Relocation to Bay Area?

[Sarah_Rose]

DH interviewed for a job last week; he was originally interviewed for this company's Seattle office, but received a call today that he would be receiving a job offer for the Bay Area (would rather not say what area because I don't want to make the company too obvious). The recruiter asked him to get back to her with some ideas of the compensation he would want to relocate.

Can anyone from that area give us an idea of what type of salary we would realistically need to live there? What about affordable areas (if any!) to live? Seattle is expensive, but we know that the Bay Area is much worse. We have our own home here, but have only been in it for 6 months and home sales aren't exactly booming, obviously. We're trying to figure out how much it would be worth for us to sell at this point.

DH has a good job here, so we wouldn't want to move unless it was worth our while. I would love to live near San Francisco... but I do also love Seattle. We have no family and only a few friends here (have only lived here for 2 years) and I am a new SAHM (with a 4 week old) so I don't have a job to leave, myself.

What would you do if you were in our shoes? How much is realistic to request for compensation to relocate? I have to think about this practically and stop just thinking, "6 hour drive to Disneyland!"

 

[Luv Bunnies]

The Bay Area is definitely a very expensive place to live! A lot depends on which city you choose to live in but prices all over are generally very high. I live in the South Bay Area (about 50 miles from San Francisco). A 4-bedroom, 2 bath house on my street just sold for $850,000! Three bedroom homes are priced in the high 700s. Our neighborhood has held its value pretty well. Other neighborhoods are less expensive and prices have dropped in the recession. A three-bedroom home in my parent's area (about 7 miles from us) is in the low-mid 600s.

You may want to look at some realty websites for the exact area you're interested in. That will give you some idea of how much houses cost and what your monthly payment might be. Then you can figure out how much your DH would need to make to cover the house payment and other expenses. You might even call up a local realtor and chat with them.

 

[bekkiz]

We moved from the Bay Area to Seattle area 4 years ago. It is much more expensive, depending on what areas you're looking at (much like Seattle). There are pockets of affordable places, although the closer you get to San Francisco, it's harder to find. Redwood City/San Mateo/Burlingame/San Carlos have both nicer and not as nice parts, but are places I think would be good to live in. We lived in Los Gatos area, which I loved, but we rented which is the only way we could afford it!

I don't know how old your kids are, but really research the school districts as well as individual schools. Quality varies wildly. There's also a ton of private school options, and a lot of people choose that route.

But just to compare, my friend just sold her goregous brand new house in Phinney Ridge (3500 sqft) for just shy of a million. They bought a really nice house in San Carlos (I think closer to 300 sqft) for 1.5 million. San Carlos is nice, but not as nice as Phinney, and certainly a similar house in San Francisco would be like 4 or 5 million.

 

[minniecarousel]

The South Bay Area, in general, is probably more expensive than the East Bay. But there are parts of both areas that you wouldn't want to live in. Lots of people in my area commute to both San Francisco and north San Jose. I have lived in the East Bay since I was a child and know the area very well. If you want to PM me with specific questions, I'd be happy to talk to you.

 

[golfgal]

http://swz.salary.com/costoflivingwizard/layoutscripts/coll_start.asp

These types of calculators are usually pretty helpful. You can plug in what you make now in Seattle and it will show what a comparable salary in San Fran would be. I plugged in 100,000 and the cost of living in San Fran is 44% higher then Seattle so you should get a comparable salary of $144,000.

 

[barkley]

before we moved to washington we lived in one of the areas that was popular for people to commute into different parts of the bay area (and the "bay area" has come to describe such a large region it can be hard to give info. that fits all of it).

one thing to consider economicly on washington vs. california in general is the big difference in property taxes (if you will be buying a home). the cost for an identical home (value wise) can be much more in california. there's also the cost of bridge tolls if you will be commuting at all. but the biggest for us was in washington there are no state income taxes, whereas california has one. yes, the sales tax rate is lower in california but it in no way makes up for having that large chunk of you income taken away by state.

housing prices are all over the map. the neighborhood i lived in was highly desireable for commuters to both the bay area and the state capitol. we sold right before the market crashed-4 b/r, 2500 square foot relativly new homes with oversized lots in a very good school district/low crime are were selling for upwards of $640,000-today they are sell in the low to mid 300,000's.

 

[monkeybug]

I can't be much help as far as housing prices, we lived in the bay area (well actually a bit north in Santa Rosa) for 5 years, but that was 7 years ago and I know prices have changed.

We can't wait to go back! We are transferring next summer and Petaluma is at the top of our list!
We also lived in the Pacific Northwest (Astoria) and I would go back there or to the Seattle area in a heartbeat too. You get to choose between some great places to live!

The cost of living, like others have stated, is higher in the bay area. We get a Cost of Living increase in our pay when we are stationed there, but not in Seattle (and that cost of living pay has nothing to do with housing, just groceries, gas, ect.) As far as housing, in SanFran we would get about 3,000 a month, in Seattle it's about 2,000 (of course those numbers are based on rentals).
When asking for compensation I would take in to consideration not only housing, but just the cost of living in general.

 

[DSNY4ever]

This really depends on which area of the Bay Area you are talking about. My husband and I grew up there and our families still live there (Marin County) the northern part of the bay area. It is VERY expensive. Beautiful, but expensive. We had to move because we could not afford a house there. There is nom way I could know what type of salary you would need to afford to get by there because I don't know what your expenses and lifestyle are like. But I would do a little research on the area you are specifically looking at check out some real estate sites, the school district (there are some fancy and wonderful areas of the bay... as well as some dumpy and scuzzy).

Good luck, I am not sure which city you are looking at, but from Marin county we never made it to Disneyland in 6 hours, more like 8. But yes, driving distance is nice

 

[mamacatnv]

My Brother and SIL have a 25 year old upper unit condo. They are in San Jose between Hwy 680 and 101 in a decent, not great area. Zillow calls it "North Valley".
They don't have kids, not sure what the schools are like. Easy access to both freeways and 10 minutes to the airport, 10 minutes to downtown etc. My SIL commutes to Campbell which takes her less than 1/2 hour and my Bro literally works 2 minutes from home. The condo is 1100 sq. ft, the price tag $450K - currently valued in the high 300K's they bought 4 years ago at the peak of the market.