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How do people afford to live in California?

Dural

Dural

Member
I took my kids to Disneyland in June and visited some of the places I lived as a kid in California, Carpinteria and Ventura. While showing my kids the area my wife looked up the prices of homes, the cheapest normal home she could find (3bed, 2bath) was $450,000 and it needed a bunch of work. I just looked the other day and now the cheapest is $750,000. There are mobile homes and apartments for cheaper, still expensive at $250,000+, but normal single family homes are outrageous. So my question for those that live out there, how are you able to afford the ridiculous cost of living?

Here is the search;

www.realtor.com

Carpinteria, CA Real Estate - Carpinteria Homes for Sale | realtor.com®

View 60 homes for sale in Carpinteria, CA at a median listing home price of $1,529,000. See pricing and listing details of Carpinteria real estate for sale.
www.realtor.com www.realtor.com
 
To be fare, I would make about double what I do now in California, but still have half as much.

I am in San Jose about 4 times a year, and love to visit, but no way in hell would I live there. Even though some of the salaries I have been offered look great on paper.

And fuck that traffic.
 
It's crazy out here, I'm in the thick of it. Lots of people I know buy a nice size home far in the middle of butt fuck egypt and commute. Traffic is hell though. I'd rather live in a shack with zero commute time then spend hours on the road just to get home and only use my bed in a big house.
 
Yeah, I hadn't been out there in 15 years and the traffic was unfucking believable. Even making double what me and my wife do now, I would put us in middle class, I don't think we could afford it. We just bought a house last year in northern Illinois for ~$180,000, this house in California (at least where I would want to live) would be over $1,000,000. That's more than five times what we paid, I can't fathom a mortgage payment like that.
 
Lots and lots of tech and hollywood dominating the space. When cost of living is higher, salaries are also higher. Still, you end up spending a larger percentage of your income on housing. The media wants you to believe it's some oppressive movement to keep people down. In reality, space is limited. Population is not. Supply and demand.
 
pffftt... custom-built 3b2b ~1,500sq ft. container home fully furnished for $200k in Texas. I've been offered jobs in California, looks nice on paper, but when you look at all the other shit you have to deal with, nah thx.

edit: i also work remote, so I don't have to deal with the commute.
 
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I quadrupled my salary from 5 years ago by moving to the Bay Area. While cost of living is stupid out here, and the idea of owning a house is a fantasy, it really helped me get to a better place financially. For instance a 5k credit debt on 36k a year salary is a lot harder hitting than 5k on a 130k salary. I don't plan on living here forever, but there's a lot to do, a lot to see, and hopefully I have a nice savings account and investments when I leave. The real dream is to find a 100% remote job so I can make Bay Area salary but move anywhere in the country.
 
You don't.

Massive mortgage payments for the rest of your life, or just rent eternally.

The less exaggerated answer is people get help from their parents to buy starter homes.
 
It's like living in São Paulo...

It fucking sucks.

Everything is expensive, the traffic sucks and we live like shit. And apparently it's a dream to many people.

Fuck this place and fuck California :P
 
lock2k said:
It's like living in São Paulo...

It fucking sucks.

Everything is expensive, the traffic sucks and we live like shit. And apparently it's a dream to many people.

Fuck this place and fuck California :p
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It definitely was at one time to me, I lived there until 11 then moved to N Illinois. Lots of good memories of living close to the beach and mountains. I had been out there since I was a kid, but not since I had a serious job and married with kids. The amount of people and the cost was shocking, pretty much killed my dreams of moving back with my own kids. I still love the Carpinteria area, still has a small town feel, but the only way I'd ever be living there is if I somehow came into a lifechanging amount of money. I can live with just visiting every couple years.
 
can't you just move into the hood like crenshaw, compton watts or inglewood, (whoop di whooo)?

We all know Califronia knows how to party

 
It took a lot of effort. It definitely isn't for people who will convince themselves they are better somewhere else, but it is still a land where dreams come true. Mine have.
 
godhandiscen said:
It took a lot of effort. It definitely isn't for people who will convince themselves they are better somewhere else, but it is still a land where dreams come true. Mine have.
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This is what I'm hoping to do. Born and raised in socal. Trying to live the dream. You're right that people have to do some mental gymnastics to pretend living in Texas or Illinois is anywhere near living in Coastal California. I'd rather live modestly in California than live in a mansion in some generic state.
 
I'm not trying to convince myself of anything. I know what it's like to live out there, I was born in Huntington Beach and lived in the SoCal area until I was 11 and loved it. My whole family on both sides are from out there, my grandfather still lives in Huntington Beach. It's just quite different from what it was like when I was a kid, hell, even 15 years ago when I was out there last.

N Illinois isn't so bad, I'd argue that even SoCal can't compare to the Midwest in Autumn. The leaves changing, the chill in the air, apple orchards with apple donuts and pumpkin patches. Winters suck, though I love snow at Christmas, and everything looks like shit when the snow melts through the end of spring when flowers bloom. The summers are ridiculous with the humidity, heat, and bugs. I'd choose Ventura County over where I live now, but the sacrifices to me wouldn't be worth it. I'd rather have the money to be able to see the world than live in SoCal and not be able to afford to go anywhere.
 
DFawkes said:
This is what I'm hoping to do. Born and raised in socal. Trying to live the dream. You're right that people have to do some mental gymnastics to pretend living in Texas or Illinois is anywhere near living in Coastal California. I'd rather live modestly in California than live in a mansion in some generic state.
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It's not a matter of mental gymnastics. It's a matter of preference.

What is good to you is not necessarily what is good for other people.
 
Dural said:
We just bought a house last year in northern Illinois for ~$180,000...
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As a Torontonian, that number is unbelievable. That's what a townhouse would cost here in the late 90s.

And we don't have palm trees.
 
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Ya, homes are pretty cheap here, on the flip side, property taxes are ridiculous. We just got our property tax bill and it's $6650 on an assessed value of $205,000.
 
DFawkes said:
This is what I'm hoping to do. Born and raised in socal. Trying to live the dream. You're right that people have to do some mental gymnastics to pretend living in Texas or Illinois is anywhere near living in Coastal California. I'd rather live modestly in California than live in a mansion in some generic state.
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I'm sure it's awesome, but there's pros and cons to everything. If you have a nice place to live and work, an awesome house, internet, great restaurants and bars around, it's not like you're missing all that much. Bands tour in most big cities. People that can save a bit more money also can travel easier than ever before and visit.

What things would you miss the most if you didn't live there?
 
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Well they're many reasons my Family used to live in California for 5 years and when I was born I lived there for 2 weeks until moving home in Louisiana. But just this March I went back and went to Disneyland, California Adventure Park and Universal Studios.

So reasons people can afford to live in California let's start off with the obvious reason

1.) They're filthy rich and so is the whole Family rich people can afford to live in Beverly Hills or Hollywood

2.) They were born and raised in California people born a Californian can afford to live out there as well

3.) They work very hard to get where they're hard work attributes more than you all think

4.) The whole Family lives out there if your whole Family lives in California chances are you'll be living there too

Thanks for asking this great question hope what I said helped you out 👍
 
My mother-in-laws shitty house in Alameda, CA is worth over a million dollars. I've told her many times to sell that shit and move to the south with us and live like a queen for the rest of her life. Cali has two distinct classes, the very wealthy and the rest. Oakland used to be a place many people could live reasonably and now it's been so gentrified that it disproportionately affects the poor, which results in really desperate people doing terrible things to survive. California is a dumpster fire of a state and am glad to be out of their. Final straw for me wanting to leave California was when a dude was shot dead painting a peace mural in Oakland, CA.
 
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Pagusas said:
People make more out there, do you think everyone makes a similar salary as you OP?
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I know people make more, but they're not making as much more as the home prices cost. I've looked on Indeed, the difference in wages for what I do is maybe 1.5x what I make while a comparable house to what I bought is 5x the cost. I couldn't understand how someone with a $150,000 job could afford to own a home out there. It seems like you'd have to make $400,000+ and I'm not seeing those jobs.
 
Dural said:
I know people make more, but they're not making as much more as the home prices cost. I've looked on Indeed, the difference in wages for what I do is maybe 1.5x what I make while a comparable house to what I bought is 5x the cost. I couldn't understand how someone with a $150,000 job could afford to own a home out there. It seems like you'd have to make $400,000+ and I'm not seeing those jobs.
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Look at FAANG engineers. They'll make ~$400-750k. Their salaries have fucked it up for everyone in Seattle as well
 
Fucking yuppies and corporate interests have also fucked over New York. I talked with multiple people about this, so it's not the story of one person.
 
Who knows, I find it interesting tho. it's part of keeping the dream up. When the winter rolls around California is going to look a lot more appealing than most Northern states in terms of weather.
 
EverydayBeast said:
Who knows, I find it interesting tho. it's part of keeping the dream up. When the winter rolls around California is going to look a lot more appealing than most Northern states in terms of weather.
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I dunno, burning things to stay warm sounds better to me than burning money to survive.
 
I really wanted to move to CA, but only affordable areas seem to be like an hour away from the LA area. It just seems if you are not bringing 200k or more home then you can't fully enjoy it. I told myself if I ever get rich I'll move to SoCal, now I'm just looking at closer states that's more affordable.
 
LeBronBelle8491 said:
Well they're many reasons my Family used to live in California for 5 years and when I was born I lived there for 2 weeks until moving home in Louisiana. But just this March I went back and went to Disneyland, California Adventure Park and Universal Studios.

So reasons people can afford to live in California let's start off with the obvious reason

1.) They're filthy rich and so is the whole Family rich people can afford to live in Beverly Hills or Hollywood

2.) They were born and raised in California people born a Californian can afford to live out there as well

3.) They work very hard to get where they're hard work attributes more than you all think

4.) The whole Family lives out there if your whole Family lives in California chances are you'll be living there too

Thanks for asking this great question hope what I said helped you out 👍
Click to expand...
You hyped me up bruh. I feel like a hard worker now. ❤️
 
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