit: June 29, 2018, 05:52:15 am by bd139 »
 

Offline nanofrog

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #27 on: June 29, 2018, 07:10:42 am »
If intended for an extended period of time, I'd opt for an RV and park it in an RV park. That way you've electricity, potable water, and facilities to empty the waste tank included in the site fee.
 

Offline Kjelt

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #28 on: June 29, 2018, 08:44:06 am »
Buying a house has its risks.
Here in our country we had a long time that you could 100% mortgage the houseprice, so no downpayment.
The interest rates were compared to today also high like 6%. Average normal houseprice here is around €250000-300000. Since the mortgage was tax deductable it was popular to have a mortgage where you do redeem the loan so you could keep on deducting the tax fully every year.
This means a mortgage of €1200 per month net and €800 bruto after tax which is quite doable.
When the economy plummeted the house prices dropped many people lost their jobs or got worse salaries and it stated to collapse since the banks got nervous. It was not as bad as in the US but still a lot of people got hurt really bad, their house which were bought for 300k forced auctioned at 170k (seen that in my close circel) nothing you could do about it, resulting in a lifetime debt of 130k with nothing to show for.
These were the not so really bad cases some people took a three to five time bigger hit since they gambled to buy a really expensive house and hoped their incime would rise and the prices of the house also.
Today everything has stabilized again with prices returned to before the collapse but young starters here can not afford to buy a house so there is still a lot of tension.
 

Offline CJay

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #29 on: June 29, 2018, 09:22:18 am »
I suspect it’s like the old owning the boat mantra though. The best two events when you own a boat:

1. The day you get it.
2. The day the insurance pays out after it caught fire mysteriously.

I nearly owned a house boat about ten years ago. Something clicked in my head which pointed me to the fact that it’s like owning a trailer on a holiday park with the added bonus it could sink at any moment.

Oh I dunno, I know a couple who have owned a houseboat near Henley and lived in it for 30 years or more now, they seem perfectly happy...
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #30 on: June 29, 2018, 09:28:21 am »
Those aren't really house boats down there i.e. not narrow boats, widebeams, barges etc. They are top notch houses built on top of large flat hulls :)

Some of them aren't even movable.
 

Offline CJay

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #31 on: June 29, 2018, 09:39:00 am »
True, their housboat is larger than my 3 bed Semi-detached and considerably more well appointed.
 

Offline Yansi

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #32 on: June 29, 2018, 10:38:42 am »
Reading this thread just makes me sad.  :(
 

Offline Jeroen3

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #33 on: June 29, 2018, 10:51:36 am »
Back in the day, the companies initiated building of entire suburbs to house their employees.
However, capitalism struck and this is only rarely initiated by companies anymore.

Example of this is Philipsdorp in Eindhoven (netherlands). Back in 1910 the Philips factory required so many employees, and since people weren't able to commute very far, they build an entire suburb.
But my village also has suburbs built to house employees of the steel company that used to be there.
 

Offline CJay

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #34 on: June 29, 2018, 11:10:36 am »
The house I own is one example of that, the entire area was built so workers could live close to the factories, lots of cheaper terrace houses and for the slightly better paid workers, semi detached houses with gardens.

The factories in the area made printing presses, gauges, aero engine parts, grinding wheels and lots of other heavy industrial machined parts, progress means we now have a retail park  >:(
 

Offline bd139

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #35 on: June 29, 2018, 11:22:39 am »
Further progress suggests you won't have a retail park for long!  :-DD
 

Offline schmitt trigger

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #36 on: June 29, 2018, 02:34:53 pm »
Back in the day, the companies initiated building of entire suburbs to house their employees.


Fordlandia, anyone?
 

Offline ajb

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #37 on: June 29, 2018, 06:26:20 pm »
Back in the day, the companies initiated building of entire suburbs to house their employees.
Unfortunately company towns rarely (never?) turned out to be a great deal for the employees in the end.  A more broadly effective solution is probably to build out effective mass transit that increases your feed-in radius to the central metropolitan area.  Actually that works both ways, because companies can establish themselves on the outlying areas and rely on feed-in from the metro or other suburbs, especially if your transit system provides solid cross connections. 

Unfortunately transit is hard and expensive to get right, and most importantly, requires much longer-term thinking than a 2-6 year political cycle really encourages. 

The bigger problem is the down payment.  This is typically 20% and $200k is a lot of cash. 
20% down is conventional wisdom, but in reality it doesn't make any sense for a lot of people, especially people who are renting will saving up to buy.  Sure, 20% means you save some money on mortgage insurance and interest, but delaying a purchase while you save can cost a lot more than you save.  Using numbers from a more sane market where a house costs $300k, putting 7% down instead of 20% means you pay something like $20k in additional interest and PMI.  But taking, say an extra three years to save up that additional 13% costs you something like $60k in rent, after which you have exactly zero equity to show for it--plus you have to consider the fact that any cash sitting around is constantly losing value due to inflation, and you've lost three years of potential appreciation of a major asset (until the housing bubble bursts again anyway), plus you've locked up a big chunk of money that you could have kept liquid or invested in something with a better return.  In a more expensive market, those numbers all go up, but in silicon valley they're of course going to be just stupid compared to anywhere else.
 

Offline CopperCone

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #38 on: June 29, 2018, 07:08:59 pm »
Back in the day, the companies initiated building of entire suburbs to house their employees.
However, capitalism struck and this is only rarely initiated by companies anymore.

Example of this is Philipsdorp in Eindhoven (netherlands). Back in 1910 the Philips factory required so many employees, and since people weren't able to commute very far, they build an entire suburb.
But my village also has suburbs built to house employees of the steel company that used to be there.

this is what you call a mining town.
 

Offline CopperCone

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #39 on: June 29, 2018, 07:11:11 pm »
I'm not going to advocate van living, but you are selecting all of the worst possible conditions.  A similar approach would make living in conventional housing look pretty horrible.  (Maintenance always required, can lose everything in earthquake/fire/flood, stuck with bad neighbors, horrible taxes, crime in some neighborhoods is a problem, noise or smell from a nearby fixed site......)

Many young folk eat out every meal.  No penalty in a van.  If you are out hiking, biking, partying whenever you aren't working the inability to stand up is not a penalty.  If you park in a good place noise, fumes, kids vandalizing and all those other problems go away.  And in much of the Silicon Valley lack of air conditioning isn't an issue.

In my mind the most significant problem with van living is the limited toilet/bathing facilities.  But there are options there also, so it is not like you have to defecate on the street and go without showering.  Those who do that are lazy or otherwise impaired.

It is certainly no worse than living on board a boat, which is an option many people idolize.  It isn't a desirable option for everyone, but certainly not guaranteed to drive someone insane or anti-social.

I think boats are a bit bigger then vans and their more designed for living in.  A van is designed to transport shit.

When people think of boat living, something the size of a van just does not come to mind. Thats like living in a row boat. A house boat is like a trailer. You would at least need some kind of more advanced van, box truck, airport transport to have some sort of connection to talking to people about living in a boat.

Even a house boat considered small (say 300SQ FEET) is 3-4 times larger then a decent van. I think you have confused a van with a bus. You can't tell me 4 times smaller is the same. And you can have a desalinizer on a boat to supply you fresh water, enough room for pumps to run a shower or a sink, so at least you have the privacy of some plumbing. I don't know how they handle shit.

Plus you can tell coworkers that you have a house boat, its not thing to be ashamed of. Their seen as cool, you can brag about your sea navigation skills, etc. If you start telling your bosses that you live out of a van guess who won't get promotions. It's not socially acceptable unless your like a low tier employee. I don't care what anyone says it will lead to discrimination. People will joke about it. Its one step up from a shopping cart. Even if you brag how much you saved up you will be labled a miserer.

It goes between :

Boat:
 I can sail down this beautiful canal to look at the sunset and sleep in a place you can't go on foot. If its clean around the boat you can even go for an ocean swim in the morning. You are part of a boat community too.

Van:
 I am good at skulking around walmart parking lots and I have gained high knowledge of where the police patrols are most dense. I never shit in the same place twice. The skillset you acquire from van life seems remarkably similar to hobo skills. I don't give a shit but some people are just gonna make this association and you can get socially fucked.

Trailer:
 You can say you don't find the real estate market reasonable but I like living like a normal person.

I think there are serious social, environmental and health hurdles to overcome living in a van. Not to mention you will just be automatically characterized as some kind of junkie, fiend, deviant etc if you live in a van by certain people who certainly have a guiding hand in most companies.

I don't care anyway. Just saying it might be counterproductive to corporate progress, social standing (not social life), psychological health. Also cops will consider you suspicious. If there begin to be weird crime in your area like serial killer, burglar, rapist, you better believe the guy in the van is gonna get some attention. It's just how it is.

I mean the house boat is kinda shady too, but your not quite as mobile and I think people feel more at ease around them then vans. You can't exactly blend in so well. \

And then the last thing you want that your explaining to your employer that you were late  because you had to talk to detectives about a serial rapist. I also think their notorious for drug dealing.
« Last Edit: June 29, 2018, 07:44:28 pm by CopperCone »
 
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Offline Rick LawTopic starter

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #40 on: June 29, 2018, 07:46:02 pm »
I'm not going to advocate van living, but you are selecting all of the worst possible conditions.  A similar approach would make living in conventional housing look pretty horrible.  (Maintenance always required, can lose everything in earthquake/fire/flood, stuck with bad neighbors, horrible taxes, crime in some neighborhoods is a problem, noise or smell from a nearby fixed site......)

Many young folk eat out every meal.  No penalty in a van.  If you are out hiking, biking, partying whenever you aren't working the inability to stand up is not a penalty.  If you park in a good place noise, fumes, kids vandalizing and all those other problems go away.  And in much of the Silicon Valley lack of air conditioning isn't an issue.

In my mind the most significant problem with van living is the limited toilet/bathing facilities.  But there are options there also, so it is not like you have to defecate on the street and go without showering.  Those who do that are lazy or otherwise impaired.

It is certainly no worse than living on board a boat, which is an option many people idolize.  It isn't a desirable option for everyone, but certainly not guaranteed to drive someone insane or anti-social.

I think boats are a bit bigger then vans and their more designed for living in.  A van is designed to transport shit.

When people think of boat living, something the size of a van just does not come to mind. Thats like living in a row boat. A house boat is like a trailer. You would at least need some kind of more advanced van, box truck, airport transport to have some sort of connection to talking to people about living in a boat.

Even a house boat considered small (say 300SQ FEET) is 3-4 times larger then a decent van. I think you have confused a van with a bus. You can't tell me 4 times smaller is the same. And you can have a desalinizer on a boat to supply you fresh water, enough room for pumps to run a shower or a sink, so at least you have the privacy of some plumbing. I don't know how they handle shit.

With boats, you have to dock it in a marina - that means fee or rent and it wouldn't be cheap in that area.  You can part it at Walmart with RVs and cars.  See this NY Times article, "untold thousands of motorists [are parking there]":
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/14/us/walmart-parking-rv.html

Not only do people like spending the night there, (no joke) they like dying there too:
"growing number of people around the country who drew their last breaths in Walmart parking lots...  ...They include those who are homeless, truckers, immigrants, drug-addled, suicidal or ill..."
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/fl-reg-ap-dead-bodies-brevard-walmart-20180624-story.html
 

Offline schmitt trigger

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #41 on: June 29, 2018, 08:03:33 pm »
CopperCone;
Your description about Van life is hilarious, but sadly very true.
« Last Edit: June 29, 2018, 08:05:14 pm by schmitt trigger »
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #42 on: June 29, 2018, 08:22:50 pm »
Didn't Simone Giertz used to live on a boat?

There are also a few who live in airplanes!
http://www.airplanehome.com/
I see a huge appeal for those in RF - the cargo versions are especially close to perfect Faraday cages to begin with!
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Offline Seph.b

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #43 on: June 29, 2018, 08:27:39 pm »
I'm not going to advocate van living, but you are selecting all of the worst possible conditions.  A similar approach would make living in conventional housing look pretty horrible.  (Maintenance always required, can lose everything in earthquake/fire/flood, stuck with bad neighbors, horrible taxes, crime in some neighborhoods is a problem, noise or smell from a nearby fixed site......)

Many young folk eat out every meal.  No penalty in a van.  If you are out hiking, biking, partying whenever you aren't working the inability to stand up is not a penalty.  If you park in a good place noise, fumes, kids vandalizing and all those other problems go away.  And in much of the Silicon Valley lack of air conditioning isn't an issue.

In my mind the most significant problem with van living is the limited toilet/bathing facilities.  But there are options there also, so it is not like you have to defecate on the street and go without showering.  Those who do that are lazy or otherwise impaired.

It is certainly no worse than living on board a boat, which is an option many people idolize.  It isn't a desirable option for everyone, but certainly not guaranteed to drive someone insane or anti-social.

I think boats are a bit bigger then vans and their more designed for living in.  A van is designed to transport shit.

When people think of boat living, something the size of a van just does not come to mind. Thats like living in a row boat. A house boat is like a trailer. You would at least need some kind of more advanced van, box truck, airport transport to have some sort of connection to talking to people about living in a boat.

Even a house boat considered small (say 300SQ FEET) is 3-4 times larger then a decent van. I think you have confused a van with a bus. You can't tell me 4 times smaller is the same. And you can have a desalinizer on a boat to supply you fresh water, enough room for pumps to run a shower or a sink, so at least you have the privacy of some plumbing. I don't know how they handle shit.

With boats, you have to dock it in a marina - that means fee or rent and it wouldn't be cheap in that area.  You can part it at Walmart with RVs and cars.  See this NY Times article, "untold thousands of motorists [are parking there]":
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/14/us/walmart-parking-rv.html

Not only do people like spending the night there, (no joke) they like dying there too:
"growing number of people around the country who drew their last breaths in Walmart parking lots...  ...They include those who are homeless, truckers, immigrants, drug-addled, suicidal or ill..."
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/florida/fl-reg-ap-dead-bodies-brevard-walmart-20180624-story.html

In many places house boat moorage is not covered under tenet laws. Because of this many places have huge hookup and disconnect fees, like $30k each huge. It can be very risky financially to live in a house boat. 
 

Online BrianHG

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #44 on: June 30, 2018, 01:09:43 am »
Didn't Simone Giertz used to live on a boat?

There are also a few who live in airplanes!
http://www.airplanehome.com/
I see a huge appeal for those in RF - the cargo versions are especially close to perfect Faraday cages to begin with!
Close the window flaps on this guy and this one is a perfect Faraday cage:
 

Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #45 on: June 30, 2018, 01:19:56 am »
Didn't Simone Giertz used to live on a boat?

There are also a few who live in airplanes!
http://www.airplanehome.com/
I see a huge appeal for those in RF - the cargo versions are especially close to perfect Faraday cages to begin with!
You had to slip one of your internet girls in.  ::) Obsessing over things isn't healthy. Have you considered getting some outside help to deal with it?
 

Offline rstofer

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #46 on: June 30, 2018, 02:22:48 am »
20% down is conventional wisdom, but in reality it doesn't make any sense for a lot of people, especially people who are renting will saving up to buy.

FHA loans could have a down payment of just 3.5% if there are any lenders crazy enough to grant them:
http://www.fhahandbook.com/blog/fha-down-payments-definitive-guide/

The borrower's credit score needs to be pretty spectacular and even though we met those requirements, no loans were offered with less than a conventional down payment.  This was a couple of years ago.  No bid deal, I just reused my VA Loan and made the 20% down payment on the portion that wasn't guaranteed by the VA.  Lenders LOVE to underwrite VA loan!  They are protected from loss on the covered amount.

The loan market is loosening up again.  'Liar Loans' are making a comeback and the next housing crash is just around the corner.

The biggest mistake the .gov made was removing the capital gains tax on short sales.  This allowed people to walk away unscathed and, in my view, prolonged the misery.  They still had jobs, they were just under water on the mortgage.  A couple of years later they would have been in good shape.

As to living on a boat, a 40' sailboat in Alameda at one of the marinas that allows liveaboards isn't a bad way to go.  Jack London Squre is just across the estuary, San Francisco is a short ferry ride away and the commute to Silicon Valley is not all that grim.  I had a 30' sailboat docked there for about 20 years (I have forgotten when I sold it!) and the slip fees would still be under $400.  Phone service and cable TV is available, WiFi is also provided.  My workshop wouldn't fit and my computer room is much larger than the interior of the boat.  I would have had to downsize considerably.  OTOH, sailing SF Bay is a lot of fun!  I always thought of the boat as a hedge against unemployment.  I could rent out my house for enough to make the mortgage and the slip fees.

Never needed to use my backup plan...

« Last Edit: June 30, 2018, 02:36:23 pm by rstofer »
 

Offline NiHaoMike

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Re: Salary & living in high tech silicon valley
« Reply #47 on: June 30, 2018, 02:58:37 am »
You had to slip one of your internet girls in.  ::) Obsessing over things isn't healthy. Have you considered getting some outside help to deal with it?
Out of the entire list of shows I watch, she's the only one I'm aware of who once lived on a boat. She's also quite famous - in fact, in my list, only one individually-run show has more viewers.

And actually, I prefer girls who know how to make things work. I do acknowledge, however, that making stuff that doesn't work (well) has comedy value.
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