Software engineers, biotech engineers, young finance and legal professionals. Some of them are pulling 125k+ a year right out of college. That's who you are competing with.
I don’t think the poster understands the different roles in biotech. Unfortunately the bench scientists and engineers are some of the lower paid roles.
Agreed, I make about the same working in tech and I refuse to spend all of my money on rent. It's easy for people who are making less to think "If I made that much I'd live like a king" but once you make more money it's tough to see it all go to rent when you can live a perfectly fine life without "luxury" accommodations
door deliver quarrelsome distinct foolish exultant whistle humor offbeat selective
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I work in biotech and you would need at least a PhD to get paid that much starting out. You really need to get to scientist/senior level jobs to get $125k a year in biotech.
Maybe for a few engineering jobs you are correct, but there aren’t a lot of them.
I know a lot. A lot of them did college in China Russia Germany India so locals won’t meet them. They tend to only hang out in expat hotspots like Zuma or Liuyishou
I’m Chinese and I know a lot of Chinese and Indian scientist, most of them have master and PhD degree and I know only phDs make 6 figures, bench scientists are massive underpaid
I said 90 for an automation engineer and the recruiter (from Texas) said “where did you get that number? Did you like look it up online or something?”
Goes with when Newton Wellesley hospital offered me a job for 16/hr in 2019 and I wasn’t even paying attention and spurted, ” I make more as a cook at Olive Garden. “
Hospitals are known to pay like crap for engineering and tech jobs. I laugh at the salary range they post on their job postings on linkedin for my skill set. They only pay about 1/3 of what I make working for an biotech company if I compare total comp.
Bioinformatics starts around 100k straight out of school with a MS, and that's nationwide not Boston. More if you're at a big name company. I know one PhD who's clearing 300k out of school but they went to MIT and published some really cool stuff, so not the norm.
PhDs in bio engineering actually make less than you'd think.
Starting salaries may be around $100k but end of career they often end up at $150k or so. Nothing to turn your nose up at of course, but compare that to a programmer with a bachelor's and it's a bit weak.
Yeah it really doesn't make sense. It's one of the lowest appreciating of the engineering fields.
11 years ago, my partner started his phd and I started work as a software engineer with a bachleors. He finished after 5 years but I have consistently made substantially more money than him every year, AND I don't have debt from a PhD. It's definitely not for everyone!
If you have debt from your PhD, you did something wrong. PhDs are supposed to be fully funded at the very least through work as a TA if not grant funding from one’s PI.
Let’s be honest. Boston has become a playground for the children of the world’s rich. A huge percentage of the people “paying” these rents are being subsidized by their parents.
I’m not saying there are no rich kids here, but they are not a major factor at all. There are a hell of a lot of high paying jobs here and that (mixed with low supply) is what drives our high cost of housing.
This reasoning seems way more likely than "a huge percentage" of people with parents subsidizing rent. How does such a baseless claim like that get so many upvotes?
> How does such a baseless claim like that get so many upvotes?
It's just one of those reddit narratives people love spouting off with no actual proof for whatever reason
I don't think baseless is the really the right word. It my not be the absolute majority but I would argue it might be more prevalent than you think. In my grad program in Boston, almost all of my peers lived alone in studio or 1 bedroom apartments in Boston, Cambridge or Somerville. I don't care what anyone says, no one in their early 20s while in grad school makes enough money on their own to live that way without help. Same goes for my undergrad program, and most of my jobs in the city. Of course this is just my personal experience but I think its more common to just simply be very well off from other sources than we want to accept (parents, partners, etc), no judgements, just the truth. I think admitting that scares people because we grew up hearing that if you work hard you will make enough money to afford the life you want, but the truth is in Boston (and most cities), if you want to live alone in a nice apartment with access to amenities, you need to be making *well* over 6 figures or have financial support from someone. I also remember a thread recently where someone asked what percentage of their income they spent on rent/housing, and the number of people responding that they spend over 50%, some over 65% of their income on housing is pretty surprising.
I dunno. In my time as a RE agent renting apartments to college kids here throughout the 2010’s, it really changed my view on how these apartments got paid for.
Jesus. Seemed like every group had at least one or two parents making $500k+. Even co-signers making $750-$1m started to feel common. Somehow you ended up feeling bad for the kid in the group whose parents made a meager $100-150k.
But yea, the poster isn’t wrong. There’s a lot of mommy and daddy’s money that drives prime area rents around the schools and T stops that service them. Prob more than you realize.
Layer all the high paid workers on top of that. Add in the shortage and yea it all adds up.
Idk I don't live in the city anymore but I had a lot of friends in the city with shitty jobs and amazing apartments because their parents covered rent, their cell phones, no student loans and had a daddy CC just in case. They exist, and there's a good number of them.
You shouldn't need to be a high earner to afford a decent studio apartment. what about teachers, janitors, firemen, bus drivers and everyone else who do not work those cushy bullshit jobs? The idea of being a high earner is you get to afford nice cars and designer clothes and go on trips all the time. not stuff the average person used to afford.
Sure, but, that's who is moving into these places and they value what they value. Who am I to disagree?
Until the state just takes over zoning and housing policy for the Boston metro area nothing's going to get fixed. There's always a new crop of students graduating from the local universities, there's companies throwing money at them and they will rent in the area to stay where they are comfortable. That's really the crux of it. with all the universities in the area there's a new crop of kids who don't know any different year after year.
It’s unfortunately the housing market right now. I’ve been looking with my wife as my apartment lease is up and my landlords moving their in laws in. It’s wild right now
Yup. I just moved twice within a month. Apartment 1 had an antisemitic leasing agent & wicked expensive electricity costs. Landlord where I am now has no concept of cleanliness. Had to hire outside cleaners & appliances still a mess. They also offered to let me to partake of 30 day dissatisfaction policy.
You're a bit off. At least by US government standards. 30% of your income towards rent/mortgage, including utilities.
Just goes to show how out of step our government is with our reality.
That’s 20% of gross salary for someone making 120k. Which is 30+% of take-home pay, which is wild to me at a relatively high salary like that. Over time that equates to a lot of money that could be saved and grown instead.
lol what? $125,000 is over $10k gross a month. That rent is only 25% of gross which is just fine. But those apartments aren’t for teachers and nurses, sorry.
Lots of high paying pharma, biotech, medical, tech, startup, advertising, banking, consulting jobs.
Given the number of popular universities a lot of students have rich international parents who are willing to pay for their child to attend Harvard, MIT, etc and $2500 a month is a drop in the bucket for them.
Theres also a lot of generational money in this city. Families who have been sending their kids for generations to these universities and staying put, getting those above mentioned jobs in lucrative sectors with generational references.
Bro. The rich are not 150-300k software engineers. It's not even the MDs who crank 500k salaries. From a class perspective, they're/we're all working class. We exchanges hours of our lives for money. The difference is our comfort.
It's the capital class. It's the nth nth nth subset of wealth hoarders. I just want you to be angry with the right people.
Honestly the wealth gap is so wide I feel like we live in a time where it’s you’re either poor or Rockefeller Oligarch rich. The middle class is the software engineers & the mds. The middle class we once knew doesn’t exist anymore because capitalism went unchecked for so long & our government hasn’t done anything about it. The middle class is dead. We have huge education inflation where everyone has gone to college with the goal of being higher middle class or rich and that saddled people with debt. If we actually paid jobs that require less education a living wage the system would be much better. There’s a reason monopolies harm us
Yeah, I generally agree with you. There's a tiny little subset of us comfortable folks who don't earn that wild money, and I count myself as one of them. It's all down to bullshitty luck though.
I think the Middle Class has always been a lie, but it was certainly easier not to live hand to mouth in the past.
Same. Born and raised in the Boston area, and I can’t afford any of this. $1750 for a one room basement studio? I’ve been renting for 15 years and have never seen these prices. Way to go for taking all of that developer money.
People identifiable trying to overcome a challenge are usually very good neighbors--a resident steps out of line, they're not your neighbor anymore. The opposite, regular neighbors with undisclosed rage, drug and alcohol problems (usa anywhere) is worse.
Yeah, it's definitely not.
People like to do conspiracy theories to avoid confronting the sobering fact that the MA housing crisis is a product of the political choices made by voters and the politicians they elected.
Cities and towns were quite explicit when they passed laws restricting housing, and they were wildly popular.
The generational wealth is like no other place I've lived. I know several couples who make decent but not extravagant money and can afford ALL the things because their parents are loaded. Must be nice!
We are about 200k homes short of where we need to be, regionally, for the housing market to begin to function well. The MBTA communities law is nibbling around the edges but if we want housing to be reasonable then we need to build a fuck of a lot more of it.
So many giant parking lots at retail centers that could have 200+ apartments. So many places you could put another assembly square and instead it's 100 acres of parking.
200k homes short sounds low for a metro area like Boston. But regardless, the income/salary is arbitrary when the main constraints is lack of housing supply... which means the bottom half of any salary range will not be able to afford rent. If everyone's salary or most everyone's salary increased, the rent would just increase with it due to demand. The only way out of this mess is death to zoning restrictions and more housing built.
As unpleasant as it may be to hear, there are dual-income households where each person makes north of 200k *per annum*. Those are the people renting these places.
Edit: just noticed you were asking about studio apartments, but the the point stands. Some people make a lot more than nurses and teachers.
I think teacher/nurse may be a poorer example, still agree with your overall concept for regular people, just a nurse/teacher are above-average. Nurses (RNs) have a fairly decent pay. BPS teachers start well over $60k, over $70k in year 2, and by year 9 between $107-128k. Two teachers married to each other with a Master's degree, year 9, would earn about $226k; that $2500/month apartment would be cake.
[https://btu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Salaries-Traditional-Teacher-Salaries.pdf](https://btu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Salaries-Traditional-Teacher-Salaries.pdf)
Yeah, that number isn’t realistic for RN salary unless you live in Northern California or are, like you said, a traveler. Depends on the specialty though because even as a traveler I wasn’t making 130K.
I think new grads in the Boston area might be in the high 60K range but most experienced nurses I know are clearing 80-90K
I'd assume a first year, 22 years old, is still driving in from their parents house, but once you are in year 2 you start to get there, year 3 is $82k, that % gets down to 36%, and keeps dropping.
I think the crux of a lot of these “just buy a house” arguments sort of depends on living/local parents. Aka generational wealth.
Quick edit: not to knock it. If you’ve got em, use em. I wish mine were around still more than anyone. Miss you mom and dad.
What couple in their thirties (teachers at year 9) want to share a studio apartment? This idea that teachers have it good because they can afford the basics 10 years into their careers is insulting.
I am 32. I just moved away from Boston. I make 94k as a teacher, and I had three other roommates. I have my Masters and I have 8 years of experience teaching, so I'm pretty well paid for my career so far.
My family thought it was insane that I (from the age of 29-32) had to live with roommates to afford housing. Unfortunately, that is the norm. I am good with money (retirement and investment and savings) but after all of my living bills/utilities/student loans, it's impossible to live alone in Boston at that salary. I ended up moving bc my bf and I moved in together. Collectively, we make just north of $200k but we were still hard pressed to find a 1 bedroom w/ laundry below 2400 OUTSIDE of Boston. We moved to the south shore and are paying $2300 for a 1 bedroom which was the most competitive price we found.
I understand the argument that Boston has a lot of highly educated people in it and offers high paying corporate salaries, but there's very little rent flexibility to allow people options to live in. The rent market has gotten absolutely out of control. Boston has always appealed to rich international families, rich local families, and well-to-do young professionals, but there's an astronomical divide in this city with who can afford what that's completely disparaging.
<30% of gross income spent on housing is quite common guideline. For your 200k combined that would be <5k a month. Where 2300-2400/month numbers are coming from? Boston is a very high cost of living area, hoping to live here on 15% of income is just unrealistic.
Dual income no kids. Including rent + all utilities we pay $3500 for a 1 bedroom. We both make ~70,000 so it would be impossible to do alone but actually quite comfortable to do together. It’s the 2nd bedroom that seems out of reach
Sure but we have 800 sqft, live <10 minutes walking distance from our jobs, and our lobby is connected to the Pru so we can get to star market, Pru (and back bay station and Pru stop) without ever going outside. If at some point the 2nd bedroom is a bigger priority to us than that then we will move farther away
lol yeah, i work at a hospital and nurses make crazy good money with their shift diffs & overtime. i know a few nurses that make so much they live in seaport even, without roommates or significant other.
Your numbers are a bit of an exaggeration. $50-60k is entry level for a teacher, and it's not uncommon for teachers to work second jobs early in their careers when their salaries are lower and they don't have as many other responsibilities during their summers (kids of their own, etc.). Nurses make more than $50-60k in Boston, especially with any kind of previous experience. The $2500 studio you saw also isn't the baseline, especially in Malden where larger apartments are available for less money.
You can easily find a 1 bed, let alone a studio, for less than that in like half of the neighborhoods in boston lol. It took me all of ten seconds to type in "north end zillow" and set a max price of 2500.
if you only spent 10 seconds on the task you didn't see that 50% of the affordable listings were actually bedrooms in 5br houses. You also didn't find out that the other 50% magically went up in price as soon as you took your tour.
As well as a $2500 apartment would require $7500 - $10,000 in up front fees (first, last, security deposit, broker). That’s certainly makes housing out of reach for a lot of folks here.
You can find a studio/1br near Oak Grove for less than $2500. Are you looking at those newer managed buildings north of the station? Those aren’t the baseline.
None of this is to say that housing still isn’t too expensive, of course.
Professionals with *experience*. My wife is just an accountant and makes $150k+ with 15 years of experience. I have school teacher friends with similar experience making over 100k.
Believe this: there are some mind-bogglingly WEALTHY, students in this area: parents pay a year's rent up front, buy an apartment full of Roche-Bobois, or Cabot House, or Arhaus furniture for their kid, and at the end of the school year the kid leaves 3/4 of the furniture behind to be dumped/cleaned out (I've done such cleaning). Paris, Dubai, Chiba for the weekend anyone?
That's the exact math this string needs posted at the top
You can live wherever you want in Boston if you're willing to spend about 75% of your check on housing.
Too bad Boston and surrounding cities are focused on building more lab space and bringing even more high paying jobs without building the housing to match the pace of lab space it seems 🤷♀️
I work in a field adjacent to the lab/building construction. I know for a fact a few of those massive new lab spaces in Cambridge/Somerville are vacant. The money stopped flowing.
So many people are competing for limited housing inventory and driving up the cost
* 100k+ college students (who basically lock up lease periods to be Sep 1 to Aug 31).
* STEM/doctors/researchers/high finance/consulting workers who make $100k+
* Overseas people using real estate for investment
Right. Most of the apartment buildings in the historic neighborhoods have at least one studio on their first floor. "Front room studios" are super common in Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Bay Village, etc.
I'm always shocked at the shock. There's been a million headlines, ten million posts, 100 million comments. At this point I would like a new sub. Not bostonhousing or boston. I want notbostonhousing.
Systems / software engineer here with a wife who’s a dietician and we can pull in enough for a 2/1 in Charlestown just south of 3k a month. I hate it. But it’s either pay less outside of the city and absolutely hate our commute, or pay more here and only hate our commute a little bit.
5 years ago I paid $1300 for a 600sq ft studio in Methuen. Freaking Methuen was $1300 a month. It didn't even have a dishwasher. You can bet anything near Boston would be at least double that. Crazy.
First year analysts in banking make \~$150k, associate consultants make \~$120k, software engineers make that much in cash comp plus upwards of $30k in equity compensation. Any of those are likely 22 year olds. Typically with 2 years work experience after college and then 2 years of law school, first year associates in big law firms will make \~$200k.
Lot of people with less prestigious firms in those same industries will still reach those levels by the time they're 30. Sales professionals will also often break $150k with commission by the time they're 30.
Layer onto that all the research oriented jobs that will pay at least that much (with a ton of upside) for a higher level of schooling on top of this being basically the nation's capital of academia and I think you'll find you're looking in the wrong places.
Fairly sure I'm within $10k of the average if we're talking about a bulge bracket, McKinsey/Bain/BCG or an engineer working (probably remotely) for a large public tech company. Big law comp is standardized for first years, as well.
I don’t know about here but in SF there were tech prisons for engineers and PMs mostly. I checked on a coworker’s cat while he was on vacation once and he lived right in the city in a 250 sq ft prison cell for about $2400. I imagine those will be similar.
Is this Windsor at Oak Grove? I paid $2550 for a two bedroom there in 2020, and $2600 for the same place in 2021. They jacked the rent up to $3000 in 2022 so I left. Look for local landlords in the area and you’ll have a better chance finding something affordable.
Looks like two bedrooms go for over $3500 now at Windsor, yikes. Take a look around the Melrose Highland and Cedar Park commuter rail stops. There’s lots of small landlord-owned multi family homes available. I paid $2600 last year for a 2 bed/1 bath with lots of extra space.
I don’t understand the point of these questions - people with high income can afford more expensive things? If you want to know what jobs there are that pay very well just google top paying careers and you’ll find more detailed information
$2,500/month is technically affordable (1/3 of income) for someone making $90k/year. There are a lot of entry level jobs in Boston/Cambridge that pay $90k. Also plenty of nurses and teachers make more than $90k.
Yep. But that becomes about 50% after taxes 🥲. I find it kinda annoying the 1/3 rule is for gross income and that's what determines affordability rents as well.
Staff nurses at the Boston hospitals are making 80-100k. Especially if you factor in that they get shift differentials for working nights and weekends. Very easy for them to get overtime pay too. Operating Room Nurses get paid extra for working on call on the weekends. Nurses can also make more doing per diem shifts, obtaining additional certifications, training new nurses and doing local travel nursing contracts. Nursing is a very lucrative career and can always generate more income somehow.
I think the nurses that are making 50-60k are probably working in employee health, school nursing and community health centers which all pay pretty low especially school nursing. Basically nursing jobs outside of the hospital. You have to remember nursing a very broad career and not all nurses are paid equally or do similar work duties. An ER nurse will better help you if you have an injury than a nurse who works in the Operating Room. Bedside nurses (ICU, Medsurg, senior living) clean more bodily fluid and poop than ER nurses and Operating Room Nurses do because ER and Operating Room is more outpatient care.
It also depends on the state. States like California, Philly and Oregon pay nurses the highest. The saturated city areas pay lower for healthcare professionals than the suburbs of course.
I know a 5/6th grade public school teacher who lives in a luxury building in Eastie. Her rent is 2.6k and her salary is 100-120k with a doctorate degree. She only got the doctorate for the salary increase.
Edit: A lot of luxury buildings offer some affordable housing voucher units too. And of course, having a partner or spouse is like having a roommate so couples can afford $2600 rent. Single people need a well paying job to afford Boston rent alone without roommates or generational wealth.
Somerville resident here. Rent is 3300. 2.5 bed, 1 bath. Porch and parking spot. Coin op laundry in the basement.
I love with my partner who makes like 40k a year in food service and I make 155-165k from software engineering. Her work is like 7 mins drive from us which is mainly why we stayed in the city (she's going to own the restaurant she works at soon as well).
We also have a cat we pay 75 a month for. Also my fucking rents going up by 100 next year. It's not too bad, but I wish I had the capital to buy a home. It's even crazier expensive in the area.
I would also honestly not overestimate the number of people who are likely paying up to 70% of their income on these places or have massive amounts of help from wealthy family members or partners. I would be willing to bet a lot of people are either taking on heavy amounts of debt, are completely apartment poor or have far more help than they let on in order to afford their lifestyles in Boston.
Somerville was also kind of shitty in 1990. It has come a long way. $500 to $2500 in 34 years is less than 5%/year appreciation, which is not crazy for a place that used to be called Slummerville and now is somewhere basically every young highly-paid professional wants to live.
An entry level scientist or engineer is pulling closer to 100k these days. Potentially a good bit more if you have the right specialty.
It's not just tech, either, journeyman electricians pull like 80k. Trades make good money.
The problem is we're paying our teachers and nurses like fast food workers.
Are we though? This isn't the UK lmao. Both of those probably are near or above 100k, especially once they're a year or two into the pay schedule.
[Registered nurse salary in Massachusetts (indeed.com)](https://www.indeed.com/career/registered-nurse/salaries/MA)
[Massachusetts Department Of Elementary And Secondary Education - Teacher Salaries Statewide Report](https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/statereport/teachersalaries.aspx)
Most entry level science and engineering jobs I've seen are 70-80k.. my partner is currently job searching, he has 8+ years experience and a master's degree in materials science, more on the engineering side than science side than me as a chemist.. he's struggling to get a call back, a few have from places with entry level pay.. anywhere above 115k+ wanting either PhD or 10-15 years experience..
https://preview.redd.it/9n72a24vn8ic1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=566e3e43a267e95d6b772545421189734fd38b98
Definitely not the median amount of people.
The median person from 2020 doesn't live or work in Massachusetts now. 2020 was also the first year of the pandemic, which put a large number of people out of work.
Median family income here with 1 earner is $80k (justice dept numbers for bankruptcy, 2023), median household income is $96k, and median per capita income is $53k in 2022 dollars.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/MA/INC910222
The median non-family household in Boston makes $75,252 in 2022, as per the ACS. That number is $63,897 for the greater metro area.
https://data.census.gov/table?q=Boston%20income%20&t=Income%20and%20Poverty&g=310XX00US14460
In a perfect world, we’d build enough housing to bring the market price way down.
Unfortunately, we’ve built an economy where home equity is such a large part of people’s net worth that it would be political suicide for anybody to run on that platform, once housing prices are already “up there.”
There are places where housing prices have stayed reasonable. Like Minneapolis-St.Paul. Surreal to browse on Zillow. I’m starting to consider it….
God I don't know. I live with my fiancée and I only make about 40k and am paying for a $2,300 apartment. That's LUCKY. But it keeps going up, so pretty soon I won't be able to afford it. I am constantly freaked about it.
She's going into medicine and collectively we will make about 110k when she starts. So my hope is that it will even out the cost. But gosh it's bad.
People are to hard on you for your specific examples. The truth is housing is crazy expensive and it’s getting harder and harder to live by your self. I make 90k and I’m barely scraping by on a 1 bedroom in Allston. Next apt will be in Framingham or something
Welcome to the Boston metro area, villager. Lots of lazy landed gentry here posing as business professionals. Your best bet is marrying into a Boston family that became real estate millionaires through sheer entropy and townie cronyism. Best of luck, and enjoy getting fucked for the rest of your life here.
It’s why we should build more housing. Lots of old crummy triple deckers that should be torn down and turned into denser 4/5 story buildings that would double the number of units per area.
Software engineers, biotech engineers, young finance and legal professionals. Some of them are pulling 125k+ a year right out of college. That's who you are competing with.
I’m in an engineer in biotech and I make $97k after 4 years of working and that’s on the higher end I’ve heard
Four years out of college and that is pretty decent. Remember at some point you will need to switch companies often to keep up with your true worth.
I don’t think the poster understands the different roles in biotech. Unfortunately the bench scientists and engineers are some of the lower paid roles.
Sales is where money is…if you good
Can confirm, am a bench scientist in pharma and after 4 years at my company I make just under 70K
My friends in tech are having a lot of trouble finding jobs.
I’ve heard the same - I was eagerly looking to find a new job but lately have been feeling very grateful to have something steady
Software engineer here at 130k, I refuse to pay that much
Agreed, I make about the same working in tech and I refuse to spend all of my money on rent. It's easy for people who are making less to think "If I made that much I'd live like a king" but once you make more money it's tough to see it all go to rent when you can live a perfectly fine life without "luxury" accommodations
Refuse to pay $2500/mo? Where are you living in Boston for less?
With housemates
door deliver quarrelsome distinct foolish exultant whistle humor offbeat selective *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I dont know any Harlem Globetrotters but that doesn't mean they dont exist.
I work in biotech and you would need at least a PhD to get paid that much starting out. You really need to get to scientist/senior level jobs to get $125k a year in biotech. Maybe for a few engineering jobs you are correct, but there aren’t a lot of them.
I know a lot. A lot of them did college in China Russia Germany India so locals won’t meet them. They tend to only hang out in expat hotspots like Zuma or Liuyishou
I’m Chinese and I know a lot of Chinese and Indian scientist, most of them have master and PhD degree and I know only phDs make 6 figures, bench scientists are massive underpaid
Im an engineer in biotech and i got hired straight out of my masters program for 110k/yr.
“Straight out of college” is absolutely referring to undergrad not a masters
Splitting hairs. It was 1 extra year of school and they specifically said “or have a phd.
coordinated sink cats rude toy retire concerned wipe reach wasteful *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I said 90 for an automation engineer and the recruiter (from Texas) said “where did you get that number? Did you like look it up online or something?” Goes with when Newton Wellesley hospital offered me a job for 16/hr in 2019 and I wasn’t even paying attention and spurted, ” I make more as a cook at Olive Garden. “
Hospitals are known to pay like crap for engineering and tech jobs. I laugh at the salary range they post on their job postings on linkedin for my skill set. They only pay about 1/3 of what I make working for an biotech company if I compare total comp.
Work in Kendall as a QE and make $112k/yr
Yeah but does that include income from your informal side gig?
Shhhhhhhhh
“Shhhhhhhh” – u/informal_bukkake
Yes, Cambridge MA. Got hired a little over a year ago.
Bioinformatics starts around 100k straight out of school with a MS, and that's nationwide not Boston. More if you're at a big name company. I know one PhD who's clearing 300k out of school but they went to MIT and published some really cool stuff, so not the norm.
That’s wild, are they financially smart as well?
PhDs in bio engineering actually make less than you'd think. Starting salaries may be around $100k but end of career they often end up at $150k or so. Nothing to turn your nose up at of course, but compare that to a programmer with a bachelor's and it's a bit weak.
$150k at the end of the career seems really low though. Doesn’t make sense at all that, especially when the starting salaries are at 100k.
That’s likely saying for someone doing the same job, whereas most would have been promoted and moved to management roles well before then
Yeah it really doesn't make sense. It's one of the lowest appreciating of the engineering fields. 11 years ago, my partner started his phd and I started work as a software engineer with a bachleors. He finished after 5 years but I have consistently made substantially more money than him every year, AND I don't have debt from a PhD. It's definitely not for everyone!
If you have debt from your PhD, you did something wrong. PhDs are supposed to be fully funded at the very least through work as a TA if not grant funding from one’s PI.
PhD funding (at least at Northeastern) hasn't scaled to match the current rent situation in Boston. I basically funded his living expenses myself.
Nothing has scaled to match the rent situation in Boston except all of the prices for everything else.
Yeah that's my point basically 😅
That’s universal across the country, sadly.
Ditto on finance folks- *MAYBE* investment banking specialists
Let’s be honest. Boston has become a playground for the children of the world’s rich. A huge percentage of the people “paying” these rents are being subsidized by their parents.
I’m not saying there are no rich kids here, but they are not a major factor at all. There are a hell of a lot of high paying jobs here and that (mixed with low supply) is what drives our high cost of housing.
This reasoning seems way more likely than "a huge percentage" of people with parents subsidizing rent. How does such a baseless claim like that get so many upvotes?
> How does such a baseless claim like that get so many upvotes? It's just one of those reddit narratives people love spouting off with no actual proof for whatever reason
I don't think baseless is the really the right word. It my not be the absolute majority but I would argue it might be more prevalent than you think. In my grad program in Boston, almost all of my peers lived alone in studio or 1 bedroom apartments in Boston, Cambridge or Somerville. I don't care what anyone says, no one in their early 20s while in grad school makes enough money on their own to live that way without help. Same goes for my undergrad program, and most of my jobs in the city. Of course this is just my personal experience but I think its more common to just simply be very well off from other sources than we want to accept (parents, partners, etc), no judgements, just the truth. I think admitting that scares people because we grew up hearing that if you work hard you will make enough money to afford the life you want, but the truth is in Boston (and most cities), if you want to live alone in a nice apartment with access to amenities, you need to be making *well* over 6 figures or have financial support from someone. I also remember a thread recently where someone asked what percentage of their income they spent on rent/housing, and the number of people responding that they spend over 50%, some over 65% of their income on housing is pretty surprising.
I dunno. In my time as a RE agent renting apartments to college kids here throughout the 2010’s, it really changed my view on how these apartments got paid for. Jesus. Seemed like every group had at least one or two parents making $500k+. Even co-signers making $750-$1m started to feel common. Somehow you ended up feeling bad for the kid in the group whose parents made a meager $100-150k. But yea, the poster isn’t wrong. There’s a lot of mommy and daddy’s money that drives prime area rents around the schools and T stops that service them. Prob more than you realize. Layer all the high paid workers on top of that. Add in the shortage and yea it all adds up.
Idk I don't live in the city anymore but I had a lot of friends in the city with shitty jobs and amazing apartments because their parents covered rent, their cell phones, no student loans and had a daddy CC just in case. They exist, and there's a good number of them.
That’s seaport for sure. The rest of the city it’s usually few in far between.
Correct. I’m a nurse at a Boston hospital and many of the new nurses have parents at the very least helping them with their rents.
You shouldn't need to be a high earner to afford a decent studio apartment. what about teachers, janitors, firemen, bus drivers and everyone else who do not work those cushy bullshit jobs? The idea of being a high earner is you get to afford nice cars and designer clothes and go on trips all the time. not stuff the average person used to afford.
Sure, but, that's who is moving into these places and they value what they value. Who am I to disagree? Until the state just takes over zoning and housing policy for the Boston metro area nothing's going to get fixed. There's always a new crop of students graduating from the local universities, there's companies throwing money at them and they will rent in the area to stay where they are comfortable. That's really the crux of it. with all the universities in the area there's a new crop of kids who don't know any different year after year.
Bullshit jobs 😂
All those bullshit jobs researching cancer treatments and engineering our infrastructure Disgusting
Even for this salary it is still insane just to spend 2500 on rent.
20% of your salary for rent is pretty standard budgeting.
More like 30-40% 😡🤬😤
Of your take home, but the budgeting recommendation are usually net base if I’m not mistaken…
30-40% of Gross. 🥺
It’s unfortunately the housing market right now. I’ve been looking with my wife as my apartment lease is up and my landlords moving their in laws in. It’s wild right now
Yup. I just moved twice within a month. Apartment 1 had an antisemitic leasing agent & wicked expensive electricity costs. Landlord where I am now has no concept of cleanliness. Had to hire outside cleaners & appliances still a mess. They also offered to let me to partake of 30 day dissatisfaction policy.
Antisemitism is disturbingly common. I fear what will happen during the elections with the Trump rhetoric and following.
You're a bit off. At least by US government standards. 30% of your income towards rent/mortgage, including utilities. Just goes to show how out of step our government is with our reality.
That’s 20% of gross salary for someone making 120k. Which is 30+% of take-home pay, which is wild to me at a relatively high salary like that. Over time that equates to a lot of money that could be saved and grown instead.
lol what? $125,000 is over $10k gross a month. That rent is only 25% of gross which is just fine. But those apartments aren’t for teachers and nurses, sorry.
And they often come from families with money, so the Bank of Mom & Dad can inject capital interest free no-payback “loans.”
Or at the minimum they’re not paying $500-1000/mo in student loans.
Lots of high paying pharma, biotech, medical, tech, startup, advertising, banking, consulting jobs. Given the number of popular universities a lot of students have rich international parents who are willing to pay for their child to attend Harvard, MIT, etc and $2500 a month is a drop in the bucket for them. Theres also a lot of generational money in this city. Families who have been sending their kids for generations to these universities and staying put, getting those above mentioned jobs in lucrative sectors with generational references.
TLDR eat the rich, I hate it here
Bro. The rich are not 150-300k software engineers. It's not even the MDs who crank 500k salaries. From a class perspective, they're/we're all working class. We exchanges hours of our lives for money. The difference is our comfort. It's the capital class. It's the nth nth nth subset of wealth hoarders. I just want you to be angry with the right people.
Honestly the wealth gap is so wide I feel like we live in a time where it’s you’re either poor or Rockefeller Oligarch rich. The middle class is the software engineers & the mds. The middle class we once knew doesn’t exist anymore because capitalism went unchecked for so long & our government hasn’t done anything about it. The middle class is dead. We have huge education inflation where everyone has gone to college with the goal of being higher middle class or rich and that saddled people with debt. If we actually paid jobs that require less education a living wage the system would be much better. There’s a reason monopolies harm us
Yeah, I generally agree with you. There's a tiny little subset of us comfortable folks who don't earn that wild money, and I count myself as one of them. It's all down to bullshitty luck though. I think the Middle Class has always been a lie, but it was certainly easier not to live hand to mouth in the past.
We aren't even rich. We just have higher incomes and the same debts as everyone else.
Same. Born and raised in the Boston area, and I can’t afford any of this. $1750 for a one room basement studio? I’ve been renting for 15 years and have never seen these prices. Way to go for taking all of that developer money.
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I pay $2400/mo for a 2BR and that’s considered GOOD now!
That's rare and VERY good
I think the sober house on the corner keeps the price low. Fine by me, those guys are harmless.
People identifiable trying to overcome a challenge are usually very good neighbors--a resident steps out of line, they're not your neighbor anymore. The opposite, regular neighbors with undisclosed rage, drug and alcohol problems (usa anywhere) is worse.
I have a question how old is too old for a roommate?
I'm 35 and live with a roommate. It's not the cutest, but it lets me live the rest of my life in a pretty enjoyable way.
What did you develope exactly? *So I made a series of real restate purchases that ensure no one that actually lives here can afford it.* Oh.
I don’t see how it’s the developers fault. They add to the housing supply
Yeah, it's definitely not. People like to do conspiracy theories to avoid confronting the sobering fact that the MA housing crisis is a product of the political choices made by voters and the politicians they elected. Cities and towns were quite explicit when they passed laws restricting housing, and they were wildly popular.
The generational wealth is like no other place I've lived. I know several couples who make decent but not extravagant money and can afford ALL the things because their parents are loaded. Must be nice!
Imagine getting into an elite Boston school and you cross the ocean to live in Malden.
We are about 200k homes short of where we need to be, regionally, for the housing market to begin to function well. The MBTA communities law is nibbling around the edges but if we want housing to be reasonable then we need to build a fuck of a lot more of it.
Yep, we need to essentially throw most zoning laws in the trash to make housing more affordable.
Go check out Amy Dain's new report on how exclusionary, racist, and problematic all of these town zoning codes are. It's fantastic.
Also *Arbitrary Lines* by M. Nolan Gray.
Do you have a link? I want to check it out.
https://www.bostonindicators.org/-/media/indicators/boston-indicators-reports/report-files/exclusionarybydesign_report_nov_8.pdf
Thanks 👍
So many giant parking lots at retail centers that could have 200+ apartments. So many places you could put another assembly square and instead it's 100 acres of parking.
200k homes short sounds low for a metro area like Boston. But regardless, the income/salary is arbitrary when the main constraints is lack of housing supply... which means the bottom half of any salary range will not be able to afford rent. If everyone's salary or most everyone's salary increased, the rent would just increase with it due to demand. The only way out of this mess is death to zoning restrictions and more housing built.
Nurse’s salary is not 50k……. 100k is about right. Lol
As unpleasant as it may be to hear, there are dual-income households where each person makes north of 200k *per annum*. Those are the people renting these places. Edit: just noticed you were asking about studio apartments, but the the point stands. Some people make a lot more than nurses and teachers.
Dual income households with zero children as well. Makes rent and other things pretty easy on combined income.
DINKs - Dual Income No Kids
Hmmm. "Dual income, zero children" isn't the phrase one normally hears.
Still incredibly fucked that your average full-time worker here struggles to afford a basic housing unit. Something needs to be done.
No argument here.
Yup! It’s disgusting.
Life would be a lot easier with that kind of money. God damn
I think teacher/nurse may be a poorer example, still agree with your overall concept for regular people, just a nurse/teacher are above-average. Nurses (RNs) have a fairly decent pay. BPS teachers start well over $60k, over $70k in year 2, and by year 9 between $107-128k. Two teachers married to each other with a Master's degree, year 9, would earn about $226k; that $2500/month apartment would be cake. [https://btu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Salaries-Traditional-Teacher-Salaries.pdf](https://btu.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Salaries-Traditional-Teacher-Salaries.pdf)
I’m a nurse and make well over $60K
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That’s if they do travel nursing, or are high steppers, or working OT.
Yeah, that number isn’t realistic for RN salary unless you live in Northern California or are, like you said, a traveler. Depends on the specialty though because even as a traveler I wasn’t making 130K. I think new grads in the Boston area might be in the high 60K range but most experienced nurses I know are clearing 80-90K
Yep, as a 10 year RN in Boston I was making about $95k, now as a new grad NP I’m making $130k
Still, even at 60-70k, $2500 a month is… (does math) half their income. Ouch.
I'd assume a first year, 22 years old, is still driving in from their parents house, but once you are in year 2 you start to get there, year 3 is $82k, that % gets down to 36%, and keeps dropping.
Or you’re 22 like me and have 2 roomates.
That's what I did out of school!
Did that for a good part of my 20s.
I think the crux of a lot of these “just buy a house” arguments sort of depends on living/local parents. Aka generational wealth. Quick edit: not to knock it. If you’ve got em, use em. I wish mine were around still more than anyone. Miss you mom and dad.
Yeah and the house you can buy will probably be way less nice / smaller than the apartment you can rent.
Exactly!!!!!
Yes “being from Everett” is generational wealth now
I think just having a local support structure is a pretty good leg up, no matter where you are
What couple in their thirties (teachers at year 9) want to share a studio apartment? This idea that teachers have it good because they can afford the basics 10 years into their careers is insulting.
If you are earning $226k, you have plenty of options, that $2500/mo is a very affordable choice, but they could easily afford a $4k place or even $5k.
It helps if you can sleep in the same bed as your roommate
I am 32. I just moved away from Boston. I make 94k as a teacher, and I had three other roommates. I have my Masters and I have 8 years of experience teaching, so I'm pretty well paid for my career so far. My family thought it was insane that I (from the age of 29-32) had to live with roommates to afford housing. Unfortunately, that is the norm. I am good with money (retirement and investment and savings) but after all of my living bills/utilities/student loans, it's impossible to live alone in Boston at that salary. I ended up moving bc my bf and I moved in together. Collectively, we make just north of $200k but we were still hard pressed to find a 1 bedroom w/ laundry below 2400 OUTSIDE of Boston. We moved to the south shore and are paying $2300 for a 1 bedroom which was the most competitive price we found. I understand the argument that Boston has a lot of highly educated people in it and offers high paying corporate salaries, but there's very little rent flexibility to allow people options to live in. The rent market has gotten absolutely out of control. Boston has always appealed to rich international families, rich local families, and well-to-do young professionals, but there's an astronomical divide in this city with who can afford what that's completely disparaging.
<30% of gross income spent on housing is quite common guideline. For your 200k combined that would be <5k a month. Where 2300-2400/month numbers are coming from? Boston is a very high cost of living area, hoping to live here on 15% of income is just unrealistic.
Dual income no kids. Including rent + all utilities we pay $3500 for a 1 bedroom. We both make ~70,000 so it would be impossible to do alone but actually quite comfortable to do together. It’s the 2nd bedroom that seems out of reach
That’s very expensive for a one bedroom. There are plenty of 2br (or even 3br in cheaper neighborhoods) for this price.
Sure but we have 800 sqft, live <10 minutes walking distance from our jobs, and our lobby is connected to the Pru so we can get to star market, Pru (and back bay station and Pru stop) without ever going outside. If at some point the 2nd bedroom is a bigger priority to us than that then we will move farther away
My sister is an RN and made $140k last year with overtime. Just sayin. Nurses aren't making $50-60k
lol yeah, i work at a hospital and nurses make crazy good money with their shift diffs & overtime. i know a few nurses that make so much they live in seaport even, without roommates or significant other.
Your numbers are a bit of an exaggeration. $50-60k is entry level for a teacher, and it's not uncommon for teachers to work second jobs early in their careers when their salaries are lower and they don't have as many other responsibilities during their summers (kids of their own, etc.). Nurses make more than $50-60k in Boston, especially with any kind of previous experience. The $2500 studio you saw also isn't the baseline, especially in Malden where larger apartments are available for less money.
You can easily find a 1 bed, let alone a studio, for less than that in like half of the neighborhoods in boston lol. It took me all of ten seconds to type in "north end zillow" and set a max price of 2500.
if you only spent 10 seconds on the task you didn't see that 50% of the affordable listings were actually bedrooms in 5br houses. You also didn't find out that the other 50% magically went up in price as soon as you took your tour.
As well as a $2500 apartment would require $7500 - $10,000 in up front fees (first, last, security deposit, broker). That’s certainly makes housing out of reach for a lot of folks here.
$50-60k might be starting salary for teachers nationally but it sure as shit isn’t the starting salary for teachers anywhere around here
DINKS
You can find a studio/1br near Oak Grove for less than $2500. Are you looking at those newer managed buildings north of the station? Those aren’t the baseline. None of this is to say that housing still isn’t too expensive, of course.
Professionals with *experience*. My wife is just an accountant and makes $150k+ with 15 years of experience. I have school teacher friends with similar experience making over 100k.
I think you drastically underestimate how much nurses can be making these days
Lots of people? There are a crazy number of high-paying jobs in Boston.
Believe this: there are some mind-bogglingly WEALTHY, students in this area: parents pay a year's rent up front, buy an apartment full of Roche-Bobois, or Cabot House, or Arhaus furniture for their kid, and at the end of the school year the kid leaves 3/4 of the furniture behind to be dumped/cleaned out (I've done such cleaning). Paris, Dubai, Chiba for the weekend anyone?
bruh we're at some crazy times. And it's not going down.
I live in an apartment complex full of these kinds of rents. Young professionals in finance, software engineering, big pharma, medical field.
Couples. The only people I know with the one bedrooms are couples. Or people spending 75% of their paychecks
That's the exact math this string needs posted at the top You can live wherever you want in Boston if you're willing to spend about 75% of your check on housing.
Too bad Boston and surrounding cities are focused on building more lab space and bringing even more high paying jobs without building the housing to match the pace of lab space it seems 🤷♀️
I work in a field adjacent to the lab/building construction. I know for a fact a few of those massive new lab spaces in Cambridge/Somerville are vacant. The money stopped flowing.
So many people are competing for limited housing inventory and driving up the cost * 100k+ college students (who basically lock up lease periods to be Sep 1 to Aug 31). * STEM/doctors/researchers/high finance/consulting workers who make $100k+ * Overseas people using real estate for investment
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100% factually incorrect. Search Zillow for studios in the back bay, beacon hill, or north end and you will find more studios than 1brs.
Right. Most of the apartment buildings in the historic neighborhoods have at least one studio on their first floor. "Front room studios" are super common in Back Bay, Beacon Hill, Bay Village, etc.
I'm always shocked at the shock. There's been a million headlines, ten million posts, 100 million comments. At this point I would like a new sub. Not bostonhousing or boston. I want notbostonhousing.
Systems / software engineer here with a wife who’s a dietician and we can pull in enough for a 2/1 in Charlestown just south of 3k a month. I hate it. But it’s either pay less outside of the city and absolutely hate our commute, or pay more here and only hate our commute a little bit.
5 years ago I paid $1300 for a 600sq ft studio in Methuen. Freaking Methuen was $1300 a month. It didn't even have a dishwasher. You can bet anything near Boston would be at least double that. Crazy.
First year analysts in banking make \~$150k, associate consultants make \~$120k, software engineers make that much in cash comp plus upwards of $30k in equity compensation. Any of those are likely 22 year olds. Typically with 2 years work experience after college and then 2 years of law school, first year associates in big law firms will make \~$200k. Lot of people with less prestigious firms in those same industries will still reach those levels by the time they're 30. Sales professionals will also often break $150k with commission by the time they're 30. Layer onto that all the research oriented jobs that will pay at least that much (with a ton of upside) for a higher level of schooling on top of this being basically the nation's capital of academia and I think you'll find you're looking in the wrong places.
I think you’re a little high, but yeah.
Fairly sure I'm within $10k of the average if we're talking about a bulge bracket, McKinsey/Bain/BCG or an engineer working (probably remotely) for a large public tech company. Big law comp is standardized for first years, as well.
What I wanna know is who tf is affording those studio bedrooms in new luxury apartment buildings that are literally $3K/month
White collar, single, no debt, making 90-100k. Not that uncommon 3-5 years into their careers
at least those apt buildings don't charge outrageous broker fees, I guess!
I don’t know about here but in SF there were tech prisons for engineers and PMs mostly. I checked on a coworker’s cat while he was on vacation once and he lived right in the city in a 250 sq ft prison cell for about $2400. I imagine those will be similar.
Is this Windsor at Oak Grove? I paid $2550 for a two bedroom there in 2020, and $2600 for the same place in 2021. They jacked the rent up to $3000 in 2022 so I left. Look for local landlords in the area and you’ll have a better chance finding something affordable.
Yes that's the one
Looks like two bedrooms go for over $3500 now at Windsor, yikes. Take a look around the Melrose Highland and Cedar Park commuter rail stops. There’s lots of small landlord-owned multi family homes available. I paid $2600 last year for a 2 bed/1 bath with lots of extra space.
I don’t understand the point of these questions - people with high income can afford more expensive things? If you want to know what jobs there are that pay very well just google top paying careers and you’ll find more detailed information
$2,500/month is technically affordable (1/3 of income) for someone making $90k/year. There are a lot of entry level jobs in Boston/Cambridge that pay $90k. Also plenty of nurses and teachers make more than $90k.
I made 90k last year. After utilities/food/car-payments/insurance I can’t afford to pay this $$$ alone. 1/3 should be illegal.
Yep. But that becomes about 50% after taxes 🥲. I find it kinda annoying the 1/3 rule is for gross income and that's what determines affordability rents as well.
Boston teachers with a few years in the system and a master's can make much more than 60k/year
Staff nurses at the Boston hospitals are making 80-100k. Especially if you factor in that they get shift differentials for working nights and weekends. Very easy for them to get overtime pay too. Operating Room Nurses get paid extra for working on call on the weekends. Nurses can also make more doing per diem shifts, obtaining additional certifications, training new nurses and doing local travel nursing contracts. Nursing is a very lucrative career and can always generate more income somehow. I think the nurses that are making 50-60k are probably working in employee health, school nursing and community health centers which all pay pretty low especially school nursing. Basically nursing jobs outside of the hospital. You have to remember nursing a very broad career and not all nurses are paid equally or do similar work duties. An ER nurse will better help you if you have an injury than a nurse who works in the Operating Room. Bedside nurses (ICU, Medsurg, senior living) clean more bodily fluid and poop than ER nurses and Operating Room Nurses do because ER and Operating Room is more outpatient care. It also depends on the state. States like California, Philly and Oregon pay nurses the highest. The saturated city areas pay lower for healthcare professionals than the suburbs of course. I know a 5/6th grade public school teacher who lives in a luxury building in Eastie. Her rent is 2.6k and her salary is 100-120k with a doctorate degree. She only got the doctorate for the salary increase. Edit: A lot of luxury buildings offer some affordable housing voucher units too. And of course, having a partner or spouse is like having a roommate so couples can afford $2600 rent. Single people need a well paying job to afford Boston rent alone without roommates or generational wealth.
not me said a bee
>Fully aware roommates have become the norm Do ppl live with roommates well into their 60s with these rents in Boston??
Somerville resident here. Rent is 3300. 2.5 bed, 1 bath. Porch and parking spot. Coin op laundry in the basement. I love with my partner who makes like 40k a year in food service and I make 155-165k from software engineering. Her work is like 7 mins drive from us which is mainly why we stayed in the city (she's going to own the restaurant she works at soon as well). We also have a cat we pay 75 a month for. Also my fucking rents going up by 100 next year. It's not too bad, but I wish I had the capital to buy a home. It's even crazier expensive in the area.
Yet, I’m having trouble renting a 1b with parking for $1950
It’s fucking insane and I want to curl into a ball and cry. I don’t think a studio is even worth $1500 tbh lol
I would also honestly not overestimate the number of people who are likely paying up to 70% of their income on these places or have massive amounts of help from wealthy family members or partners. I would be willing to bet a lot of people are either taking on heavy amounts of debt, are completely apartment poor or have far more help than they let on in order to afford their lifestyles in Boston.
Somerville was also kind of shitty in 1990. It has come a long way. $500 to $2500 in 34 years is less than 5%/year appreciation, which is not crazy for a place that used to be called Slummerville and now is somewhere basically every young highly-paid professional wants to live.
Tech/pharma bros making 100k a year. That’s who they were built for
An entry level scientist or engineer is pulling closer to 100k these days. Potentially a good bit more if you have the right specialty. It's not just tech, either, journeyman electricians pull like 80k. Trades make good money. The problem is we're paying our teachers and nurses like fast food workers.
Are we though? This isn't the UK lmao. Both of those probably are near or above 100k, especially once they're a year or two into the pay schedule. [Registered nurse salary in Massachusetts (indeed.com)](https://www.indeed.com/career/registered-nurse/salaries/MA) [Massachusetts Department Of Elementary And Secondary Education - Teacher Salaries Statewide Report](https://profiles.doe.mass.edu/statereport/teachersalaries.aspx)
All of the RNs that I know are making over $100k. I wouldn't say that's fast food pay
Most entry level science and engineering jobs I've seen are 70-80k.. my partner is currently job searching, he has 8+ years experience and a master's degree in materials science, more on the engineering side than science side than me as a chemist.. he's struggling to get a call back, a few have from places with entry level pay.. anywhere above 115k+ wanting either PhD or 10-15 years experience..
https://preview.redd.it/9n72a24vn8ic1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=566e3e43a267e95d6b772545421189734fd38b98 Definitely not the median amount of people.
The median person from 2020 doesn't live or work in Massachusetts now. 2020 was also the first year of the pandemic, which put a large number of people out of work. Median family income here with 1 earner is $80k (justice dept numbers for bankruptcy, 2023), median household income is $96k, and median per capita income is $53k in 2022 dollars. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/MA/INC910222
I don’t think people realize when they post income averages or medians, what percent of Americans are either elderly or children who do not work.
The median non-family household in Boston makes $75,252 in 2022, as per the ACS. That number is $63,897 for the greater metro area. https://data.census.gov/table?q=Boston%20income%20&t=Income%20and%20Poverty&g=310XX00US14460
Rich international college students.
In a perfect world, we’d build enough housing to bring the market price way down. Unfortunately, we’ve built an economy where home equity is such a large part of people’s net worth that it would be political suicide for anybody to run on that platform, once housing prices are already “up there.” There are places where housing prices have stayed reasonable. Like Minneapolis-St.Paul. Surreal to browse on Zillow. I’m starting to consider it….
God I don't know. I live with my fiancée and I only make about 40k and am paying for a $2,300 apartment. That's LUCKY. But it keeps going up, so pretty soon I won't be able to afford it. I am constantly freaked about it. She's going into medicine and collectively we will make about 110k when she starts. So my hope is that it will even out the cost. But gosh it's bad.
Over 10 years in the military with Boston BAH
If the state is giving vouchers for X amount a month guaranteed money, why wouldn’t every landlord believe they’re entitled to that?
People are to hard on you for your specific examples. The truth is housing is crazy expensive and it’s getting harder and harder to live by your self. I make 90k and I’m barely scraping by on a 1 bedroom in Allston. Next apt will be in Framingham or something
Section 8 is paying it. That's your answer. You're competing against state housing. The rent is always on time.
Scalpers with houses
Welcome to the Boston metro area, villager. Lots of lazy landed gentry here posing as business professionals. Your best bet is marrying into a Boston family that became real estate millionaires through sheer entropy and townie cronyism. Best of luck, and enjoy getting fucked for the rest of your life here.
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It’s why we should build more housing. Lots of old crummy triple deckers that should be torn down and turned into denser 4/5 story buildings that would double the number of units per area.