For those of you who live in New York City, what sort of standard of living do these salaries represent? Would one be comfortably be able to lease a 3 bedroom apartment within walking distance of work, in a neighborhood with good schools?
Your work would likely be in Manhattan, maybe in Brooklyn. A 2 bedroom apartment within walking distance of the business districts in midtown or downtown runs about $4,000 a month. 3 bedrooms are available on the Upper East Side, but at that range prices rise exponentially. The only good public schools in the city are the magnet schools.
Obviously $8,000 on an apartment isn't supportable on $100k. The compromise most people make is to commute from New Jersey or Westchester (45 minutes to an hour, depending) on the excellent train network. If you're coming from Westchester, this is a very comfortable commute on relatively new trains with WiFi, etc. Schools in these places are very good, and leasing a 3 bedroom house in that range is very doable.
Thanks very much for all the replies. So 3 bedrooms basically doesn't even exist, but 1 and 2 is available. No answers on the school issues.
Is it uncommon then for developers living in New York City to have children? If you have kids, they all go in a single bedroom it seems and there's no room for a home office since there's no third bedroom.
If one is single I can see how it all works, but for those of us with kids I am not so clear. Some have mentioned elsewhere in the discussion that the listed salaries were around $20,000 less than realistic. Even with that, it is still substantially less than I make now, and we have a 4 bedroom with enough land for my wife to grow some vegetables and have a couple fruit trees. I've been contacted from recruiters a few times seeking to attract me to Manhattan. They say it is the new tech mecca. I haven't followed up though or priced property in the area. Looking here though, it sounds like talent would take a significant, perhaps monumental salary and lifestyle hit moving to the area. Just trying to understand how people make it work. Clearly it has a strong draw for many people.
"Better schools" pretty much correlate directly with "pricier neighborhoods" in NYC. The elementary school in my neighborhood is fine, but I plan to be actively involved in my 3yr olds education. I don't love the situation, but I'm not too worried about it.
At the high school levels there are the magnet schools, which your kids could potentially attend regardless of the neighborhood that you live in, but getting into those is somewhat merit-based.
It's a pretty massive lifestyle change, but there are crazy positives. Everything I need is within walking distance of my apartment. When my daughter goes to the playground, it is packed with other children for her to play with. There's a great library system, and there are plenty of child-friendly events to attend. From a professional standpoint, there are always meetups and events going on that are but a subway ride away.
I used to live in NJ and never thought I would like living in NYC, but now that I have a daughter I can't think of any other place that I'd want her to grow up in.
Most of the developers I know are twenty-somethings. Some of the older devs have kids, but they usually don't live in Manhattan proper. Long Island City, Astoria, Brooklyn, New Jersey, etc, are much preferred. I know only one dev who lives in Manhattan.
Thank you for the specific details. It sounds like those with children just all live in other cities and states. In places I have lived most of my life states are usually a bit farther apart, so the idea of commuting daily from another state sounds strange, but I did do that for a while when I worked in DC. The commute was far from pleasant though!
So regarding commuting, what sort of commute is involved for say the people living in New Jersey who work at a tech firm in New York City. Can it be done in 30 minutes? Is there a train that goes straight from one to the other or does one have to drive to a station first, park, etc. How far a walk is it on average from the nearest subway station exist to a tech firm office. Trying to get an idea how many minutes a day the commute would be. Thanks.
I'm a developer with children in NYC. If you don't want to live in another state, Brooklyn and Queens are fairly common options for tech folks who work in Manhattan.
Commuting from Brooklyn (which isn't technically another city) to where I work in Manhattan takes about 45 minutes. That includes the walks to and from the subway. It's a quite pleasant commute...I live far enough away that I basically always get a seat on the subway and can comfortably read on my way into work.
If you live closer to Manhattan, the rents go up and the commute gets shorter, but you're less likely to get a seat every morning. Standing isn't that big of a deal, but it makes it tougher to read sometimes.
I'd say 45 minutes each way is pretty easy. 30 minutes and under can be tougher and more expensive to pull off.
Walks to/from the Subway in Manhattan are typically less than 10 minutes, almost no matter where the office is. There's a lot of tech in the Union Square area, which has a ton of subway access.
In Brooklyn, depending on where you live, it can be a bit more of a walk to the subway, but I've never had more than a 12 minute walk and today I can do it in 5.
Well, it can vary. I can only speak to my own experience. I live just outside the city in Jersey. It's a bus to Port Authority Bus Terminal (located on 42nd and 8th), then a subway ride to work. Total time: 30min. In rush hour: 45min. That's why flex time is nice. Other places in New Jersey you can take the PATH train. That's 15 minutes, and if you work in the Financial District, it drops you off right at the World Trade Center. Usually you wouldn't even need to drive in New Jersey if you're in Jersey City or Hoboken or even as far north as Bergen, if you position yourself near a bus stop.
Living in NYC with children and we have a very comfortable lifestyle. We live in Astoria, Queens, which is just a short (25mins) subway ride to where I work in midtown. I don't believe anyone in their right mind, in our profession, will be living in Manhattan with children. (certainly no technologist that I know of, and I have met dozens throughout the years). But the big advantage is that, as others mentioned, you can live nearby in Queens or Brooklyn, (or NJ/Long Island) and be within a very short commute to work. Rents will be a lot cheaper - we pay 1,600$/mth for a large two bedroom which is actually an entire floor of a house. I have to admit we were lucky there - but there are enough options if you do a proper search.
There are a lot of tech events in the city, and a lot of other kinds of events and conferences. But the biggest draw factor for me when moving to NYC was the sheer number of companies that are packed together in a relatively small space. This is truly heaven for a technologist who is consulting, because you will have business constantly - especially if you are on top of your game; I can attest that you can make and save a lot of money like that. There are a lot of full-time jobs as well, some which pay well and are 9-5, others that require more hours and pay a lot, particularly in the finance sector. Be careful with startups that require a lot of hours and don't pay particularly well though - you won't get a good deal by working for one in NYC, due to how they compare to all other options I mentioned.
Finally, the other cool thing here if you are looking to start your own company, is that you can meet people to partner with - again due to the large number of people within the area.
The crowd living in the business area of NYC is skewed towards young singles. Couples with kids tend to live in other areas such as further north or in New Jersey or Brooklyn, where better housing is available.
I don't know anything about the schools in NYC, so can't answer there.
School situation in NYC is quite complicated. Several things to consider:
1. Private schools cost around $30k a year. However, this price deferential vis-à-vis free public schools is built into property prices so that you are not really "saving" $30k if you live in a magnet school district. This is further complicated by...
2. The vast divide between have's and have-not's and the socialist city rules that attempt to mitigate this divide by sending poor kids to magnet schools. This means that even if you are paying through the nose to live in a good neighborhood (via taxes, or property prices, or rent prices), it is not a guarantee that your kids will go to the magnet school. In fact, the only way to get in is to place your child on the waiting lists within the first months of their life. Even if you are in luck and your kids do get slotted into a good school...
3. These schools are dominated by jaded, entitled urban sophisticates mixed with super intense, tunnel-vision type A's. At least half are on daily pharmaceuticals to help them juggle extremely ambitious workloads and/or social calendars.
IMHO, New York is great for single guys and problematic for everyone else. Once we had a baby, we've made the decision to move, even though financially we could have made it work. The trade offs are just not worth it.
Lastly, if you are pricing properties, don't forget to look at monthly expenses. It's common to pay around $1,500 per month in condo/coop fees on top of your mortgage, and that's for a 1-bedroom.
> It's common to pay around $1,500 per month in condo/coop fees on top of your mortgage, and that's for a 1-bedroom.
Maybe in Manhattan, I suppose. That's a pretty broad brush for the rest of NYC. I pay less than $700 in co-op maintenance for my 2-bedroom in Brooklyn.
For the uninitiated, those fees go towards property taxes (which co-op owners don't otherwise pay), some utilities, things like elevator maintenance, groundskeeping, doorman, building superintendent, etc. If the building has an outstanding mortgage that has to be paid down, that comes out of there as well.
I noticed a bunch of people doing the math on a 100k/year salary for a 3br. Presumably, if you need a 3br it's because you have kids and need to give them each their own room.
Is everyone assuming the other partner won't help with anything financially? You can come pretty close to the 4-5k/month number for a 3br if your SO/partner is also making ~100k/year. If you're single with kids, or trying to have 1 stay at home 1 working, it'll be much harder, but it's entirely possible to afford if you have two people who are both working.
transportation is marked 127.5% of average US cost. I wonder if it's from the price of gas and knowing that people don't really drive to work as much in manhattan.
Yeah, these results seem a bit off. ~$100 gets you an MTA 30-day pass. That's probably less than gas and maintenance for your average monthly commute elsewhere.
3 bedrooms are definitely rare but there are pockets of them around town. I had a 3.5 - 4 bedroom near Columbia off Central Park & 109th and it was huge and affordable ($3300 I believe and one block from the subway). If you're hunting for one, I'd start up there if having the Park as your front yard floats your boat.
Thanks very much, so around $60,000 a year gets one a three bedroom. Salaries around $100,000-$120,000 before taxes, after all taxes taken into account (federal, FICA, state, county, local, sales) about $50k-$60k take home, so it sounds like a 3 bedroom is basically not possible.
