Hm. See, I don't think paying twice as much for a place to sleep is that big of a deal for a younger Engineer. I mean, if you are a young single person, so you pay a grand for a studio rather than $500 in some flyover state. or $600 for a room rather than $300. Not really a big deal when your salary starts at $80K/year.
As you get older and want to buy a house and have a family? Eh, during the bubble, it was a problem. Five hundred grand for a 1bdroom condo? crazy. But these days? rents might be high, but you can get a small 3bdroom house for $300-$350K in a very safe area. By that point in your life, an Engineer's salary is going to be at least 1/3rd of that, which seems like a pretty reasonable ratio of salary to house.
I mean, yeah, if you can take a 20% paycut to live in a flyover state where you can get something giant and nice for $100K, that might look like a good deal on the face of it, but the thing is, here in the valley? there is a multitude of employers to choose from. If you are in idaho and your employer shuts down or you want to quit? likely you are going to have to move. There's a huge advantage to the employee of having many potential employers within easy commute distance.
so yeah; personally? I don't think it's a big deal for Engineers.
it was just barely on the Santa Clara side of Lawrence expressway (but not very far so) there's a highschool right there (willcox high? yeah. the place was about a block north of that.) go a few blocks further north (or, rather, a few blocks towards 101) and you get to the Lawrence caltrain station, which isn't a nice area, but isn't scary (I once lived in an apartment across the street from the Lawrence caltrain.) It was an older place, of course, and looked very suburban. I think it was closer to $350 than $300 but I'm certain it wasn't above $350 (We didn't look at anything that had an asking price higher than $350)
It wasn't big; just under a thousand squarefeet, if I remember right, not counting the garage or the shed. 3bdr, 2 bathrooms; one of the bathrooms was an un-permitted conversion of a closet. (oh man. so many houses in this area have been badly converted to hold more people than was originally intended.)
The roof was in fairly okay shape; it seemed structurally pretty good. It badly needed new carpet, appliances and paint inside and out.
When was last time you looked? Things are bad right now, I mean, if you are trying to sell; I looked at rather a large number of houses over a period of a few months (we stopped looking, oh, two or three months ago) nearly all the properties we looked at were either short-sales or bank owned. Most of the places we looked at? last sold for close to 2x the current asking price.
But yeah, there seemed to be plenty of livable stuff in the Sunnyvale area for under $350K, and it gets cheaper as you get closer to San Jose.
This wasn't the cheapest thing we looked at, but most of the cheaper single family homes had more significant problems like a roof that should have been replaced five years ago.
There was a very small 2 bedroom house on America over near arques and central expressway in sunnyvale. Well under $250 if I remember right, but it needed way more work than I wanted to put in. (incidentally, it also had a poorly-done bathroom addition; this one opening to outside. at least it was enclosed.)
I could go on for hours about all the poorly-done bathroom additions we saw. At one house, someone just took a toilet and plumbed it in to the corner of their enclosed back patio. They also had a completely free-standing shower insert plumbed in to the same area.
but yeah; in that price range you see a lot of stuff that needs a whole lot of work, but you will also find a few places that are livable with new carpets.
As you get older and want to buy a house and have a family? Eh, during the bubble, it was a problem. Five hundred grand for a 1bdroom condo? crazy. But these days? rents might be high, but you can get a small 3bdroom house for $300-$350K in a very safe area. By that point in your life, an Engineer's salary is going to be at least 1/3rd of that, which seems like a pretty reasonable ratio of salary to house.
I mean, yeah, if you can take a 20% paycut to live in a flyover state where you can get something giant and nice for $100K, that might look like a good deal on the face of it, but the thing is, here in the valley? there is a multitude of employers to choose from. If you are in idaho and your employer shuts down or you want to quit? likely you are going to have to move. There's a huge advantage to the employee of having many potential employers within easy commute distance.
so yeah; personally? I don't think it's a big deal for Engineers.