Assume you make $1m a year and have a $10M net worth.
Assume also you are in your 20’s and married to the person of your dreams. By that, I mean if you close your eyes and imagine the perfect soul mate for you that is who you are married to. Someone who compliments you and fits you spiritually, physically and personality wise.
You are recently married and recently out of college and in your career now. You have to pick from the best architects and designers on earth to plan, design and build your dream home. The kind of home you’d see if Architectural Digest. The kind of home you’d see on Extreme Homes such as the one I am watching now which tracks the sun for solar energy and charges an electric car using solar as well. Rain is captured and recycled. Brilliant almost sci-fi like but another example of mankind at it’s best.
So, the question is, where would your dream home be built? You can only pick from the 4 cities mentioned in the heading of the thread and only have one home. Where would you locate?
Where else are you going to get an amazing view of both water and mountains? You can’t buy that everywhere. No state income tax, anything you want to do, nice people, casual dress everywhere, can escape to go skiing, biking or hiking. No comparison.
$1M a year is not going to buy a whole lot of fancy RE in NYC or LA. Sticking with Seattle, too. Plus, we love five star built green kind of stuff, so permitting will not be an issue. Buy a moderately priced waterfront lot on Mercer Island, build your enclave, and enjoy lovely sunsets from your rooftop deck. Can be done well under $5-$10M depending on how grandiose one wants it to be.
OMG. You are right. Okay, you make $5m a year, you pay more in taxes that most people make in a lifetime, you takes baths in champaign, you can eat anything you want and not gain and ounce, and your net worth is $120M.
1 million a year will get to a condo in Brentwood or a very small, modest, old, family home in Culver City… so don’t come to L.A., not going to happen on that income. Move out to the suburbs and maybe you can buy an above average tract house for a million, but you’ll spend your life on the freeways commuting. Here’s what a million dollars gets you in L.A. http://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/9028-Poinsettia-Ct_Culver-City_CA_90232_M27095-07006
@GoNoles85, Boulder is way too white and in love with itself. If I only had a million, and only those city choices, I’d pick Seattle, because I would assume a million would go farther there than in NY or LA. And then I’d sell it, and move somewhere where it rains less.
$1M annual income will let one have a roughly $3M mortgage. So, if one uses $2M to buy a chunk of land with an old house on it and build a modest 6,000 sft house, it can be done in Seattle.
(Anything bigger than 6,000 sft is not “green.” IMO).
LA is a huge metro area. There are lots of places where you can build a great home with all those millions. With mountain or sea views or both. NY is too cold and too congested. Seattle is too rainy. Miami might be nice if by Miami you mean somewhere out in the keys, ha.
Let me think about it. NYC is too cold and congested as @TatinG said. Perfect description of NYC too, if you ask me, I know no one did, but that literally should be NYC’s motto. Cold, congested and expensive. It looks great on TV and movies, so does LA, but I can’t pull the plug on NYC although there are great jobs and careers there and it is where all the action is and I like action.
Hmmm.
Good points @socalmom007 mom about LA. I was going to pick LA but you pretty much rained all over that parade. Gezzzz, so I guess that leaves Seattle against Miami for my talents.
While Seattle has a reputation for rain, and sometimes we have nasty years, the annual rainfall is about 36 inches. Less than both NYC and Miami. We have very few weather events to be alarmed about. Rare earthquakes, no tornadoes, snow mostly stays in the mountains. We heard a crack of thunder a few week ago, my little dog started growling, and we were confused. wondering what the heck that was.
Depends. While Seattle/Washington State doesn’t have income tax, they do have some of the highest sales taxes than NYC(10%+ vs ~8.875%).
Also, IME, prices for many consumer items such as gasoline and groceries are higher. In the case of the latter at a large discount supermarket, prices for groceries were nearly double that of my local NYC supermarkets.
Add to that the weather* IME…Seattle/Washington State’s nice to visit in the summertime, but not to live long-term.
LA has better weather for me, but consumer item prices there are as bad or worse than what I found in the Seattle area.
While I experienced nothing but sunny days in a period between late June/early July, my Seattle area friends said that only happens for a few weeks/months before it returns to the norm of cloudy grey with a periods of rain. Incidentally, evenings even in June/July were such that temperatures dropped to the high 40s/low '50s and considering I came from the NE in the midst of a heat wave with high humidity(talking 95+ degree heat at night, 100+ during the day), ended up needing to borrow a jacket from my buddy as I didn't think I needed to pack one and the evenings/nights were really cold.
OMG…westside centric. Yes,$1 million won’t buy much in west Los Angeles. But travel on my friend…be brave…renew your visa and make way to .the valley has lovely homes, with a social life for young couples. And with large lots in the hills you can build whatever you want.
Go south of the westside to the beach cities. Expensive yes, but your income will purchase something.
