Whats a good income!

mb911 · mb911's Garage

I have a friend that Was offered a job in southern Cali. WHat is a good income in that area for a good living that you can afford to buy a home and drive a decent car as well as save money?? Any help would be great

Tishabet · 08-03-2005, 11:47 AM

That is a REALLY open ended question.....maybe you can tell us what this criteria would be in Wisconsin, ie answer the question "how much do you need to make for a good living in Wisconsin that you can afford to buy a home and drive a decent car as well as save money??"
That way we can compare apples to apples.

singpilot · 08-03-2005, 11:47 AM

Half a mil.

To save money? three quarters of a mil.

mb911 · mb911's Garage

A min of 40,000 here in wisconsin for one person for a family more like 75,000 to 90,000. Oh and the town is victorville...

Tishabet · 08-03-2005, 11:54 AM

http://www.bankrate.com/brm/movecalc.asp

this cost of living calc says 40k in green bay is 65k in long beach.

craigster59 · craigster59's Garage

With the cost of a DECENT home in the L.A. area @ 800k to 1.5 mil and factor in a car @ 45k, you have to make alot of the dough-re-mi to live comfortably all the while squirreling away money. Minumum 200k a year although Victorville can be had for cheaper.

mb911 · mb911's Garage

man we could live like kings here for that

cantdrv55 · 12:20 PM

No need to earn $200K/yr to afford a home, especially in Victorville. A family income of $100K or a little less will do if you have >20% for a downpayment. If you can qualify for an interest only loan, you can get away with earning a lot less. Watch out for those type of loans though. Oh yeah, what do you consider a decent car?

The majority of my friends and family don't earn anywhere near an income of $200K and we're in Northern CA where RE costs even more. Be frugal and you live good in CA. I don't care what the others say, you don't need to make a ton here.

cantdrv55 · 08-03-2005, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by SoCal911SC
How much did your sub-$200K/year friends and family pay for their houses?

My brother bought his house brand new for $800K last year. Five bedrooms, 4 car garage, 3400 sq ft and in a great school district (location, location, location). OK, so now it's valued at almost 1 mil. However, even though he's an MD, he doesn't make close to $200K and his wife is a stay-at-home mom. He didn't have to tell me how much he earns, I know what podiatrists make.

mb911 · mb911's Garage

OK I did A search on homes in the victorville area and it looks like most people don't have garages. We found a couple of homes for 2 mil with NO garage. Man where are all the cars kept?? How much for a 2-3 bedroom home with a small garage for his 442!

cantdrv55 · 08-03-2005, 12:59 PM

I'm saying you can still find homes for way, way less than 1 mil even here in Northern CA. Hell, in my town, there are homes from $300K to over $1.5M. Same great school district just in the opposite ends of town.

cantdrv55 · 08-03-2005, 02:01 PM

Homes for $300K here are condos but they're homes nonetheless. The original poster did not specify about the type of home they would consider.

mikester · 08-03-2005, 02:20 PM

Our one bedroom condo in Santa Monida sold for over $300k 18 months ago.

The house we bought was over $600K at the time. This RE market is just a bit unrealistic - I hope it is sustainable but I simply don't think it is. It will come down eventually, folks simply can't afford the homes as they are now. The median home price in Socal now is above $500k.

Victoriville might be on the lower end of that spectrum as it's way out there but I imagine that home prices are well into the $300k range by now.

When I came from florida 5 years ago I went from making in the 40s to the 50s and the price differences in goods, housing and auto expenses (ins, gas) were quite substantial. I quickly found out that I had been screwed. My rent was nearly double for half the space and now was an apartment rather than a house. My insurance was double and my gas cost more...Breat @ $3.00 a loaf was a shock too...

pbs911 · pbs911's Garage

Quote:

Victoriville might be on the lower end of that spectrum as it's way out there but I imagine that home prices are well into the $300k range by now.

About $350k right now for an average home in Victorville. But you can work at your home chemical lab and sell meth to your tweeker neighbors!

Hugh R · 08-03-2005, 02:52 PM

Victorville..... hot, hot, hot, dry, dry, dry,. High desert most (many) residents commute 1-1/2 hours each way to jobs in LA. Lots of white and hispanic gang stuff going on, also what someone said about meth labs. Family income of about $150k/year live conservatively and I only have a $300k mortgage, and with a daughter going to UC Santa Barbara, I don't have ANY spare cash.

techweenie · techweenie's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by mb911
A min of 40,000 here in wisconsin for one person for a family more like 75,000 to 90,000. Oh and the town is victorville...

Victorville is not L.A. It's not much of anything, in fact. He'll spend $15-200/mo on electricity in the Summer, $70-80 in the Winter. If he wants to buy, houses in Victorville can be had for under $400k. $90-120K would be enough for a comfortable living.

Rot 911 · 08-03-2005, 03:03 PM

Are you guys telling me you would feel comfortable buying a $400K house on an income of $120K per year? I must be way too conservative. My wife and I make a bit more than that. She wants a new house and I have set an upper limit of $250K (which buys a lot of house here.) We would put at least 20% down. Oh and we have no debts other than a house payment.

Drago · Drago's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by Kurt V
Are you guys telling me you would feel comfortable buying a $400K house on an income of $120K per year?

I am and I did. $400K in my area (north of Seattle by about 25 miles) gets you into a pretty nice neighborhood.

techweenie · techweenie's Garage

"Comfortable" is not the best term for it, Kurt. Maybe "necessity." You can rationalize 35-40% of income to housing if the net cost after tax savings is 28-33%. And we have relatively low property taxes here in CA.

Lenders here are packaging up huge numbers of loans on "low documentation" or "stated income" borrowers. So you could infer that there are lots of people dedicating way too much of their income to housing in CA.

It's a good time to be watching foreclosures...

mikester · 08-03-2005, 03:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kurt V
Are you guys telling me you would feel comfortable buying a $400K house on an income of $120K per year? I must be way too conservative. My wife and I make a bit more than that. She wants a new house and I have set an upper limit of $250K (which buys a lot of house here.) We would put at least 20% down. Oh and we have no debts other than a house payment.

The issue with that, and I'm on your side, is that there simply are not properties here in LA - even in the BAD neighborhoods to buy at that price.

Ours is a modest 3bedroom 2bath house and it's over half a million and our last statement estimated it at three quarters of a million.

Ideally we'd love to buy something like it for $250; had that been the case we almost would have paid cash. As I stated earlier though; our 1 bedroom condo - all 600 sq ft of it sold for more than that and no - it doesn't have a garage.

The unrealness of CA is a reality.