# 3 bed 2 bath, 1500 SQFT $2.9 million



## Eric

Worthy of its own domain name, apparently. Bay area homes are still off the charts, this is Menlo Park, home of FB.









						725 Coleman Ave
					

Loads of character and charm is what you'll find here at 725 Coleman Ave. Charming Single Story home in the heart of the Silicon Valley, surrounded by soaring trees that provide a serene & private ambiance. 3 Spacious beds and 2 full baths. Zoned to top Menlo Schools! Open and bright floor-plan...




					www.725colemanave.com


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## Herdfan

Eric said:


> Worthy of its own domain name, apparently. Bay area homes are still off the charts, this is Menlo Park, home of FB.




I really don't understand how people can afford to live out there.  This is way beyond a $15-25/hr minimum wage issue.


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## Eric

Herdfan said:


> I really don't understand how people can afford to live out there.  This is way beyond a $15-25/hr minimum wage issue.



As you might guess there's a lot of money there, big salaries and big bonuses but then there's the working class who for the most part are grandfathered in to some extent. Most have several family members living with them or rent out rooms, a lot of homes are also converted into two (or more) units and either rented or sold. There are also a ton of apartments and we never hear about those because it's not part of the (actual) housing market so they make it work.


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## DT

Sent them an offer, just moved the decimal one place to the left ...


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## Edd

Depending on the town, that could be as much as $500K here, and I'd still feel like I'm paying too much.


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## Alli

Things like that make me happy to live in Alabama.


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## Ulenspiegel

Wait... no pool... nah... 

(Unbelievable).


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## DT

DT said:


> Sent them an offer, just moved the decimal one place to the left ...




Hey, I don't think a realtor needs to be using that sort of language.


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## Herdfan

Alli said:


> Things like that make me happy to live in Alabama.




Absolutely.

The house is in good shape so it would go for $175-225K around here depending on area.


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## quagmire

The market as a whole is insane. I am within 2 years of being ready to buy my own place, but by then who know how much prices will skyrocket. I will be lucky to afford a townhouse at the rate this is going. I would love to wait for the market to crash and buy during a recession, etc but my job is tied to a good economy to where I may be furloughed in such a situation and have no income to buy a house and afford a mortgage.


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## Deleted member 215

I know that house; I looked at apartments across the street. 

I don’t know why I still live here.


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## Chew Toy McCoy

Alli said:


> Things like that make me happy to live in Alabama.




To paraphrase a comedian's response to people who say he should move to a cheaper location "But as soon as you step off your porch there's Alabama."   

I really don't know much about your state.  There's good and shitty people in all states.


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## Joe

For that price, you can have a mansion next to Ted Cruz in one of the nicest areas in Houston


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## Chew Toy McCoy

TBL said:


> I know that house; I looked at apartments across the street.
> 
> I don’t know why I still live here.




Part of it is because there are tons of things to do that don't cost a fortune, especially if you love diversity of nature.   You can only run through the flat corn fields of Kansas for so long before you realize that it doesn't reduce the amount of suckage in Kansas.


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## Joe

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> Part of it is because there are tons of things to do that don't cost a fortune, especially if you love diversity of nature.   You can only run through the flat corn fields of Kansas for so long before you realize that it doesn't reduce the amount of suckage in Kansas.




Yeah, the trade off is that Texas is ugly and we may freeze once per year...but then I own my home and can afford it as a single man with 1 income  

Every state has its pros and cons.


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## SuperMatt

Big companies buying up homes isn’t helping this. Maybe we need laws limiting such behavior. I know many areas levy huge taxes for vacant properties to prevent stuff like this, but I believe the big banks get around that by renting the homes out if nobody buys.

The way we are going, I could see a handful of big companies owning all property in America and charging whatever rent they want.


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## Ulenspiegel

TBL said:


> I know that house; I looked at apartments across the street.
> 
> I don’t know why I still live here.



@TBL 

Admit it, you are the seller of the house.


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## Eric

quagmire said:


> The market as a whole is insane. I am within 2 years of being ready to buy my own place, but by then who know how much prices will skyrocket. I will be lucky to afford a townhouse at the rate this is going. I would love to wait for the market to crash and buy during a recession, etc but my job is tied to a good economy to where I may be furloughed in such a situation and have no income to buy a house and afford a mortgage.



We bought in the central valley of CA and our home has gone up over $200K in less than 3 years. It's good time to be a home owner.


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## Chew Toy McCoy

Eric said:


> We bought in the central valley of CA and our home has gone up over $200K in less than 3 years. It's good time to be a home owner.




My parents bought a new house in Hollister 10 years ago.  It’s doubled in value since then.  Good for my retirement plan, I guess.


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## Chew Toy McCoy

Question to recent home buyers. When the market crashes are you going to be mad about it or continue to be happy with the house you purchased?

I’m embarrassingly late to the game on what home ownership means to wealth, current and future. It was always my belief that you buy a house with the intension of potentially living there until you die. Sure, you could move and upgrade later but that wasn’t the grand plan when you bought the house. You bought a house with the view that you could realistically make the payments for the entire length of the mortgage and property value had more to do with the overall neighborhood turning to shit, not the loss of your current and future wealth.  Your home is your castle.  Your neighbor not mowing their lawn for 2 years doesn't change that.  

Also, property value is kind of a perversion of earned “hard work”. Hard work might have played a part in the initial buy but you did absolutely nothing to make the value skyrocket since then.


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## DT

Eric said:


> We bought in the central valley of CA and our home has gone up over $200K in less than 3 years. It's good time to be a home owner.




It's crazy, we bought 20 years ago, it's tripled in price (market value is ~3.3X the original purchase price).


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## Cmaier

DT said:


> It's crazy, we bought 20 years ago, it's tripled in price (market value is ~3.3X the original purchase price).



Same here. 

I just hope it keeps going up faster than NY real estate - my goal is to move back to Brooklyn before I get too old to enjoy it.


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## Eric

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> Question to recent home buyers. When the market crashes are you going to be mad about it or continue to be happy with the house you purchased?
> 
> I’m embarrassingly late to the game on what home ownership means to wealth, current and future. It was always my belief that you buy a house with the intension of potentially living there until you die. Sure, you could move and upgrade later but that wasn’t the grand plan when you bought the house. You bought a house with the view that you could realistically make the payments for the entire length of the mortgage and property value had more to do with the overall neighborhood turning to shit, not the loss of your current and future wealth.  Your home is your castle.  Your neighbor not mowing their lawn for 2 years doesn't change that.
> 
> Also, property value is kind of a perversion of earned “hard work”. Hard work might have played a part in the initial buy but you did absolutely nothing to make the value skyrocket since then.



As with any financial investment there's risk.

One of two things will happen, people will either buy their own home and let the money work for them, or they'll pay someone else's mortgage and while they'll have a roof over their head, they'll have nothing to show for it. If they do buy and the market fluctuates they'll be able to withstand it unless the goal is to sell during a downturn. Buying a home is a good long term investment for anyone able to do it.


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## Chew Toy McCoy

Eric said:


> As with any financial investment there's risk.
> 
> Buying a home is a good long term investment for anyone able to do it.




Which many can't, especially with corporations and foreign cash-rich investors are given equal treatment, and in some cases even preferential treatment.

IMO home ownership should have stopped being a key to growing wealth many, many, many decades ago but/and here we are. When a good percentage of the population can’t afford to keep a roof over their head or are constantly getting gouged in the process there is something seriously fucked up about society. I don’t think it would take many strands of yarn and pins to connect this situation as one of the main causes of our extreme polarization, just mainly differences of opinion on what the root cause is.


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## DT

Cmaier said:


> Same here.
> 
> I just hope it keeps going up faster than NY real estate - my goal is to move back to Brooklyn before I get too old to enjoy it.




We're ~2 blocks from the ocean, anything with close beach access is nuts.

Yeah, we may sell soon, and make a big move (see "What are you doing today ..." thread).


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## Edd

We've never bought because we weren't motivated to.  Our place/location is very nice and we invest $ that we couldn't with real homeowner expenses.  Our financial advisor has always said it should theoretically work out nicely, and we're comfortable.  Accounts look good.

However, this recent real estate surge has shaken my faith a bit.  I always thought that, in my late 50's, if I decided I wanted a house, I'd just buy it without worrying much about the $, presuming our portfolio was sound.  With how it is now, I'll always worry about it.  We meet with the advisor every May and I'll be bringing this up.  What looked like a temporary housing shortage triggered by COVID is now appearing more long term in northern New England.


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## Chew Toy McCoy

Edd said:


> We've never bought because we weren't motivated to.  Our place/location is very nice and we invest $ that we couldn't with real homeowner expenses.  Our financial advisor has always said it should theoretically work out nicely, and we're comfortable.  Accounts look good.
> 
> However, this recent real estate surge has shaken my faith a bit.  I always thought that, in my late 50's, if I decided I wanted a house, I'd just buy it without worrying much about the $, presuming our portfolio was sound.  With how it is now, I'll always worry about it.  We meet with the advisor every May and I'll be bringing this up.  What looked like a temporary housing shortage triggered by COVID is now appearing more long term in northern New England.





Realistically I'd probably have to save for a decade for a down payment for a house at TODAY's prices which means in 2 weeks that goal will no longer be realistic.


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## Alli

Chew Toy McCoy said:


> I really don't know much about your state. There's good and shitty people in all states.



You can skip the northern part of the state. LA (Lower Alabama), OTOH, has great weather most of the year and there’s always Mardi Gras.

The house we just bought is larger than the one in the original (crazy!) post and has a pool. We’re going to fix up the current house after we move out and should be able to sell it for 3 times what I paid for it 25 years ago.


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## Yoused

Apparently we should study on Tom Clancy,

*Clancy's 80-acre estate, which was once a summer camp, is located in Calvert County, Maryland. It has a panoramic view of the Chesapeake Bay. … As of November 2018, (it was) listed for sale by his estate. The property is described as approximately 537 acres by the realtor.*​
Somehow he managed to _*grow land*_. Over 450 acres of it (way more than half a square mile). If we can figure out how he did that, we could make a fortune.


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## Citysnaps

Growing up in the SF Bay Area, it's always been tough buying a first home there. Even in tech, decades ago. Many had to do something unusual in order to qualify and make it work. Some bought with a friend (co-ownership) and was a good way to build equity and credit-worthiness over a few years. Another was buying a fixer-upper, or a small home to start, or a first home in a less desirable area.


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## Eric

citypix said:


> Growing up in the SF Bay Area, it's always been tough buying a first home there. Even in tech, decades ago. Many had to do something unusual in order to qualify and make it work. Some bought with a friend (co-ownership) and was a good way to build equity and credit-worthiness over a few years. Another was buying a fixer-upper, or a small home to start, or a first home in a less desirable area.



Unless you're filthy tech-stock rich you're not going to be able to afford a home in the bay area unfortunately, all I could ever do there was rent and it was always a short term goal. I had to move out of the area entirely to the valley where I could afford to buy and the house payments are still cheaper than the rent I had to pay in the bay area.

The median income needed to buy a home there is around $350K a year, I mean what average person makes that? I know just to rent a house in Daly City was nearly $50K a year alone and as I mentioned above, that was just me paying someone else's mortgage for them.


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## Ulenspiegel

Yoused said:


> Apparently we should study on Tom Clancy,
> 
> *Clancy's 80-acre estate, which was once a summer camp, is located in Calvert County, Maryland. It has a panoramic view of the Chesapeake Bay. … As of November 2018, (it was) listed for sale by his estate. The property is described as approximately 537 acres by the realtor.*​
> Somehow he managed to _*grow land*_. Over 450 acres of it (way more than half a square mile). If we can figure out how he did that, we could make a fortune.



I know the solution.

The Chesapeake Shores (drama series) was shot there and he managed to push the fence further everyday by some inches.


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## fischersd

Well, with so many companies embracing "work from anywhere" because of Covid, you would think that would signal a reversal?  (we're seeing areas in the lower mainland, far from Vancouver where the property prices have been booming because of the pandemic).  People are leaving the outrageously priced city in droves.


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## Huntn

Eric said:


> Worthy of its own domain name, apparently. Bay area homes are still off the charts, this is Menlo Park, home of FB.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 725 Coleman Ave
> 
> 
> Loads of character and charm is what you'll find here at 725 Coleman Ave. Charming Single Story home in the heart of the Silicon Valley, surrounded by soaring trees that provide a serene & private ambiance. 3 Spacious beds and 2 full baths. Zoned to top Menlo Schools! Open and bright floor-plan...
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.725colemanave.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> View attachment 11671



It would make me physically ill to throw this much money away for that. I’d want a hell of a lot more for my money. Now if you can just forget location, my house would be worth $5M.


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## Huntn

Edd said:


> Depending on the town, that could be as much as $500K here, and I'd still feel like I'm paying too much.



California has always been crazy. When I bought my first house 2400sf in Kingsville, Texas for $42k,  circa 1979, I went on a cross country to San Jose, Ca and stayed with a pilot student’s family in a 1500sf that was going for $260k ish, then in 1980 I purchased a 1300sf house in Rancho Penasquitos, San Diego that I could barely afford on a USNavy Lt salary for $93k a relative bargain.  Hindsight is 20-20, should have kept that house for investment.


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## Cmaier

Eric said:


> Unless you're filthy tech-stock rich you're not going to be able to afford a home in the bay area unfortunately, all I could ever do there was rent and it was always a short term goal. I had to move out of the area entirely to the valley where I could afford to buy and the house payments are still cheaper than the rent I had to pay in the bay area.
> 
> The median income needed to buy a home there is around $350K a year, I mean what average person makes that? I know just to rent a house in Daly City was nearly $50K a year alone and as I mentioned above, that was just me paying someone else's mortgage for them.




I was only able to afford it because I bought 20 years ago during a little home price recession, and my boss heard a rumor I was looking to buy a house - he arranged a bonus plan for me that gave me enough up front money to make the down payment.  The dude is a real mensch.


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## Deleted member 215

fischersd said:


> Well, with so many companies embracing "work from anywhere" because of Covid, you would think that would signal a reversal?  (we're seeing areas in the lower mainland, far from Vancouver where the property prices have been booming because of the pandemic).  People are leaving the outrageously priced city in droves.




There was the slightest dip in rents in places like SF at the beginning of the pandemic, but for the most part, it's gone back to people willing to sell their left nut to live here. Because it's just paradise on earth, I guess? Horrible traffic, outrageous gas prices, months of wildfire smoke, and likely water restrictions due to never-ending drought...

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate where I live, but there are so many reasons against living here...it's unclear to me why demand is still so incredibly high given that many of the biggest tech companies are still mostly work-from-home.


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## Yoused

TBL said:


> Because it's just paradise on earth, I guess?



"_The roughest winter I ever endured was an August in San Francisco_" — not Mark Twain (even though it is often so attributed)


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## Citysnaps

Eric said:


> Unless you're filthy tech-stock rich you're not going to be able to afford a home in the bay area unfortunately, all I could ever do there was rent and it was always a short term goal. I had to move out of the area entirely to the valley where I could afford to buy and the house payments are still cheaper than the rent I had to pay in the bay area.
> 
> The median income needed to buy a home there is around $350K a year, I mean what average person makes that? I know just to rent a house in Daly City was nearly $50K a year alone and as I mentioned above, that was just me paying someone else's mortgage for them.




Under a normal situation I wouldn't have been able to. Half way through my engineering degree I paused and went to work at an aerospace tech company in Sunnyvale to earn income. A few years latter there was a contract opportunity through the company to work at a location on the other side of the world for a year and a half. Because it was very remote, my salary was doubled (with no Federal income tax at the time if out of the US for 18 months), and no place to spend it. I finished my degree a few years later after working longer at the company. If it wasn't for that, I would have had to partner with someone on ownership ramping up equity to get a home.


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## throAU

joke is on anyone who buys this sort of thing in the era of telecommute


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## Alli

throAU said:


> joke is on anyone who buys this sort of thing in the era of telecommute



Not everyone can telecommute.


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## Cmaier

Alli said:


> Not everyone can telecommute.




Someone buying a 3 million dollar ranch house in Menlo Park probably can.  Someone buying that house is likely a junior VC or angel investor, a junior partner at at AMLAW 100 law firm, or someone who made a lot of money on stock options at a tech company.  Most of the lawyers I work with live in Menlo Park, and the Menlo Park/Palo Alto area is thick with major law firms for some reason.

They would be buying the house for the school district, probably.  Keep in mind that the public schools in more affordable towns around here are not great.  So you have a few choices.  You can send your kid to public school and take your chances - if you’re lucky you get assigned to the one or two good schools in your district, or to a charter school.  You can send your kid to one of the more affordable private schools, most of which are religiously-affiliated.  You can send your kid to an expensive private school like Harker, Pinewood, Castilleja, Bellarmine, etc., assuming you can get in and that you can afford $30,000-$50,000 a year (increasing as you get into upper grades).  Or you can buy a house in a town with good schools, like Los Altos, Palo Alto, or Menlo Park, and put the $50k a year toward increased mortgage payments instead of tuition.


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## thekev

Eric said:


> Unless you're filthy tech-stock rich you're not going to be able to afford a home in the bay area unfortunately, all I could ever do there was rent and it was always a short term goal. I had to move out of the area entirely to the valley where I could afford to buy and the house payments are still cheaper than the rent I had to pay in the bay area.
> 
> The median income needed to buy a home there is around $350K a year, I mean what average person makes that? I know just to rent a house in Daly City was nearly $50K a year alone and as I mentioned above, that was just me paying someone else's mortgage for them.




Realistically, it requires a 2 income household with both earners being highly paid.


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## User.45

In academic medicine there's this paradox. The higher the prestige, the lower the salary. I didn't even apply to Stanford or UCSF.  We couldn't afford to live out there.

Personally, I prefer sights like this: 








						403 N Wabash Ave Unit PHC, Chicago, IL 60611 - 3 beds/3 baths
					

(MRED) For Sale: 3 beds, 3 baths ∙ 2249 sq. ft. ∙ 403 N Wabash Ave Unit PHC, Chicago, IL 60611 ∙ $1,850,000 ∙ MLS# 11449887 ∙ Introducing Penthouse C, an extraordinary three-bedroom, three-bathroom home w...




					www.redfin.com
				




One of my co-residents back in the day lived in one of those Townhouses on top of a high-rise setting, that had higher upkeep than our entire annual resident salary. I found it pretty hilarious. It was a great experience though. We could live in very nice condos on a resident salary and except for the winter weather, everything was better and cheaper than in the East Coast, even traffic.


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## Citysnaps

Cmaier said:


> Someone buying a 3 million dollar ranch house in Menlo Park probably can.  Someone buying that house is likely a junior VC or angel investor, a junior partner at at AMLAW 100 law firm, or someone who made a lot of money on stock options at a tech company.  Most of the lawyers I work with live in Menlo Park, and the Menlo Park/Palo Alto area is thick with major law firms for some reason.
> 
> They would be buying the house for the school district, probably.  Keep in mind that the public schools in more affordable towns around here are not great.  So you have a few choices.  You can send your kid to public school and take your chances - if you’re lucky you get assigned to the one or two good schools in your district, or to a charter school.  You can send your kid to one of the more affordable private schools, most of which are religiously-affiliated.  You can send your kid to an expensive private school like Harker, Pinewood, Castilleja, Bellarmine, etc., assuming you can get in and that you can afford $30,000-$50,000 a year (increasing as you get into upper grades).  Or you can buy a house in a town with good schools, like Los Altos, Palo Alto, or Menlo Park, and put the $50k a year toward increased mortgage payments instead of tuition.




Spot-on assessment. Especially with the large concentration of VCs along Sand Hill Rd in Menlo Park, close to Hwy 280.  As an aside, there are areas along the east edge of 280 where Woodside offers some *relative* bargains in housing, and sought after public schools.


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## Cmaier

citypix said:


> Spot-on assessment. Especially with the large concentration of VCs along Sand Hill Rd in Menlo Park, close to Hwy 280.  As an aside, there are areas along the east edge of 280 where Woodside offers some *relative* bargains in housing, and sought after public schools.




That hotel off of 280/sand hill is pretty wild. I’ve had a few meetings there in the lounge.  Luckily I wasn’t paying.


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## Deleted member 215

So weird that so many of you are familiar with where I grew up. Not a single place you’ve mentioned I don’t know.  My dad worked in an office off Sand Hill Road.


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## Citysnaps

Cmaier said:


> That hotel off of 280/sand hill is pretty wild. I’ve had a few meetings there in the lounge.  Luckily I wasn’t paying.




Yeah, it's way over the top.

Ten years ago I met a photographer friend there for lunch who worked for O'Melveny in SF, and had to drop off some documents at their office there.  IIRC, my burger was around $30. It was probably the best burger I've ever had, though wearing jeans I felt pretty underdressed. That burger is likely $40-$50 now.


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## Cmaier

citypix said:


> Yeah, it's way over the top.
> 
> Ten years ago I met a photographer friend there for lunch who worked for O'Melveny in SF, and had to drop off some documents at their office there.  IIRC, my burger was around $30. It was probably the best burger I've ever had, though wearing jeans I felt pretty underdressed. That burger is likely $40-$50 now.




I interviewed at O’Melveny. It was actually my first interview out of law school.  I was used to engineering interviews (and mostly on the other side of the desk.). It freaked me out.

First guy had a western mustache he kept twirling.  He asks “where do you see yourself in 10 years?”  I give what I think is a good answer about the unpredictability of life, tying it to how I had just started working as an engineer around 10 years earlier, etc.  He says “no. no. Let me ask it again. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”

Next interviewer is a lady. She asks “you were number 1 in your class at Santa Clara, huh?” Me: “yep.” Her: “why didn‘t you quit and transfer to a good school like stanford?”

Next interviewer: “if you could choose between flying and invisibility, which would you choose?”  Me: “um, I assume the correct answer is flying, because invisibility is sneaky?”

I got out of there fast, and consoled myself by remembering that since I didn’t pay for law school, it was only a waste of time and not of money.


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## Cmaier

TBL said:


> So weird that so many of you are familiar with where I grew up. Not a single place you’ve mentioned I don’t know.  My dad worked in an office off Sand Hill Road.



I didn’t know anyone actually grew up here?

I’ve been here more than 25 years, and am beginning a 5 year plan to end up back in New York City.


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## Deleted member 215

Cmaier said:


> I didn’t know anyone actually grew up here?
> 
> I’ve been here more than 25 years, and am beginning a 5 year plan to end up back in New York City.




I was born at Stanford Hospital and have lived my whole life in the area.  

But I'm also working on an escape plan within the next year...time to move to more affordable pastures.


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## Citysnaps

Cmaier said:


> I interviewed at O’Melveny. It was actually my first interview out of law school.  I was used to engineering interviews (and mostly on the other side of the desk.). It freaked me out.
> 
> First guy had a western mustache he kept twirling.  He asks “where do you see yourself in 10 years?”  I give what I think is a good answer about the unpredictability of life, tying it to how I had just started working as an engineer around 10 years earlier, etc.  He says “no. no. Let me ask it again. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”
> 
> *Next interviewer is a lady. She asks “you were number 1 in your class at Santa Clara, huh?” Me: “yep.” Her: “why didn‘t you quit and transfer to a good school like stanford?”*
> 
> Next interviewer: “if you could choose between flying and invisibility, which would you choose?”  Me: “um, I assume the correct answer is flying, because invisibility is sneaky?”
> 
> I got out of there fast, and consoled myself by remembering that since I didn’t pay for law school, it was only a waste of time and not of money.




Whoa, how pretentious and snotty. A few times I met my friend at their Embarcadero offices in SF.  Seemed pretty swanky. I remember a few spaces were adorned with Ansel Adams photographs (printed by Adams) and suspect they were worth a lot. They had killer views from their offices. An attorney friend of mine in Virginia characterized them as a white shoes firm. I imagine that means upper crust?

How'd you like Santa Clara's law school? I went to Santa Clara for engineering and thought it was excellent. I did take a contracts law class as an elective and enjoyed that. Already having a a fair amount of engineering design experience before SC, it was the elective classes I found most interesting.


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## Citysnaps

TBL said:


> So weird that so many of you are familiar with where I grew up. Not a single place you’ve mentioned I don’t know.  My dad worked in an office off Sand Hill Road.




I grew up in Redwood City, not too far away.  And worked in tech in Sunnyvale and Palo Alto.  Speaking of Sand Hill Rd, years ago I went to the Homebrew Computer Club meetings when they were held at SLAC.


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## Cmaier

citypix said:


> Whoa, how pretentious and snotty. A few times I met my friend at their Embarcadero offices in SF.  Seemed pretty swanky. I remember a few spaces were adorned with Ansel Adams photographs (printed by Adams) and suspect they were worth a lot. They had killer views from their offices. An attorney friend of mine in Virginia characterized them as a white shoes firm. I imagine that means upper crust?
> 
> How'd you like Santa Clara's law school? I went to Santa Clara for engineering and thought it was excellent. I did take a contracts law class as an elective and enjoyed that. Already having a a fair amount of engineering design experience before SC, it was the elective classes I found most interesting.




I went to “night school” and the whole thing was a very different experience than my engineering school experience. I was older, we had laptop computers, there were female students…  

I spent 8 years in engineering school and still think of RPI as “my alma mater.”  I never really formed any sort of bond to Santa Clara.  Before I went there my wife was an RD there, and I have more memories of that time than of when I was a student there.  I was also working full time as an engineer while going to law school, so it really was a different experience than you‘d get as a full time student.


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## Cmaier

Cmaier said:


> I interviewed at O’Melveny. It was actually my first interview out of law school.  I was used to engineering interviews (and mostly on the other side of the desk.). It freaked me out.
> 
> First guy had a western mustache he kept twirling.  He asks “where do you see yourself in 10 years?”  I give what I think is a good answer about the unpredictability of life, tying it to how I had just started working as an engineer around 10 years earlier, etc.  He says “no. no. Let me ask it again. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”
> 
> Next interviewer is a lady. She asks “you were number 1 in your class at Santa Clara, huh?” Me: “yep.” Her: “why didn‘t you quit and transfer to a good school like stanford?”
> 
> Next interviewer: “if you could choose between flying and invisibility, which would you choose?”  Me: “um, I assume the correct answer is flying, because invisibility is sneaky?”
> 
> I got out of there fast, and consoled myself by remembering that since I didn’t pay for law school, it was only a waste of time and not of money.



I guess it’s worth pointing out that this is not the worst interview I ever had - I did interview at Transmeta to be a CPU designer. That experience confirmed what people say about Linus Torvalds, and I ended up just telling them I wasn’t interested after about an hour and a half of interviews.


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## thekev

Cmaier said:


> I interviewed at O’Melveny. It was actually my first interview out of law school.  I was used to engineering interviews (and mostly on the other side of the desk.). It freaked me out.
> 
> First guy had a western mustache he kept twirling.  He asks “where do you see yourself in 10 years?”  I give what I think is a good answer about the unpredictability of life, tying it to how I had just started working as an engineer around 10 years earlier, etc.  He says “no. no. Let me ask it again. Where do you see yourself in 10 years?”
> 
> Next interviewer is a lady. She asks “you were number 1 in your class at Santa Clara, huh?” Me: “yep.” Her: “why didn‘t you quit and transfer to a good school like stanford?”
> 
> Next interviewer: “if you could choose between flying and invisibility, which would you choose?”  Me: “um, I assume the correct answer is flying, because invisibility is sneaky?”
> 
> I got out of there fast, and consoled myself by remembering that since I didn’t pay for law school, it was only a waste of time and not of money.




Those people sound like imbeciles to me, although the third question could have been amusing. You could ask them if you chose flying, whether you would be required to file a flight plan.

The second person just sounds like a complete jerk.


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## User.45

thekev said:


> Those people sound like imbeciles to me, although the third question could have been amusing. You could ask them if you chose flying, whether you would be required to file a flight plan.
> 
> The second person just sounds like a complete jerk.



I'll never understand questions like this. On a panel interview for a faculty spot I was asked what was the worst moment in my career. I just smiled and told them, medicine is traumatizing, but the most pissed I got about was spending 25 minutes on hospital admission orders, so I fixed them to be 3 min. By design, questions like this might to throw some people off balance, but they almost always reflect poorly on the interviewer.


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## Cmaier

P_X said:


> I'll never understood questions like this. On a panel interview for a faculty spot I was asked what was the worst moment in my career. I just smiled and told them, medicine is traumatizing, but the most pissed I got about was spending 25 minutes on hospital admission orders, so I fixed them to be 3 min. By design, questions like this might to throw some people off balance, but they almost always reflect poorly on the interviewer.




When I interviewed at DEC in Massachusetts (apparently with Dobberpuhl - I didn’t remember that it was him, but when I met him again years later in Palo Alto he remembered me), one of the interviewers asked why I bothered getting a PhD, and didn’t I know it was a big waste of time. 

Some people just need to puff themselves up, I guess.


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## DT

We've been shopping some places in DC, not quite the pain of the The Valley, but still making me wince ...


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## Citysnaps

DT said:


> We've been shopping some places in DC, not quite the pain of the The Valley, but still making me wince ...



Nice being close to a BART station! And Ocean Beach in SF.


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## Eric

citypix said:


> Nice being close to a BART station! And Ocean Beach in SF.



I don't think he means Daly City (Bay Area), maybe Washington?


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## thekev

DT said:


> We've been shopping some places in DC, not quite the pain of the The Valley, but still making me wince ...




The Valley as in LA area?


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## DT

Well, I managed to confuse the hell out of everyone 

In my post, DC = Washington DC, The Valley = Silicon Valley / Mountain View / associated areas 

We all dig on DC, the wife and I have both spent a decent amount of time there in various capacities (work, school, fun).  Looking around the Foggy Bottom and Georgetown areas.


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## thekev

DT said:


> Well, I managed to confuse the hell out of everyone
> 
> In my post, DC = Washington DC, The Valley = Silicon Valley / Mountain View / associated areas
> 
> We all dig on DC, the wife and I have both spent a decent amount of time there in various capacities (work, school, fun).  Looking around the Foggy Bottom and Georgetown areas.




Ah, whenever I read "The Valley" I think of San Fernando Valley, although it has also gotten quite expensive.


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## DT

thekev said:


> Ah, whenever I read "The Valley" I think of San Fernando Valley, although it has also gotten quite expensive.




I think your usage is actually more common parlance, but yeah, prices are nuts everywhere in California.

Here's a pic of what I walked by everyday on the way to a gig, and for fun, checked on housing around this area ...


HAHAHAHAHA


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## Citysnaps

DT said:


> I think your usage is actually more common parlance, but yeah, prices are nuts everywhere in California.
> 
> Here's a pic of what I walked by everyday on the way to a gig, and for fun, checked on housing around this area ...
> 
> 
> HAHAHAHAHA
> 
> 
> View attachment 11755




Lake Larry! 

His sprawling Woodside estate modeled after a 16th century Japanese emperors palace is also accessorized with a lake.


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## DT

Hahaha, wow, I was trying to get a map for where I was walking, and I realized there's 100s of pics like above, but for the record, I actually snapped that one


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## User.45

Cmaier said:


> When I interviewed at DEC in Massachusetts (apparently with Dobberpuhl - I didn’t remember that it was him, but when I met him again years later in Palo Alto he remembered me), one of the interviewers asked why I bothered getting a PhD, and didn’t I know it was a big waste of time.
> 
> Some people just need to puff themselves up, I guess.



PhD is one of those things you mainly do for yourself. I know a lot of PhDs who just did it so they can do their MDs without a loan and never utilized the acquired skills directly later on. I think that is indeed a waste of time and this is what I tell my mentees. Choose adviser not topic, but make sure you invest in skills that you'll use later on. I was lucky to have caring mentors and acquired skills during those years that I could never ever learn at this stage in my career. I also really enjoyed the process, something I largely cannot say about the rest of my path...


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## Chew Toy McCoy

I just found out somebody I know bought a house in Menlo Park 25 years ago, converted it to a duplex, and has been renting it ever since. I don’t know the financials of it but based on how long ago they bought it it’s safe to assume they might be clearing monthly close to what I make doing an actual job.


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## Edd

Buying a Home in Atlanta Has Become Unaffordable, Fed Data Show
		


Been seeing more and more stories about this in the last few weeks.  One on CBS Sunday Morning scared me.  Some Canadian company buys swaths of housing in the US southeast and rents them out.  Real estate agents don't care, it's cash sales.  I recently learned that the 2008 mortgage crisis is still being felt because that rate of building never recovered.  Covid made it worse, of course. This makes me more nervous than everything else right now.


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## DT

Hahaha, we've been getting RedFin email notifications on places in DC, a few prices have dropped ... but I clearly need to reduce the max price, because what / huh ...


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## DT

Then on the other end of the spectrum, there's this:






0 beds ... WTF ...


----------



## Edd

DT said:


> Then on the other end of the spectrum, there's this:
> 
> View attachment 12788
> 
> 
> 0 beds ... WTF ...



Dude, private bath tho.


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## SuperMatt

DT said:


> Then on the other end of the spectrum, there's this:
> 
> View attachment 12788
> 
> 
> 0 beds ... WTF ...



They call them “studio apartments.”


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## DT

SuperMatt said:


> They call them “studio apartments.”




Hahaha, yeah, we determined that's how they listed a studio pretty quickly, just made me laugh.  

"Where do you sleep"

"In the tub"

"Where's do you sit?"

"Toilet"


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## Joe

474 sq ft - jeez, that's tiny.


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## Cmaier

Joe said:


> 474 sq ft - jeez, that's tiny.




Honestly, my first apartment when I moved out here was 600 square feet, and I never used the living room once. Didn’t even furnish it. That had to be at least 126 square feet right there.  So a guy with no social life living alone with his cat could do real nicely in 474 square feet


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## DT

Well, maybe not __this__ cat ...









Joe said:


> 474 sq ft - jeez, that's tiny.




Yeah, that's about the size of our bedroom, we did a simulated run and determined ... NFW


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## Joe

Cmaier said:


> Honestly, my first apartment when I moved out here was 600 square feet, and I never used the living room once. Didn’t even furnish it. That had to be at least 126 square feet right there.  So a guy with no social life living alone with his cat could do real nicely in 474 square feet




My first apartment out of college was 479 square feet. I look back and I'm not sure how I lived in that lol

I was just out of college and didn't have much so I guess it wasn't an issue back then


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## Eric

DT said:


> Well, maybe not __this__ cat ...
> 
> 
> View attachment 12791
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Yeah, that's about the size of our bedroom, we did a simulated run and determined ... NFW



Dude, that cat is missing part of its bottom half and the guy is missing an arm. Who sanctioned that PS work?


----------



## DT

Joe said:


> My first apartment out of college was 479 square feet. I look back and I'm not sure how I lived in that lol
> 
> I was just out of college and didn't have much so I guess it wasn't an issue back then




It's funny that we now have the desire to reduce our footprint, we're really into optimized space, like not having a bunch of nothing areas, or just tons of room to fill with random shit.  Even now, we don't have a formal dining room, or living room (that's the office and bar room) we have extra rooms for guests we never have, there are 4 desks / workstations in this house, 2 of which are used with any amount of regularity.

We've been selling, giving away furniture, whatever, I've got a whole rack of server boxes I don't use, I'm getting ready to fire into space. 

Don't get me wrong, there's some space minimums and multiple bathroom requirements, but we can definitely get smaller


----------



## thekev

DT said:


> Then on the other end of the spectrum, there's this:
> 
> View attachment 12788
> 
> 
> 0 beds ... WTF ...




Kind of a lot for a studio


----------



## DT

thekev said:


> Kind of a lot for a studio




Yeah, it's nutty, but location, location, location ...


----------



## Cmaier

DT said:


> Yeah, it's nutty, but location, location, location ...
> 
> 
> View attachment 12797




In a swamp?


----------



## Yoused

Cmaier said:


> In a swamp?



_… the fourth one burned up, fell over and sank into the swamp, but the fifth one …_


----------



## DT

Cmaier said:


> In a swamp?




Yeah, but just think, soon it will be near  Drump Castle after he's elected in '24 and changes the name of the White House.


I'll see myself out ...


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## Cmaier

Yoused said:


> _… the fourth one burned up, fell over and sank into the swamp, but the fifth one …_




So what you’re saying is that this one has nice curtains?


----------



## BigMcGuire

Our rent just went up $200/mo (will next month)  . So we looked at rental rates from here to Downtown LA and it was a bit of a shocker. CA is becoming a place we can't afford to live in anymore.


----------



## DT

BigMcGuire said:


> Our rent just went up $200/mo (will next month)  . So we looked at rental rates from here to Downtown LA and it was a bit of a shocker. CA is becoming a place we can't afford to live in anymore.




Is that at the end of like a contract cycle, or just out of left field?


----------



## BigMcGuire

DT said:


> Is that at the end of like a contract cycle, or just out of left field?



Lease renewal (1 year). We've been here 4 years and have seen $50/mo increases (once a year). This year, $200.


----------

