Members gearmike Posted June 4, 2007 Members Share Posted June 4, 2007 Cost of living is killing me. I work three jobs, make six figures and still can't seem to get ahead out here. I can't even begin to look at buying a home that doesn't require a three hour commute. Been thinking about getting out of SoCal for awhile now, but now it looks like I have to make it a reality. I think I wanna move to Nashville, but I don't have a client base there to keep me busy. How difficult is it to break into the live sound scene out there? I have 15 years of large scale sound experience, FOH and Monitors, Special Event, Tour, Festival... I slowed down a few years ago due to a heart attack. Tried doing the desk job thing, but its not as satisfying.But the doctors say I'm doing great, I've dropped some weight and feel great, and I wanna get back to doing what I love and what I good at. Anybody got any ideas? Fantasticsound, you out there? -Mike Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GY Posted June 4, 2007 Members Share Posted June 4, 2007 Cost of living is killing me. I work three jobs, make six figures and still can't seem to get ahead out here. I can't even begin to look at buying a home that doesn't require a three hour commute.-Mike Dude! You must have some serious money management issues! Get rid of the cell phone, your Direct TV subscription and all that other bull{censored}. Seriously... post an accounting of your monthly outgoing and I'll give you some pointers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted June 4, 2007 Members Share Posted June 4, 2007 GY, while I would agree that a six-figure income should be quite good, GearMike says that he's achieving that by working three jobs. It sounds like he's working his ass off here. However, I would agree with GY that you should be able to buy something on a six-figure income (I own a house on a public school teacher's salary, well below six figures). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 4, 2007 Members Share Posted June 4, 2007 Ken Buying a house ten or twelve years ago in Cali wasn't too hard... but these days you have to be making 6 figures JUST to qualify for a loan, pretty much. The housing price drop has barely affected SoCal RE -- no turnover, to speak of, yes -- the RE guys are hurting big -- but prices haven't dropped much except when folks have been forced to sell. One of my buddies (a BIOS designer for very high end server installations) has been making above 6 figures for a number of years, now, and salting it away and HE was fretting last time I saw him (it's been 6 months, though) that he'd never be able to find somewhere he wanted to live that he could afford. It's tough, these days, to get a house if you don't already HAVE a house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gearmike Posted June 4, 2007 Author Members Share Posted June 4, 2007 Ken, how long ago did you buy that house? Trying to buy in OC now is impossible. 500k for a 1000 sqft condo if you're lucky. And that's already with an hour commute. Each way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gearmike Posted June 4, 2007 Author Members Share Posted June 4, 2007 Plus, The cost of living in the area that I do is one of the highest in the country. It's 20% higher than your neck of the woods GY, and 50% higher than Nashville. And there are certain things I just can't cut back on. I gotta keep gas in the Hummer and the Range Rover, 60" Plasma TV's aren't cheap, especially when you need one in each room, who's gonna pay for all the bling-bling my lady wears? You know how hard it is to find italian silk suits when you're over 6 and half feet tall? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members myshkin Posted June 4, 2007 Members Share Posted June 4, 2007 Plus,The cost of living in the area that I do is one of the highest in the country. It's 20% higher than your neck of the woods GY, and 50% higher than Nashville.And there are certain things I just can't cut back on.I gotta keep gas in the Hummer and the Range Rover, 60" Plasma TV's aren't cheap, especially when you need one in each room, who's gonna pay for all the bling-bling my lady wears? You know how hard it is to find italian silk suits when you're over 6 and half feet tall? You might have lost a little sympathy with that last lot of info, Mike. I dunno if you're taking the piss, but you don't need 60" Plasma TV's in any room, never mind each room, that is unless it's got something to do with business in which case... Regardless though there's something deply wrong when living is beyond people's means even when apparently doing well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members BlueStrat Posted June 4, 2007 Members Share Posted June 4, 2007 Um...I'm pretty sure that last bit was sarcasm. I lived in SoCal through 1984-1989, and could never save money fast enough to buy a house, even though I actually sold mortgages for an S&L for awhile and worked for custom home builders as well. I finally packed it in and moved back home to Northern Idaho. I'm right on I-90, I'm 4-7 hours from Seattle, Portland, Boise, and lots of decent paying gigs in Montana. When I left Cal, a 1300 sq ft box in the bad side of town was nearly 200k. I came here and bought a 2300 sq ft home on a quarter acre lot for 64k. Yeah, wages are lower, but so is everything else, and it was a lot easier to make a dollar stretch here. My wife and I together make about 106k, and we have raised 3 kids, own 4 cars, a motorcycle, we live within 50 miles of 70 lakes, the hunting, fishing and camping is great...I could never live there in SoCal again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JM350 Posted June 4, 2007 Members Share Posted June 4, 2007 Cost of living is killing me. I work three jobs, make six figures and still can't seem to get ahead out here. I can't even begin to look at buying a home that doesn't require a three hour commute. Been thinking about getting out of SoCal for awhile now, but now it looks like I have to make it a reality. Thanks for leaving a little more room for the rest of us. Don't let the the door hit you in the ass when you go. Bye now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gearmike Posted June 4, 2007 Author Members Share Posted June 4, 2007 Thanks for leaving a little more room for the rest of us. Don't let the the door hit you in the ass when you go. Bye now! Problem is as I leave, 750 more come in to replace me! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 4, 2007 Members Share Posted June 4, 2007 It can still be done in So California... but not necessarily on your calendar. RE cycles are long and not always easy to predict the timing or amplitude of... but if you're in the right place at the right time with a little bit of money -- sometimes not even that much -- you can get in. Obviously, you have to wait for a buyer's market... they're not that often but when they hit, things get interesting. In the mid-90s, one of my pal's longtime landlords practically begged him to buy they duplex he'd been renting half of. It was in a "challenged" neighborhood (and it's more challenged than ever, frankly) but the last time it was appraised it was about a half mil. (I don't know if it will pull that when it's sold in upcoming months, but we'll see.) The "problem" is that a lot of folks who don't already own don't really seem to feel the house thing until there's a RE boom hysteria. If they're smart, they'll turn that I'll-never-be-able-to-own-a-house angst into some discipline and start saving. They can save through the rising cycle and well into the next downturn and wait until the people who bought at or near the top of the last cycle are saying to themselves, Why did I ever buy a house? The house is worth less than the mortgage and that second I took out at the top of the market and I never have an extra buck... And wait about fifteen minutes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gearmike Posted June 4, 2007 Author Members Share Posted June 4, 2007 Blue...did you catch the key part of what you said there...a half mil to live a challenged part of town? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted June 5, 2007 Members Share Posted June 5, 2007 I think it's super difficult to purchase a house...maybe even on six-figure incomes...but you can start small and buy a condo somewhere in Los Angeles, right? I didn't know you were talking about OC specifically. Unless you really do want to purchase something in the OC, in which case, yeah, that'd be definitely more difficult. I bought a house out here in the Valley instead because I couldn't afford to buy anything anywhere else. I bought the house about four years ago, so of course, it was much cheaper then. But I have seen $300k-350k condos around here. In decent neighborhoods. In either case, I'll take your word for it that you can't do it. But one of the points that I was trying to make is that if you have to work three jobs to make six figures, you're basically working yourself into the ground, no? I mean, that's a lot of work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philbo Posted June 5, 2007 Members Share Posted June 5, 2007 Dude, living in the land of fruits & nuts is GOING to be expensive. You should be able to find a 2500+ sq ft house around Tennessee for less than 200K, unless of course you're determined to buy one of those new OSB-covered crackerbox palace type houses. IMHO, your health and life isn't worth waiting to get an extra 100 or 200K for your current house. What you gonna do with that money once you're dead?I say bail now... My 2 cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted June 5, 2007 Members Share Posted June 5, 2007 IMHO, your health and life isn't worth waiting to get an extra 100 or 200K for your current house. Exactly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gearmike Posted June 5, 2007 Author Members Share Posted June 5, 2007 Yeah, that's why I wanna get out. I want to spend time with my son and we want to have a awcond kid, but we can't do that here. Anyone have any help in Nashville? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Lakisha Posted June 5, 2007 Members Share Posted June 5, 2007 Yeah, that's why I wanna get out. I want to spend time with my son and we want to have a awcond kid, but we can't do that here. Yo Yo YO! If you an that son a yours wanna have a second kid, I dont think you can do that anywheres. You gonna need a woman for that, G. Of course, Im taken, but like you say, maybe theres a honey waitin for you in Nashville. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 5, 2007 Members Share Posted June 5, 2007 Blue...did you catch the key part of what you said there...a half mil to live a challenged part of town? Well... it has a higher strategic value because of its location in a business district that should be lifted next up cycle. And, I think that appraisal was at the peak of the RE fever. But, yeah, I know. And it wasn't like, a nice duplex... it was ramshackle, two one BRs over some garages in back of what used to be an offset print shop. And the alley it was on was NOT a nice alley, even by challenged LB neighborhood standards. You could certainly do better, domicile-wise, for the same money. For sure. And you wouldn't be gambling on a challenged neighborhood. That said, my pal had got in for 100K, IIRC, with no down, around 1994-95 when the SoCal RE market was dismal -- and even worse in LB, because people remembered the '92 riots only a couple years before had burned buildings in LB. Buildings burned right behind my old house, in fact. Cinders floated down into my backyard. No {censored}. Suffice it to say, property values were impacted, even beyond the slump. I was upside down for years -- even though I'd put down 25%... it's all about timing. I had ROTTEN timing because I got caught up in first house fever along with the rest of the rubes... Anyhow, MY neighborhood was a LOT better than his. I mean, on a Sunday morning, when all the losers and low lifes were sleeping it off, people (people from OC, even) would tell me what a cute neighborhood it was... all the cute little Spanish styles... and it really could be. Anyhow... I didn't mean to get started. I just hate to see people get caught up in RE hysteria (it'll happen again in 8 or 15 years). So, in retrospect, here are the important lessons from this post: 1) Timing2) Timing3) Timing Oh, yeah... and that location thing... I ignored that and really took a boot up the expectations... while my friends who moved to the thoroughly boring but not without charm Chapman College neighborhood in old town Orange... well... they did a little better, paying a little less than my place going in and coming "out" (not that they sold but, you know, for comparison's sake) with a house that was worth at least 20%, maybe 25% more than mine when I sold. And they didn't have to put up with gangbangers and lowlifes and having to look in front of your garage before you drive out, so you don't run over the wino sleeping in the easement between your garage door and the alley. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted June 5, 2007 Members Share Posted June 5, 2007 'Course, when I was doing my half-assed "cost analysis", I neglected to take into consideration that you had a family. That's obviously expensive, so ignore any previous comment I've made about finances!!! RussRags is in Nashville. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted June 5, 2007 Members Share Posted June 5, 2007 I also wanted to let you know that if you do move, I'll miss you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members the new guy Posted June 5, 2007 Members Share Posted June 5, 2007 Plus,The cost of living in the area that I do is one of the highest in the country. It's 20% higher than your neck of the woods GY, and 50% higher than Nashville.And there are certain things I just can't cut back on.I gotta keep gas in the Hummer and the Range Rover, 60" Plasma TV's aren't cheap, especially when you need one in each room, who's gonna pay for all the bling-bling my lady wears? You know how hard it is to find italian silk suits when you're over 6 and half feet tall? I was starting to feel sorry for you Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted June 5, 2007 Members Share Posted June 5, 2007 The cost of living in the area that I do is one of the highest in the country. It's 20% higher than your neck of the woods GY, and 50% higher than Nashville.And there are certain things I just can't cut back on.I gotta keep gas in the Hummer and the Range Rover, 60" Plasma TV's aren't cheap, especially when you need one in each room, who's gonna pay for all the bling-bling my lady wears? You know how hard it is to find italian silk suits when you're over 6 and half feet tall? Okeeeeey....there's now two people that appear to be taking this last paragraph seriously. Although I can attest to Mike being a very snappy dresser (particularly near the end of October), he's *JOKING*!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members gearmike Posted June 5, 2007 Author Members Share Posted June 5, 2007 Seriously joking. I sold my big truck and bought a hybrid last year. And that was the first new car I've ever purchased. I haven't bought a TV in 10 years. I don't over spend on toys and crap. My living costs are pretty fixed. But they are high. I have special needs kid. Private school isn't cheap. I have huge medical bills and huge student loans from my wife's education. Rent out here is running about 2k. I probably own the least amount of gear out anyone in this thread, even though I work in a high end gear shop. I'm just ready to get out of an over populated, over priced area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted June 5, 2007 Members Share Posted June 5, 2007 I knew you were kidding, Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phil O'Keefe Posted June 5, 2007 Share Posted June 5, 2007 I sold my big truck and bought a hybrid last year. And a very cool car it is - I've had the pleasure of riding in it. Mike, if you ever need a character reference, I'd always be happy to do that for you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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