Come on UCB, you have to extrapolate those numbers a little bit.
Didn’t bother to read the article - I think I got enough of it from your guys’ comments. I’ll just leave these listings for 2 and 3BR apartments in manhattan: http://streeteasy.com/for-sale/manhattan/beds:2%7Cbaths%3E=2 http://streeteasy.com/for-sale/manhattan/beds:3%7Cbaths%3E=2?sort_by=listed_desc
Of course, NYC is completely unrepresentative, but as someone pointed out, the concept that 250k isn’t the same everywhere in the country is certainly true. And if we’re defining middle class not by where you fall on the income distribution but by lifestyle factors and spending power than it can vary even more. Even by those standards though, 250k is probably the upper bound of middle class at worst in Palo Alto.
@HarvestMoon1, I ask the same question here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/prep-school-cafe/1723524-harvard-westlake-feeder-to-umich-but-not-any-ucs.html
Maybe if you’re rich enough, going OOS to a rather prestigious university like UMich rather than slumming it with the proles at a UC may be a thing?
I think it’s trivially obvious that the same amount of income will make you much “richer” in some parts of the country than other parts. I feel obligated to point out, as I annoyingly do on most threads like this, that what we consider “middle class” in this country is wealth beyond the dreams of avarice for most people on Earth. This is why I find it particularly unseemly to argue about whether having a mere three-bedroom house (with, I assume, running water, electricity, heat, free public schools, etc.) makes you more than middle class or not.
“And if we’re defining middle class not by where you fall on the income distribution but by lifestyle factors and spending power than it can vary even more. Even by those standards though, 250k is probably the upper bound of middle class at worst in Palo Alto.”
I think a lot of what people think should be “middle class” possessions are actually upper middle class possessions. I also think a lot of people are completely oblivious to how the majority of people actually live in this country. Where going out to dinner means McDonald’s, food is bought because it’s cheap and filling and there’s a set budget, and parents do have to decide between Johnny’s braces and Sally’s new sneakers. There is a large class that is all but invisible on CC, where people are so afraid of saying that they are upper middle class that they stretch the defn of middle class to ridiculous levels.
Woodside has median family income $196,505. About 10 years ago we stopped there for lunch thinking it was just another small town. The cafe looked like any other roadside diner until we got inside; white tablecloths and things like “caviar crusted truffle burger” on the menu. I miss the old California. When I was growing up in N. Cal in the 60’s we’d meet real cowboys in small towns, now it’s all a facade.
Maybe nowadays. However, not too long ago, going OOS even to a school like UMich is more likely to show one up as someone with some means who failed to make the admissions cut for the desirable UCs.
This was the common perception I kept overhearing among California relatives and their upper/upper-middle class neighbors while some younger relatives from California ended up going OOS because they failed to make it into Berkeley or UCLA and didn’t make the cut for the top 30 private universities/LACs.
I expect the diner was not a good representation of the full area. I lived and worked in Palo Alto several years ago. You can find both simple, inexpensive dining like Mcdonald’s, Subways, and basic cafes, as well more expensive dining options with unique menus. Yelp list 8 pages of restaurants priced 1 $ in Palo Alto, and 3 pages of restaurants priced $$$ or more.
Momsquad, My family stopped at that restaurant in Woodside.
We walked in… I took one look and told my wife, “We are not eating here!”.
There was a restaurant nearby in Woodside, walking distance, that was a little more upper middle class. That is where we ate.
Just for the sake of clarity: my understanding of the NYTimes article and what I was saying was actually using those higher numbers as the upper limit of upper middle class. Hence the range of middle class in manhattan being 80k-235k which to me is a large enough range to encompass lower middle, middle middle, and upper middle. I might be wrong though.
I agree about the CC skewing. Kind of reminds me of how everyone says they go to “a competitive” high school.
Do they not do independent valuations? That’s why you have homes in Detroit that sell for 5K with a 3K annual tax bill.
There are no Subways in Woodside. There’s a neighborhood hangout in Woodside called the Village Pub. Nice place. One Michelin star. When some friends took us there for dinner, my husband was looking at the wine list. He saw prices with four and five figures. “Where are the decimal points here, they’re very small… oh.”
There’s also a pancake place called Buck’s. It’s famous for being where venture capitalists go.
That should give you an idea of Woodside. It’s not the place to go for cheap fast food.
Lol!
Vladenschlutte, the house value for tax purposes is determined by the date of purchase. People who owned houses at the time Prop 13 passed had their values reset to 1975 values. So let’s say a widow, who’s owned a house for 40 years, sells the house to move in with family. The taxable value of the house is the 1975 value, plus the 40 years of 2% appreciation per year, but taxes are capped at 1% of the value.
So if the house was worth $80,000 in 1975, it’s now worth ~$176,000 for tax purposes, but only for that owner.
The sales price in 2015 could be many times higher than the value in 1975. The new buyer pays property taxes calculated from the price he paid to buy the house–That’s his baseline.
Are there not independent valuations at all? What’s to stop someone from buying a house that would otherwise sell for 500K for 200K and a bicycle which would otherwise sell for $50 for 300K?
Median incomes, where the census comes up with those is the mystery of all time. I have never seen a median income accurately portrayed anywhere I have lived, nor thought of living. Especially in the Bay Area. Maybe there are 30 ppl living in a room somewhere and all of those are skewing it, but median is simply not accurate in CA.
A large income tax…
That just means that you likely live above the median, Lindy. There are likely neighborhoods you’ve never considered. Well, that’s where the middle class lives. You just don’t go there, that’s all.
Years ago, I was running a focus group on an iconic food brand and in the back room with me was the general manager of the division, who would someday be CEO. We were talking about a 10 cent price increase in a staple food. The women talked about how that 10 cents was important because their weekly food budget was $xx.00 not $xx.10. And they talked about watering the milk down for their own cereal so their kids could have some, and so forth. This man was derisive and condescending (“what’s the big deal about 10 cents”) because, well, he was rich. I was just a baby in the company and didn’t have the ability to confront him but I wish I had - these people paid his salary and he owed it to them to understand how real people live, shop, cook, etc. Over the years, I’ve had to do consumer immersion for clients because they “can’t understand” why working moms aren’t using their products. Well, they’re exhausted because they have to get home and do the chores that all of the client team had maids to do.
Sometimes I feel like I should do this immersion for CC, where people seem to forget the average person lives in an apartment or dated house, goes out to a place nicer than McD only a few times a year, worries over the electric bill, and is up a creek if the furnace breaks or the car breaks down. These people are invisible to CC except when one of their kids “steals” an Ivy League spot.
I see EllieMom liked my post. EllieMom, you can guess the company and the future CEO’s initials were RD.