Quote from @Carlos Ptriawan:
Quote from @David M.:
@Bruce Woodruff
Yeah, its just what I see, from NJ...
The sales tax is much higher for one. That makes it much more regressive.
As for the property tax, I absolutely admit it I don't know. If you notice I don't address it directly. I'm from NY/NJ area and invest locally. So, "all of you yuse" just don't make sense. In poking around, in the greater Houston area there is a 8000 sq ft house with yards and pool has a property tax of I think $5.5k... My 2000 sqft house with some grass, no pool in a purposely cheaper municipality is $15k. You can't even get a crappy starter home in the "rural areas" out here for less than $7k of taxes LOL
Then, there is the CONCEPT that renters do pay property taxes, just indirectly through their rent.
(shrug) :)
You live in area near Parsippany ? During dotcom bust I also tried to move out of CA, to your area in NJ near 287/Route 22. But the environment and tech scene there was depressing for someone from the bay LOL it was like 1/8 of the bay. But that time, home price is still 400k-ish in the bay, while our wage relatively remains the same. Good thing about NJ is there're abundant of Indian grocery store just like in the bay, that would attract tech talent for sure. In bay the grocery store was like every 0.4 miles, much more easier to find Biryani joint than burger joint. NJ can become tech center due to Rutgers and Princeton, but it never developed, I see Austin and RTP is more developing in tech scene, although there're not much university in RTP. Austin has A&M.
You kinda answered your own concern by saying that you were considering moving to NJ but didn't due to the relative tech scene. Lets face it. The Bay area has all the infrastructure in place already. Venture capital is very prevalent there. If one has an incredible tech idea then its much more likely to get funded in the bay area vs nj or even austin. Two, the local universities such as Berkeley and Stanford are very unique, internationally known excellence and devoted to the tech scene producing top notch tech folks.
Atx has a tech scene but it pales in comparison to the bay area. We have University of Texas and Texas State to the south of Austin. Although both are great universities they aren't in the unique position as Stanford and Berkeley. We do have venture capital but its relatively small.
It doesn't really sound like the Bay Area is going through a seismic change in work. https://labormarketinfo.edd.ca.gov/file/lfmonth/sanf$pds.pdf According to the data that is coming out the bay area unemployment is at 3.4% and increase from 2.4%. Even though its an increase its not out of the norm for the country. It seems that tech work has decreased but its not a tidal wave nor do I expect it. The bay area has been synonymous with tech innovation for decades.
