They don't want just a house though. They want a house in a "cool" area. Look at median home prices in rust belt cities. Mortgages around $2k a month or so. Very doable for a lot of people but you never hear a drum beat about this. You never hear about people moving to these cities unless they have family there already to remind them that, hey, this is in fact a great deal.
>They don't want just a house though. They want a house in a "cool" area.
I'd just like a proper job again, thanks. Just like I had before the tech industry shit itself 2-3 years ago. My current "cool" ideas are not being in debt and not worrying about a 3000 dollar catalytic converter replacement.
Now my "really cool ideas" is being able to take a bus around town without being stranded if I miss the last bus at 8pm. But that's blue sky thinking right now.
A yes, the rust belt, where folks are famously living like fat cats.
Detroit used to suck, but it seems like enough millenials took that deal that it’s way better than ten years ago.
Are there jobs in those cities who sit in an area named after their economic collapse?
Do student loan costs go down if you move to a low cost of living area?
We had some movement in the direction of people immigrating to low cost areas like that with the rise of remote work, but then execs decided they didn’t like not having control over their workers live and did RTO. To their offices in the cities with high rent and home prices.
You never heard about people taking that “great deal” because it’s not a great deal. Like really, you think there’s money left on the table like that and there’s not at least some low double digit percentage of the population that would have sought out the benefit? Or is it more likely the market evaluated the option and it’s not good
It's very rich when people who are likely 15-20+ years in their career in San Franscisco are telling the modern youth to just "move to Alabama". As if they can just find a cushy tech job in a market that is using RTO's to force layoffs.
People this detached really need to spend a few days on linkedIn applying to jobs. Not with their connection, but through those horrible workday portals and thousands of apps turned in after an hour of the post.
Perhaps you were unaware but there are good jobs in industries outside technology. And if you want a tech job, well there are quite a few in Alabama. Some of them are centered around the Marshall Space Flight Center.
Cool. So lemme just take 4 more years of school for 3x what I paid for back in the day and I'll be good to work at those non-tech jobs. Tough luck to those new grads who didn't have 4 years of foresight (or me who is already a decade into my career).
>if you want a tech job, well there are quite a few in Alabama
Hiring or "had a job up for 2 years but seemingly can't find nobody"?
Seriously. Try applying to some of these jobs and see how far you get. It's tough out there. it's not like 2015 where half your apps get a response.
I am with you 100%.
I am nearly 15 years into being a tech professional and competing with these kids for jobs and the thing that is horrifying me is that I am being told I am not qualified enough after getting through the filter where these kids are all washed out for not having 10 years of experience in a 4 year old field.
Even looking at retraining into a different career, every single US corporation has completely shed their training costs to put onto their labor force, but we've gotten to the absurd point where 4-8 years of training is needed for an entry level job while corporations wont guarantee that the field even exists in a year.
The people I've spoken to in the field who have the "pull yourself up by the bootstraps, everything's better than in the past, why are you all complaining" mentality are the same ones who have verbatim told me that having a job in charge of a technical area at a faang that pays only mid 6 figures and has 5 peers on the planet, is a non prestigious job because their father is a near billionaire.
A lot of people on this forum are going to be shelling out for security in the next decade or finding out that they are made of meat, and hungry people don't really care where the food comes from.
Could you export a few of those to Louisiana?
Exactly. Do people want to live in desirable areas? Absolutely. The much bigger draw to expensive metros, however, are the vastly more robust job prospects that come with those areas.
In a city, you have both much better chances of finding employment suited to your skills specifically, better chances of being paid well for it, and better chances of upwards mobility. Plus, should it become necessary you're more likely to be able to find something to keep the bills paid with even if it's not what you'd like to be doing.
Low CoL areas by contrast come with scant employment that's generally poorly compensated and almost always has a low ceiling.
In some cases one can commute into the city for work and live in LCoL area, but then you're burning time — multiple hours each day, usually — that you'll never get back on your employer instead of yourself or with your family, plus the myriad expenses that come with driving that far and often.
Which skills do you mean? If you're talking about skills in software development or investment banking then that might be true. But skills in welding or nursing can be applied anywhere.
Smaller areas have less hospitals and defense contractors. Nurses and Welders will be affected from the move too unless they already line something up.
Yep. I come from a rural area and my hometown has little to offer to nurses or welders. Be prepared for both a long commute and high chance of needing to switch to a different (likely longer) commute periodically to be able to stay employed without becoming hostage to a crappy employer. This is why all the young people (including myself) end up moving out and why the town is approaching being entirely elderly.
The countryside gets romanticized a lot but reality is not so rosy.
Being capable of being applied everywhere doesn't mean they are compensated the same when comparing any two locations.
Even if that wasn't a factor and both locations paid the same, a dense city with many employers gives you a much better chance of finding a job when needed or seeking out better opportunities if you are being ambitious.
I grew up in one of these "great deal" towns with 2-3 employers that had more than 10 employees. Anyone who had a bad interaction with a single employer, which included asking for a raise, was blacklisted from employment and effectively homeless if they didn't leave town looking for work.
Whenever I visit my parents back home I notice how there appears to be no one in the town in their 20s to early 30s. Its either retirees or older parents who moved there to give their kids a country experience.
The few people I've kept in contact from growing up who are in that town currently make less money than an entry level McDonald's does near the city, and are only able to survive due to the help from their parents either in the form of free room and board or direct subsidizing.
Used to be you could buy a starter home in those cool places. I live in one today with a $1200 mortgage. Good luck buying that now, kids.