@austinmshauri, the average price for a home in Hayward is $500,000 and the average square footage is roughly 1500 square feet. I don’t know the area very well but it, like Oakland, is mixed. Oakland, by the way, has the dubious distinction of having a violent crime rate that is one of the worst in the U.S. By contrast, there are areas where $600,000, let alone the $300,000 you are suggesting, would be laughable. I searched Hayward just for fun and could not find a 3 bedroom property in the $300,000 range that was not pending. It’s also worth mentioning that Silicon Valley refers to a very broad area that includes San Jose (also very mixed) and most of the Peninsula. You don’t know whether the OP’s parents would have been able to find a cheaper house in Hayward or Oakland.
I live in the Bay area. I can attest to the fact that housing prices are beyond the grasp of most people. We know people who commute from the Central Valley (2-3 hours each way, each day in crippling traffic) to their jobs in San Francisco. I would not suggest that as a reasonable option to the OP. When we looked for houses, we bid on 10 properties before we were successful in purchasing one. Most of the bids were all cash and over the asking price of the property. I understand it’s much worse now. I applaud the OPs family on finding the house they did at the price they did.
Girls, I hope you are not using “mixed” as a code word for “integrated”.
I am less familiar with the Bay area than I am the NYC area, but around here, some people mistakenly assume that they can’t look for a house in the Bronx, Yonkers, Norwalk CT, Portchester NY, etc. because they are “mixed”. There are nice homes and lovely neighborhoods in each of these places and people who wake up every morning to take their kids to school and then head off to work just like you do. But since the neighborhoods are less expensive than some of their very near-by towns, and there will be folks who might not look like you do, people describe them as “mixed”.
Whatever. Just wanted to remind you that pharmacists and social workers and teachers and pastors who live in these “mixed” neighborhoods also pay taxes and get to work on time. It wasn’t too long ago that people avoided Williamsburg and some of the other “so trendy we can’t afford it” neighborhoods…
@3girls3cats: I live in Downstate NY, so I understand high cost of living areas. We, too, have people who commute 2 or more hours to work each way. I have no quarrel with people buying whatever housing they feel is appropriate for their family. I’m just cautioning the OP not to think that colleges will take cost of living expenses or a preference for a lower crime area into account when determining whether or not a student qualifies for need based aid. I don’t believe they will.
Imagine the embarrassment of my kids who didn’t have any car, and couldn’t even drive the 2002 Honda Accord to school because I needed it to go to work.
“mixed”? Oy. Somehow my kids persevered though living in a “mixed” neighborhood and going to “mixed” schools. I don’t know if that was meant to codeword for “integrated” or merely mixed class, but either way, oy.
No, Blossom, I am not. I’m purely talking numbers. For that matter, the entire Bay area is mixed, with multi million dollar estates sitting side by side future tear downs (being facetious here) that were purchased many decades ago for $20,000. But the way I refer to Oakland as mixed means that there are areas that are (relatively) less expensive and estates up in the hills that are unattainable for most people.
And @garland, don’t be so quick to assume the worst of people. I’m responding directly to the suggestion that you can snap up a house at a reasonable price if you just look at Hayward or Oakland. The housing prices are all over the place. For that matter, even if you were to find a house that didn’t demand as much money as the asking price to render it liveable, you’d have to compete with buyers who have been scouring the market for years and know a viable house when they see it and with foreign investers who are willing to come in and plunk down a wad of cash above the asking price. It took us two years of searching to find a house we could afford where we weren’t outbid.
The Bay area is not the same as NY. I’ve lived in both places. The amount of wealth pouring into this region is staggering and it is distorting the entire region. The pharmacists and social workers and teachers either share apartments and pay a premium to live nearby or live very far away.
3- thank you for clarifying. But if Oakland is mixed- with less expensive combined with estates- does that not suggest that there are middle class people living in the less expensive areas?
Nobody would describe Greenwich CT as mixed from a SES perspective, even though the estates are in “back-country” and the areas around the highway have some multi-family houses, a few modest apartment buildings, etc. and there are kids in the local public schools whose families are on public assistance, free lunch, etc.
But living in Greenwich CT is a choice. And someone with an income which puts them above the range for need based aid - even though they may feel relatively poor because they live in Greenwich- doesn’t mean that colleges need to subsidize the choice with need based aid. Mom cleans houses and Dad is a landscaper and you live in Greenwich because that’s where your employer lives- this I understand. But your income is likely to qualify you for need based aid.
What am I missing- what’s different in the Bay area?
Oakland as a city has mixed SES, but there are definitely “rich” areas and “poor” areas (and areas in between) within the city.
Also, note that many people bought houses in the San Francisco bay area when they were much less expensive. Many of them could not afford to buy their same houses now on their same pay level.
No, this individual is not going to qualify for need based aid at any university based on what we know so far. There’s no difference between the Bay area and any other area of the country. If you live in a high cost of living region, you understand that you have made a choice to live there and that you don’t get a break on college tuition.
My response was to what felt like a breezy judgment of the OP’s family and suggestion that he could easily find a house for half the $600,000 the family spent to move where they currently live. I think those of us who live in this region would love to know where the $600,000 house was.
@blossom, I have never seen a place more segregated than Fairfield County, CT. You’d think there were walls on the borders of each town and the idea of sharing property tax revenue with struggling cities like Bridgeport or East Hartford is met with horror.
This area is much more regional and there is much more mixing in the sense you are thinking. Oakland is somewhat like Brooklyn except that the murder rate is significantly higher in Oakland and the entire area is smaller. The opportunity to buy a middle class home shrinks as the area gentrifies.
Interesting list. One thing I found remarkable was the complete absence of a single person attending Merced or Riverside. I’m not from California but I would’ve expected at least one for each.
Not sure why some parents are piling on OP. She is an 18 year old.
In Silicone Valley, it would be a shack. In NYC you couldn’t even get a studio.
I also do not think the amount of student loans her parents took out was too much if it meant they could then get jobs that paid 250-300k. You couldn’t get that kind of returns any where.
If OP has good enough stats, she could go to Berkeley, UCLA or schools that give out merit aid.
@angiepie Hey there, I went to Menlo too! Honestly, it’s not bad to go to a UC, I promise once everyone gets their acceptance letters and are in the deciding period, no one will judge you. Most Menlo kids are aware of the wealth bubble they live in and I think you will find several of your classmates also heading to UCs.
Look, there are a few kids from my year who chose not to go to a UC despite being accepted, and instead attended private universities out of their price range. At Menlo, a lot of them were on scholarships and I think didn’t quite realize how much of a struggle it would be. They are struggling to pay for their second and third year now and have resorted to GoFundMe’s and it’s really hard for them; you don’t want to be in that situation.
You can’t find a two bedroom on the Upper West Side of Manhattan for 600K but you can buy a studio, Oldfort. And if you’re looking in the Bronx, Queens, or Staten Island (they are also NYC) it’s a completely different story. In Manhattan- Washington Heights, Inwood, Harlem (although prices there are rising very quickly).
Do you think every single person in NYC makes enough money for a million dollar apartment?
It comes up a bit short to suggest OP just seek merit. She’d need 40k and the reality is that the school that might offer that may not have the breadth of opportunities of a UC.
Thumper pointed out the monthly payments could run around 9k and that’s just the start. I think OP is seeing her parents mind their expenses because, frankly, they have to. If her parents decided the debt was worth it to be well employed in a new country, they may also be wise enough to know to focus on paying it down as fast as they can- making more than minimum payments on the loans. On top of that, the 250k income is the gross, before a variety of taxes and maybe some retirement contributions. Their net per month is going to be far, far less.
Assuming OP’s parents took out 500K, 4%, 30 year fixed mortgage, the monthly payment would be 2387. If the student loan is 100K, assuming 6% interest, 10 year pay back, the monthly payment would be 1110. Total mon payments would be around 4400. The mortgage payment would be tax deductible, so I think those payments are very manageable.