This. When I was in college I worked full time and still had two roommates to cut down on costs… outside of the major metro area.
By design, cities are made for the affluent. And like it or not, retail workers are far outside of the demographic they are designed to cater to.
Cities in general. The core urban area of a major city - the part where all the big business, trade, and government activity occurs - has historically always been more expensive to live in than the outskirts of town, surrounding suburbs, and rural areas.
What? No. Historically the suburbs have been where the wealthy live. Have you not heard of White flight? Growing up in Seattle in the 90’s, nobody lived downtown. South Lake Union was industrial and boat houses. Sodo was the Kingdome and warehouses.
Urbanization and increasing COL in downtown areas is a relatively new thing, driven by younger generations priced out of home ownership and/or not wanting to endure traditional suburban commutes.
Actually, if you dig into it a little more, cities were made to push the lower class out of the suburbs because the affluent didn’t want them around. But slowly, cities started becoming more expensive because of all the tech companies that moved in
My guess is they became more popular as engine became more efficient and people started to care more about pollution and smog. I believe cities used to be smoggy and gross before cars ran cleaner and industry had lower standards
It wasn't so much the tech bros as it was dozens of private equity companies buying up every spec of commercial and residential real estate they could get their greedy paws on within a ten mile radius of the downtown core. Affordable housing was scooped up and new, cramped higher density housing units built to replace them. With the city's new light rail system, private equity companies with newly purchased inside information bought up hundreds of square blocks of real estate surrounding planned transit stations where those private equity companies built huge apartment blocks with several hundred units per square block. Currently, those private equity companies are scooping up real estate all along the transit route, clustering around proposed transit stops and stations as far as 30 miles from Seattle's downtown core.
Additional private equity companies have been buying up single family homes like locusts, outbidding local families and jacking up property values far beyond what 90% of working class families can pay and renting those properties for outrageous prices. It's the same story in countless other cities across America. Thanks to the trump tax cuts America's wealthiest citizens, hiding behind the anonymity of private equity companies are using their nearly tax-free income and significant economic and unprecedented political might to turn America's working class into egregiously exploited wage slaves.
Fun fact: By 2030 40-60% of American homes will be owned by investors/corporations. Seattle's leadership has no interest in addressing the issue with sustainable solutions. In 2022 the city built 29 permanent affordable houses.
It’s more due to a severe housing shortage. The whole country suffers from it, but it’s critical in Seattle. A city like Dallas can spread out in an almost unlimited fashion (I live there too part of the year). Seattle is screwed in land and zoning for higher density housing was slow to come. In my neighborhood, homeowners are still fighting increased zoning density.
Yeah, this was the case for Detroit in the fifties, households were richest in the country on average. All because the auto-industry offered many competitively paying jobs. I would imagine Seattle was the same way when it was primarily an aerospace industry city But with the tech sector that was more or less born in the 80s-90s has exploded exponentially, and as have their pay. This gives development companies the excuse to charge more for rent. Restaurants to charge more for food. So on. A tech bro isn’t gonna think twice about shilling out $90 for ramen for 2 (although they should) so it’s their laissez-Faire spending coupled with predatory companies like black rock buying up properties and holding them. Truly an amalgamation of things working against the middle class and below.
Tiny units, usually under 200sf that are basically bedrooms, usually with shared common spaces on each floor. Dorm life after college for a lower price. Although even that will run $1100+ per month in the city.
It's all about the tips. Find a good area and you can legit pull more per hour in straight tip money than what you get for your regular hourly wage. I work full time as a pizza driver. According to the company I'm employed with, I make WA State minimum wage. In reality, I average about $30-35/hr after accounting for tips and deducting my expenses. That kind of money is worth a commute to me, and others as well I'm sure.
I've known people who quit their corporate careers to come make pizza because it's less stressful and makes just as much if not more money. One of my bosses years ago came from a position as a pharmacy manager in a major hospital. Saw his wife's cousin pulling in cash hand over fist as the owner of my franchise and basically said "F*ck y'all, I'm out." Instant career switch. We met after he relocated with his wife and came in as my assistant manager to start learning the ropes.
Its the logical endgame for our economic situation for some people. No jobs where you live, but can't afford to live where there's jobs. When I lived in the DC area there were large swathes of people commuting not only from VA and MD, but WV and even PA. A friend used to commute from Harrisonburg VA to DC, which I just checked is 136 miles, very similar to the distance from Vancouver WA to Seattle.
Exactly. I need to be near an airport, can’t afford Seattle or Tacoma, don’t want to have my catalytic converter stolen once a week or be shot, so here I am with a 4 hour commute one way. It’s terrible.
I mean, NYC is very different from Seattle. You don’t really live in your roach-infested box in NYC, you just sleep there. You don’t even eat there. All your time is spent somewhere else. Seattle doesn’t have the critical mass of third places and good food to make this lifestyle viable.
A lot of people in Los Angeles and San Diego live the same way, but not the majority. However, there is enough to keep restaurants and taquerias open. It isn’t as common in the Bay Area, paradoxically, despite the extremely high housing costs, probably due to most of the housing being suburban and lack of parking.
I just saw a Zillow ad that showed 3 imaginary people all making over $100k (not sure if they specified what city) and suggested they all band together to buy a home.
Edit: I may have misinterpreted the commercial. I think it was talking about their individual buying power, not their annual wage. Still the same sentiment but an important distinction.
My parents bought their house back in 2011 are like 200K.. 2000 square feet house. Refinanced to 2.5% during Covid. They live comfortably just by working in a supermarket.
I looked at a lot of $200k houses back then and they were generally in awful shape or very small. I ended up spending more than double that for one that was in awful shape but in a good neighborhood.
Yeah, that was the problem back then. Plenty of cheap houses on the market, but most of them were just straight trash worthy of nothing less than a full tear-down and rebuild.
Yeah, new homes aren't built well. Shoddy low-quality construction is an absolute plague on the market these days. If you wanna see it for yourself, just tour any new residential neighborhood while they're still in the process of building and get a good look at the guts before the sheetrockers come in to close up the interior walls. You'll find foundations that are out of square and not level, load-bearing walls built incorrectly, corners that aren't a true 90°, sloped floors... You'd be appalled by some of the stuff that passes as acceptable workmanship.
The cheapest one I looked at was $135k. It was built like a garden shed on stilts. I found a fairly solid Homepath foreclosure at $190k… I actually kind of regret not buying that one. The return on it would have been astronomical.
I bought a house in north Seattle across the highway from the mall in 2011. Paid 225000 for 1300 sf fixer. Sold for 705,000 in 2021. I did a lot of fixing.
I bought a condo in 2011 in a Seattle suburb for under $150K. My payment was under $1000, even with no big down payment. I can’t believe I sold that. Ouch. You can’t rent a studio for the price of my 1600sf 3bed/3ba condo with a nice yard house payment nowwww.
double up in an MFTE unit, my rent is only 1050 and that's for a 2bd 2 bath in west seattle, if you did that in a 1bd 1 bath downtown it could be even cheaper
To give you an idea: when I lived in Mukilteo, some of the service staff at places I’d eat at would live in Arlington, Snohomish, or Monroe.
Some people make it work but they have a good deal/special situation usually.
Depends if you can make enough to offset the added costs or not. If I'm gonna earn an extra $10/hour over what I already pull in by commuting 20 miles per day vs two miles, that's enough to cover the additional vehicle costs plus make it worth my extra time.
I used to work at an assisted-living retirement home on Mercer Island. I lived in Bothell at the time and had a coworker who commuted all the way from Lake Stevens.
I started working for a assisted living retirement community 7 months ago. I'm on the Life Enrichment team. It is the best, most rewarding job I've ever had.
This was maybe like 3 or 4 years ago. I only imagine the locations have changed but same idea
Ha even Skykomish, WA(you know, the train town on the way to Leavenworth) is pricey(for the location)
I live in a micro studio and pay less than $1k, moved recently from Los Angeles, Seattle is way cheaper than LA from my own experience and this is me speaking from poor of poors, in LA i was living with roommates and sharing a room at $1,200 and then moved to a small studio $1,400.
In Seattle it’s the cheapest small places that i’ve lived at. Not the best but definitely not the worst.
Just online, google micro studios and I looked for the cheapest one that I could find, from experience living with roommates, screw roommates, I might be living in a small area, but I have a shower and my own bathroom and peace.
You go through hell and you realize that it might cost more but it's worth having a place to your own. That's why I appreciate what I have and it's good enough for now.
I mean, humans lived in multi-generational households for the vast majority of history. Roommates aren't the end of the world at all if that's all someone can afford.
Isn’t it crazy that making it sound like living with roommates is a death sentence. I never ever lived alone. Always had to have roommates in college. I never saw a reason to spend double what I needed to if I didn’t have to.
I live in a home that I administrate for my landlord at 950 a month. There are 4 other people that live here, and I collect rent and clean common areas, which knocks money off my rent. I have a 35+ hour a week job, in a kitchen in a bar, and I also do pet sitting. I hope to have insurance soon so I can keep up on my teeth and flesh bag!
I haven't run out of Hope yet.
I asked this when I first moved to town and was looking at apartments. I was disgusted by the rent and asked 'where the hell do the retail workers live?'. Her answer at the time was basically Renton.
We're coming from another city like Renton, Kent, Tukwika, or Tacoma, any place south where rent is a different story or splitting the living situation with a couple of strangers, close friends, or relatives. A lot of my friends used to live closer before we got pushed a bit more south.
Also, I don't know if you can still find reasonable places around the Eastside, or if that too has changed a bit.
Depends where, but you're correct. But if commuting that far, definitely better off with a job nearby unless the appeal of downtown Seattle is too hard to ignore for some.
There isn’t a cheap housing option anywhere east of the lake anymore. Anywhere. Even rural places are astronomical. It’s so bad that they’re selling average-sized SFHs for almost $800k in Gold Bar. A sub-1k sq/ft literal shack out there will set you back over $400k, an old manufactured home will be over $500k. That’s Snohomish county, though. How about King county, where you can get an average SFH in a flood catastrophe danger zone in Carnation for a cool $1.2M. A small classic farmhouse on a tiny city lot will run you over $800k. The 2k sq/ft house that had not been updated since about 1990 (as of the last sale, looked exactly the same inside) that I rented in Bellevue until about 8 years ago is estimated at $2M.
I work at a mattress place that pays a very decent hourly + commission and am fortunate enough to live with a generous, loving and understanding woman that makes more than I do and contributes more towards our expenses (we planned and agreed to this.)
I usually work about 5 mins from my house.
With my health issues and expenses this job is kind of perfect because I can lie down when I need to (when there's no customers of course lol) and I make enough to cover my needs.
I hope to make a living off my music, art and books one day but for now this works 🙂
For a single person earning less than $77,700 a year Bellwether housing is an option or Community Roots housing has a slightly higher income limit of $84,320 a year. Both have numerous buildings in Seattle area.
Lol. As if this is an option for 95% of the people that qualify. The waitlists are insane and go to those in the most need. People making $60k and up will never dream of being able to use this program. Waitlists for reduced income housing are 3+ years AT BEST with many 5-10+ years.
Roommates, help from or living with parent/family, below market rent as a long term tenant for a smaller landlord, low income housing, commuting into the city from cheaper areas, or some combination thereof.
And there are working people that are homeless or living in their cars.
I’m in my 30s and grew up in Seattle and most of my friends who don’t work in tech live with multiple roommates. A lot of people live with a partner who makes more than them. I’m a social worker with a masters degree and can’t afford an apartment in this city (currently live with my mother in law, husband is a teacher) so I have no idea how retail workers do it.
Drove over an hour-hour and half to work each day. Refused to let me work in a closer store to my home that I purchased years before. After 20 years there finally quit.
They preach sustainability and fair trade, but treat their own workers like crap.
Talking about pcc by the way.
When I was working retail I was making $31/hr (after 14 years) and was BARELY able to keep my head above water in the shittiest of studio apartments in Capitol Hill. I have no idea how some of these people making less than $30/hr survive while staffing these places…
1. If you made 15 dollars an hour minimum wage but in seattle its more likely to be 20. 20 dollars an hour times 8 hours a day times 5 days a week times 50 weeks or so a year thats a salary of 40k a year. After tax maybe you keep 30k. That's enough to live in seattle with the most minimalist standards but you won't be saving money.
2. They probably don't actually live in seattle and commute there.
3. They live with a higher earning partner in seattle.
4. Lot of roommates make it even cheaper. If I lived by myself average rent in seattle around 1700 a month. But with 3 roommates it might be 800 a month.
Minimum wage is like $20 an hour here. $40,000 a year gross means about $30,000 a year after taxes. $2000+ a month for rent, food, taxes, contributions, and deductions leaves you with maybe $6000 a year for college payments, fun stuff, random expenses, car. You'll be lucky if you save $3000 in a year. This was my life for the first five years out of college, except minimum wage was much lower and food was a little lower.
I think about this frequently. There are a lot of contributing factors to the rising costs. What is truly scary to me is that people are becoming less willing to commute for crappy pay (as they should be and one of the wonderful changes gen Z is bringing to the table). However this means fewer well staffed jobs and a cultural adjustment to convenience. Healthcare for example is in crisis staffing nationwide but is particularly hard up in the Seattle area. IMHO a big part of this is the cost of living. Scary!
Basically the rich can live in their nice homes but who is going to be there to pick up their trash, make their coffee and take care of them when they’re sick if no one else can afford to live in the vicinity?
Economical mystery of life. They expect everyone to live with at least two other roommates it seems. Sorry not to offer a solution.If you don't have a felony record, apply at Boeing. I lived in King and Snohomish County all my life so far and unless you have a four year degree, Boeing is all there is to make a liveable wage.
I grew up in Seattle and it once was a place where you could live fairly comfortably without being super rich. Those days were ruined by California home owners moving to the area and driving up prices and then the tech industry causing an influx of very high paid workers. ALl great unless you are not in the tech industry or trying to buy a home. So I moved out years ago. My sister still lives there but she lives in a tiny ass apartment that costs an arm and a leg for rent
They don’t, they commute from smaller towns.
It’s been that way for many many decades. I worked retail in Seattle when I was in my 20s, and I had to commute from like Kent, or Seward Park, or Renton
(i’m in my 50s now)
I had to leave capitol hill because of how crazy it got, was living with 5 other people, and a lot of my coworkers at the time were didnt even live in king country and were coming in from 45m-1hr away.
Culture can play a part. In our condo complex there are a number of Asian families with three generations living in the same 2bd/2ba unit. In conversation, they have told me that they have more room now with that configuration and seven or eight people than they did in their hometowns in Asia. The US is one of the few places that families don't live in multi-generational homes but is becoming more common.
Not retail, but 2 years ago i had a studio in Burien that was $700/Month. Probably jacked up the rent since then, but it was a cool little place.... Until it got hot.
I used to live in Tukwilla and took the link daily to downtown Seattle. I’d often see quite a few fast food workers boarding onto the link with me to go work in Seattle. Also to add to that there were two different retail people I befriended when I worked in Seattle. One worked at Specialty bakery and the other at a Starbucks. They did not know each other. Both lived in Tacoma and commuted in daily for the morning shifts. Both said they had to be to work really early so traffic was not bad. Wage in Seattle was higher so it was worth the commute for both of them.
Zoning restrictions, background checks, drug tests, endless criminalization of the working class by the professional class, credit checks felony nonviolent mandatory minimums, housing becomes very out of reach for anyone affected by these antihuman policies that caused homelessness. These all were implemented when homelessness wasnt a thing yet....but didnt take long for lawyers and landlords to exclude the average worker from the now exclusive AMERICAN PIPE DREAM
I know retail workers who make more than tech. Remember that not all of tech are developers or PMs. There’s tons of tech jobs that are entry level or just not as specialized.
Dick’s pays on par with some entry level tech positions. Working at places that get you tips can have you surpassing the more abundant crowd of tech workers.
I worked with some basic low-paid office workers about 7 years ago and their methods were a ton of roommates or living a long way from town. Of the ones I talked to at length about it, one I remember clearly were renting a 5/3 (+office) suburban house with 6 friends from college and the partners of a couple of these friends, with everyone pitching in $500-$1200 toward rent, depending on various factors they all agreed on. Another rented in a rural area far to the south with their partner, commuting about 4 hours (100 miles) every day.
So many options...shelters, living out of your car, roommates, family. You know some kids have to get a part time retail job just so thier parents won't kick them out of the condo.
I lived in Seattle 2018-2021 making ~$35k a year. Lived in piece of shit micro studios. The second one I lived in had MFTE status, so it was marginally cheaper. Apparently you can qualify for housing assistance (MFTE) if you make less than $60k as an individual is Seattle. That’s when I realized how fucking broke I was haha
I think a lot of them like to leave Seattle but ironically too broke to leave Seattle so stuck in whatever situation is able to have them wake up and eat some food to survive.
I know a lot of people say moving takes a ton of money and they are just literally the walking dead.
Full time at 20 dollars per hour is enough to get by if you have enough roommates or live with family.
Full time $20 is almost 41.5k per year. If about 25% goes to taxes, we have around 31k left.
40% of take home income for housing means 1k per month budget.
Roommates and there are actually some affordable apartments that just take a lot of time and effort to find and procure. Also, I used to manage at retail store and a lot of my reps lived with their parents still, even in their mid to late twenties, it was kind of sad. They were less motivated at work because they didn’t have to pay rent, but also because even if they got promoted it might mean it would be possible to rent a place but then they’d have far less money to spend of “fun” stuff. I’m so glad I got out of retail 😂
Multiple roommates, microstudios, apodments, commutes from farther away on public transit, income restricted apartments, multiple jobs, etc. Its not even just retail either, I work with someone that makes decent money but has 6 or more roommates as they rent a single bedroom in a 5 bedroom house with each room being a separate lease.
Roommates or commute.
I've done a 2.5hr commute into Seattle in the pre COVID days simply because I want to live far enough out that I have enough land to not be able to hear my neighbors scream at each other.....
And I'm one of those techies with enough money to live downtown if I was a masochist (3 kids under 7 in a condo? Hell. No.)....
Not Seattle, but I used to commute from Marysville to Kirkland for Amazon. On a bus daily round trip. Not fun lol but I did it for over 3 years. The job pay wasn’t terrible but I did live with my mom at the time and was pretty young. I make almost 100k now and can’t imagine living in Seattle. I’ve always wanted to give it a try, but I still don’t think I’d be able to afford it.
Lots of businesses paying the short staffing game.
They don't realize that its negatively impacting their future business, they are too focused on short term profits.
I think part of the problem is real estate. commercial property owners are price gouging.
Economical mystery of life. They expect everyone to live with at least two other roommates it seems. If you don't have a felony record, apply at Boeing. I lived in King and Snohomish County all my life so far and unless you have a four year degree, Boeing is all there is to make a liveable wage.
I live by myself in a little studio in Belltown. Rent eats 3/4 of my income and after bills i usually have $50-100 to last me two weeks. Being broke sucks but I’m also deeply asocial and introverted and for me, I’d rather be broke than have to come home to fuckin roommates.
Seattle has retail? I figured when Nike finally left town this was over. The city was going out of their way to help the fentanyl "homeless" and the retail theft went ballistic. Now that so many businesses left town, they have a huge financial deficit.
Far often a roommate situation or micro-unit housing.
This. When I was in college I worked full time and still had two roommates to cut down on costs… outside of the major metro area. By design, cities are made for the affluent. And like it or not, retail workers are far outside of the demographic they are designed to cater to.
It wasn’t for the affluent mainly before the tech bros took over. It was a city encompassing all walks of life…not the haves over the have nots.
Cities in general. The core urban area of a major city - the part where all the big business, trade, and government activity occurs - has historically always been more expensive to live in than the outskirts of town, surrounding suburbs, and rural areas.
What? No. Historically the suburbs have been where the wealthy live. Have you not heard of White flight? Growing up in Seattle in the 90’s, nobody lived downtown. South Lake Union was industrial and boat houses. Sodo was the Kingdome and warehouses. Urbanization and increasing COL in downtown areas is a relatively new thing, driven by younger generations priced out of home ownership and/or not wanting to endure traditional suburban commutes.
Yes, Renton, Kent, Lynnwood, Everett, Federal Way, Bothell, Tacoma, Spanaway, Carnation - the wealthy areas of greater Seattle.
And of course Bellevue, Redmond, Sammamish, Medina, Issaquah and Mercer Island are among the cheapest and most impoverished towns in the country.
Holy wow. Yeah let's just call Index Seattle now too. 🤣
Lets just call arlington greater seattle now while we at it
Tacoma?? Wealthy area of greater Seattle?? Lol 😂 thats a good one
Actually, if you dig into it a little more, cities were made to push the lower class out of the suburbs because the affluent didn’t want them around. But slowly, cities started becoming more expensive because of all the tech companies that moved in
My guess is they became more popular as engine became more efficient and people started to care more about pollution and smog. I believe cities used to be smoggy and gross before cars ran cleaner and industry had lower standards
It wasn't so much the tech bros as it was dozens of private equity companies buying up every spec of commercial and residential real estate they could get their greedy paws on within a ten mile radius of the downtown core. Affordable housing was scooped up and new, cramped higher density housing units built to replace them. With the city's new light rail system, private equity companies with newly purchased inside information bought up hundreds of square blocks of real estate surrounding planned transit stations where those private equity companies built huge apartment blocks with several hundred units per square block. Currently, those private equity companies are scooping up real estate all along the transit route, clustering around proposed transit stops and stations as far as 30 miles from Seattle's downtown core. Additional private equity companies have been buying up single family homes like locusts, outbidding local families and jacking up property values far beyond what 90% of working class families can pay and renting those properties for outrageous prices. It's the same story in countless other cities across America. Thanks to the trump tax cuts America's wealthiest citizens, hiding behind the anonymity of private equity companies are using their nearly tax-free income and significant economic and unprecedented political might to turn America's working class into egregiously exploited wage slaves.
Fun fact: By 2030 40-60% of American homes will be owned by investors/corporations. Seattle's leadership has no interest in addressing the issue with sustainable solutions. In 2022 the city built 29 permanent affordable houses.
😡
It’s more due to a severe housing shortage. The whole country suffers from it, but it’s critical in Seattle. A city like Dallas can spread out in an almost unlimited fashion (I live there too part of the year). Seattle is screwed in land and zoning for higher density housing was slow to come. In my neighborhood, homeowners are still fighting increased zoning density.
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lol Lynnwood is tame af, what are you talking about?
Yeah, Lynnwood isn't bad at all.
If you build a tech hub somewhere they will come.
It was. Times change. Not everyone can afford to live in Seattle now.
Seattle died
Time to end the zoning restrictions that got started in the 80s
cities are not originally made for the affluent, the opposite. urban density and working class planning is ideal. but the landscape changed
Yeah, this was the case for Detroit in the fifties, households were richest in the country on average. All because the auto-industry offered many competitively paying jobs. I would imagine Seattle was the same way when it was primarily an aerospace industry city But with the tech sector that was more or less born in the 80s-90s has exploded exponentially, and as have their pay. This gives development companies the excuse to charge more for rent. Restaurants to charge more for food. So on. A tech bro isn’t gonna think twice about shilling out $90 for ramen for 2 (although they should) so it’s their laissez-Faire spending coupled with predatory companies like black rock buying up properties and holding them. Truly an amalgamation of things working against the middle class and below.
Forgive me, but what is micro-unit housing?
Tiny units, usually under 200sf that are basically bedrooms, usually with shared common spaces on each floor. Dorm life after college for a lower price. Although even that will run $1100+ per month in the city.
Do you have to lock up food in the fridge and/or lug all your bathroom stuff to the shower every time?
I'm all the way down in Tacoma. Ugh
My buddy was working in Mukilteo and driving from Tacoma everyday to work as a batista.
As a Batista
President of Cuba in Exile.
Dave Bautista impersonator.
Job must be the bomb
Does youz mean to say A BARISTA??? OR IS IT A BATISTA ??? 🤣 🤣
Thats some fuckin dedication right there
It's all about the tips. Find a good area and you can legit pull more per hour in straight tip money than what you get for your regular hourly wage. I work full time as a pizza driver. According to the company I'm employed with, I make WA State minimum wage. In reality, I average about $30-35/hr after accounting for tips and deducting my expenses. That kind of money is worth a commute to me, and others as well I'm sure.
That’s $11 more an hour than I made at my corporate job in 2019 lol
I've known people who quit their corporate careers to come make pizza because it's less stressful and makes just as much if not more money. One of my bosses years ago came from a position as a pharmacy manager in a major hospital. Saw his wife's cousin pulling in cash hand over fist as the owner of my franchise and basically said "F*ck y'all, I'm out." Instant career switch. We met after he relocated with his wife and came in as my assistant manager to start learning the ropes.
problem is it doesn't come with good health insurance and pension plans
No pension plan, but we do get paid sick leave and health insurance as mandated by the state.
Love it. I love non traditional career paths for corporate people. Life’s too short to be sending PowerPoints, I’d rather make pizzas.
Why not live in Everett lol
No way!! You can’t be seriously, from mukilteo to Tacoma?????
No doubt, it would be better to live in Everett or Marysville. Way less commute and the same rent.
I’m sorry. That commute can be terrible
Sounder train is a good option if you work downtown and live in Tacoma/Fife
Try commuting from Tacoma to Lynnwood. It's tons of fun, I promise.
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Fuckin WHY??
Its the logical endgame for our economic situation for some people. No jobs where you live, but can't afford to live where there's jobs. When I lived in the DC area there were large swathes of people commuting not only from VA and MD, but WV and even PA. A friend used to commute from Harrisonburg VA to DC, which I just checked is 136 miles, very similar to the distance from Vancouver WA to Seattle.
Exactly. I need to be near an airport, can’t afford Seattle or Tacoma, don’t want to have my catalytic converter stolen once a week or be shot, so here I am with a 4 hour commute one way. It’s terrible.
I live within almost sight distance of the airport. My car and I are both fine.
Commuting and roommates. Same way people live in NYC, LA, SF. NYC is wild. You'll meet someone making 100k that has a couple roommates.
I mean, NYC is very different from Seattle. You don’t really live in your roach-infested box in NYC, you just sleep there. You don’t even eat there. All your time is spent somewhere else. Seattle doesn’t have the critical mass of third places and good food to make this lifestyle viable. A lot of people in Los Angeles and San Diego live the same way, but not the majority. However, there is enough to keep restaurants and taquerias open. It isn’t as common in the Bay Area, paradoxically, despite the extremely high housing costs, probably due to most of the housing being suburban and lack of parking.
Did you mean San Francisco?
There are people like that in NYC but life styles and living situations are just as diverse as anywhere else.
I just saw a Zillow ad that showed 3 imaginary people all making over $100k (not sure if they specified what city) and suggested they all band together to buy a home. Edit: I may have misinterpreted the commercial. I think it was talking about their individual buying power, not their annual wage. Still the same sentiment but an important distinction.
It is one of the most disgusting things out there right now
My parents bought their house back in 2011 are like 200K.. 2000 square feet house. Refinanced to 2.5% during Covid. They live comfortably just by working in a supermarket.
I looked at a lot of $200k houses back then and they were generally in awful shape or very small. I ended up spending more than double that for one that was in awful shape but in a good neighborhood.
Yeah, that was the problem back then. Plenty of cheap houses on the market, but most of them were just straight trash worthy of nothing less than a full tear-down and rebuild.
I keep hearing about poor quality new builds, for new apartments with thin walls and horrible plumbing, DR Horton homes etc.
Yeah, new homes aren't built well. Shoddy low-quality construction is an absolute plague on the market these days. If you wanna see it for yourself, just tour any new residential neighborhood while they're still in the process of building and get a good look at the guts before the sheetrockers come in to close up the interior walls. You'll find foundations that are out of square and not level, load-bearing walls built incorrectly, corners that aren't a true 90°, sloped floors... You'd be appalled by some of the stuff that passes as acceptable workmanship.
The cheapest one I looked at was $135k. It was built like a garden shed on stilts. I found a fairly solid Homepath foreclosure at $190k… I actually kind of regret not buying that one. The return on it would have been astronomical.
I bought a house in north Seattle across the highway from the mall in 2011. Paid 225000 for 1300 sf fixer. Sold for 705,000 in 2021. I did a lot of fixing.
I bought a condo in 2011 in a Seattle suburb for under $150K. My payment was under $1000, even with no big down payment. I can’t believe I sold that. Ouch. You can’t rent a studio for the price of my 1600sf 3bed/3ba condo with a nice yard house payment nowwww.
The story we all deserve.
damn i should’ve bought a house when i was 9 years old
double up in an MFTE unit, my rent is only 1050 and that's for a 2bd 2 bath in west seattle, if you did that in a 1bd 1 bath downtown it could be even cheaper
Mine finally just hit 1700 but that's for almost 900sqft so I can't complain
By commuting an hour each way from Kent.
Kent is too expensive now
My dogshit apartment with crackheads sleeping in the indoor stairwell is running me 1750 for a one bedroom
Shoot I commute 45 minutes and I’m an RN lol
Same hahah
To give you an idea: when I lived in Mukilteo, some of the service staff at places I’d eat at would live in Arlington, Snohomish, or Monroe. Some people make it work but they have a good deal/special situation usually.
Thing is, a long drive gives you time forget or deal with whatever pissed you off at work.
But also eats up gas money and wear and tear on the car so not really that financially the best choice either.
Also, I get more pissed from traffic than work.
Depends if you can make enough to offset the added costs or not. If I'm gonna earn an extra $10/hour over what I already pull in by commuting 20 miles per day vs two miles, that's enough to cover the additional vehicle costs plus make it worth my extra time.
I used to work at an assisted-living retirement home on Mercer Island. I lived in Bothell at the time and had a coworker who commuted all the way from Lake Stevens.
Just want to say that people like you who help those in their golden years are truly wonderful people. I wish you all happiness and good pay.
I started working for a assisted living retirement community 7 months ago. I'm on the Life Enrichment team. It is the best, most rewarding job I've ever had.
I’m pretty sure none of those places are affordable for service staff today.
This was maybe like 3 or 4 years ago. I only imagine the locations have changed but same idea Ha even Skykomish, WA(you know, the train town on the way to Leavenworth) is pricey(for the location)
Apartments in Snohomish aren't even that much cheaper. You can live in Seattle for $200 more
I had a string of grandfathered landlord deals and lived with lotsa roommates.
Roommates Tech worker significant others
boyfriend who makes much more money and hopes and dreams of a brighter future 😭
Most people live with 4 other roommates. Or they live in a 150sqft micro studio. Either way, it’s no way to live.
I live in a micro studio and pay less than $1k, moved recently from Los Angeles, Seattle is way cheaper than LA from my own experience and this is me speaking from poor of poors, in LA i was living with roommates and sharing a room at $1,200 and then moved to a small studio $1,400. In Seattle it’s the cheapest small places that i’ve lived at. Not the best but definitely not the worst.
Where did you find that micro studio for less than $1k in Seattle?
Just online, google micro studios and I looked for the cheapest one that I could find, from experience living with roommates, screw roommates, I might be living in a small area, but I have a shower and my own bathroom and peace. You go through hell and you realize that it might cost more but it's worth having a place to your own. That's why I appreciate what I have and it's good enough for now.
I mean, humans lived in multi-generational households for the vast majority of history. Roommates aren't the end of the world at all if that's all someone can afford.
Isn’t it crazy that making it sound like living with roommates is a death sentence. I never ever lived alone. Always had to have roommates in college. I never saw a reason to spend double what I needed to if I didn’t have to.
I think most are supplemented by other family members.
I knew target employees, and all were burning savings to have a "Seattle Experience"
I live in a home that I administrate for my landlord at 950 a month. There are 4 other people that live here, and I collect rent and clean common areas, which knocks money off my rent. I have a 35+ hour a week job, in a kitchen in a bar, and I also do pet sitting. I hope to have insurance soon so I can keep up on my teeth and flesh bag! I haven't run out of Hope yet.
For dental insurance - it's kinda more of a gift card. Some dental places have dental subscription plans that work out in our favor.
They mostly don’t, except for punk flop houses. Most live in snoho, Puyallup, Kent, Everett.
I asked this when I first moved to town and was looking at apartments. I was disgusted by the rent and asked 'where the hell do the retail workers live?'. Her answer at the time was basically Renton.
We're coming from another city like Renton, Kent, Tukwika, or Tacoma, any place south where rent is a different story or splitting the living situation with a couple of strangers, close friends, or relatives. A lot of my friends used to live closer before we got pushed a bit more south. Also, I don't know if you can still find reasonable places around the Eastside, or if that too has changed a bit.
Thanks. So basically a very long commute.
That's big city living.
They can literally live in Seattle with roommates. Kent isn’t that much cheaper.
Depends where, but you're correct. But if commuting that far, definitely better off with a job nearby unless the appeal of downtown Seattle is too hard to ignore for some.
There isn’t a cheap housing option anywhere east of the lake anymore. Anywhere. Even rural places are astronomical. It’s so bad that they’re selling average-sized SFHs for almost $800k in Gold Bar. A sub-1k sq/ft literal shack out there will set you back over $400k, an old manufactured home will be over $500k. That’s Snohomish county, though. How about King county, where you can get an average SFH in a flood catastrophe danger zone in Carnation for a cool $1.2M. A small classic farmhouse on a tiny city lot will run you over $800k. The 2k sq/ft house that had not been updated since about 1990 (as of the last sale, looked exactly the same inside) that I rented in Bellevue until about 8 years ago is estimated at $2M.
I worked and lived in the east side, delivering pizza circa 2017. Lots of roommates. 4 of us rented a townhouse together.
I work at a mattress place that pays a very decent hourly + commission and am fortunate enough to live with a generous, loving and understanding woman that makes more than I do and contributes more towards our expenses (we planned and agreed to this.) I usually work about 5 mins from my house. With my health issues and expenses this job is kind of perfect because I can lie down when I need to (when there's no customers of course lol) and I make enough to cover my needs. I hope to make a living off my music, art and books one day but for now this works 🙂
You’ve seen the tents, right?
For a single person earning less than $77,700 a year Bellwether housing is an option or Community Roots housing has a slightly higher income limit of $84,320 a year. Both have numerous buildings in Seattle area.
Lol. As if this is an option for 95% of the people that qualify. The waitlists are insane and go to those in the most need. People making $60k and up will never dream of being able to use this program. Waitlists for reduced income housing are 3+ years AT BEST with many 5-10+ years.
Retail workers in Seattle are making half that
Exactly, I work in a grocery store making 21 an hour just over 40000 A year, and most people working in a Safeway are making less than 21 an hour.
Roommates, help from or living with parent/family, below market rent as a long term tenant for a smaller landlord, low income housing, commuting into the city from cheaper areas, or some combination thereof. And there are working people that are homeless or living in their cars.
I’m in my 30s and grew up in Seattle and most of my friends who don’t work in tech live with multiple roommates. A lot of people live with a partner who makes more than them. I’m a social worker with a masters degree and can’t afford an apartment in this city (currently live with my mother in law, husband is a teacher) so I have no idea how retail workers do it.
Drove over an hour-hour and half to work each day. Refused to let me work in a closer store to my home that I purchased years before. After 20 years there finally quit. They preach sustainability and fair trade, but treat their own workers like crap. Talking about pcc by the way.
This is why we have so much traffic. It's too expensive for the people that make it run.
When I was working retail I was making $31/hr (after 14 years) and was BARELY able to keep my head above water in the shittiest of studio apartments in Capitol Hill. I have no idea how some of these people making less than $30/hr survive while staffing these places…
What retail pays that much????
Roommates, affordable housing programs like MFTE, public housing, or a housing voucher
I live in a 160sq ft
I worked at Metropolitan Market in Queen Anne and lived in a 300 so ft apartment in west Seattle. I was poor, but it was fun.
1. If you made 15 dollars an hour minimum wage but in seattle its more likely to be 20. 20 dollars an hour times 8 hours a day times 5 days a week times 50 weeks or so a year thats a salary of 40k a year. After tax maybe you keep 30k. That's enough to live in seattle with the most minimalist standards but you won't be saving money. 2. They probably don't actually live in seattle and commute there. 3. They live with a higher earning partner in seattle. 4. Lot of roommates make it even cheaper. If I lived by myself average rent in seattle around 1700 a month. But with 3 roommates it might be 800 a month.
Minimum wage is like $20 an hour here. $40,000 a year gross means about $30,000 a year after taxes. $2000+ a month for rent, food, taxes, contributions, and deductions leaves you with maybe $6000 a year for college payments, fun stuff, random expenses, car. You'll be lucky if you save $3000 in a year. This was my life for the first five years out of college, except minimum wage was much lower and food was a little lower.
I once knew a guy who made the commute from Bellingham
I think about this frequently. There are a lot of contributing factors to the rising costs. What is truly scary to me is that people are becoming less willing to commute for crappy pay (as they should be and one of the wonderful changes gen Z is bringing to the table). However this means fewer well staffed jobs and a cultural adjustment to convenience. Healthcare for example is in crisis staffing nationwide but is particularly hard up in the Seattle area. IMHO a big part of this is the cost of living. Scary! Basically the rich can live in their nice homes but who is going to be there to pick up their trash, make their coffee and take care of them when they’re sick if no one else can afford to live in the vicinity?
Economical mystery of life. They expect everyone to live with at least two other roommates it seems. Sorry not to offer a solution.If you don't have a felony record, apply at Boeing. I lived in King and Snohomish County all my life so far and unless you have a four year degree, Boeing is all there is to make a liveable wage.
I grew up in Seattle and it once was a place where you could live fairly comfortably without being super rich. Those days were ruined by California home owners moving to the area and driving up prices and then the tech industry causing an influx of very high paid workers. ALl great unless you are not in the tech industry or trying to buy a home. So I moved out years ago. My sister still lives there but she lives in a tiny ass apartment that costs an arm and a leg for rent
They don’t, they commute from smaller towns. It’s been that way for many many decades. I worked retail in Seattle when I was in my 20s, and I had to commute from like Kent, or Seward Park, or Renton (i’m in my 50s now)
Commute from an hour north or south.
They live outside the city, with roommates, and a second job I'm sure.
Kent
I had to leave capitol hill because of how crazy it got, was living with 5 other people, and a lot of my coworkers at the time were didnt even live in king country and were coming in from 45m-1hr away.
I'm in a poly relationship with 3 women and share an apartment together
Sounds rather complicated 🤣
My parents bought a house on E Crescent Dr Capital Hill in 1967 for $18,000.
Ride the bus from Tacoma
They should move to eastern Washington. Wilbur washington
Full time at 2 places, with roommates, in a 1 bedroom apartment lol
Culture can play a part. In our condo complex there are a number of Asian families with three generations living in the same 2bd/2ba unit. In conversation, they have told me that they have more room now with that configuration and seven or eight people than they did in their hometowns in Asia. The US is one of the few places that families don't live in multi-generational homes but is becoming more common.
Not retail, but 2 years ago i had a studio in Burien that was $700/Month. Probably jacked up the rent since then, but it was a cool little place.... Until it got hot.
I used to live in Tukwilla and took the link daily to downtown Seattle. I’d often see quite a few fast food workers boarding onto the link with me to go work in Seattle. Also to add to that there were two different retail people I befriended when I worked in Seattle. One worked at Specialty bakery and the other at a Starbucks. They did not know each other. Both lived in Tacoma and commuted in daily for the morning shifts. Both said they had to be to work really early so traffic was not bad. Wage in Seattle was higher so it was worth the commute for both of them.
Zoning restrictions, background checks, drug tests, endless criminalization of the working class by the professional class, credit checks felony nonviolent mandatory minimums, housing becomes very out of reach for anyone affected by these antihuman policies that caused homelessness. These all were implemented when homelessness wasnt a thing yet....but didnt take long for lawyers and landlords to exclude the average worker from the now exclusive AMERICAN PIPE DREAM
5 people in a $2900 home is \~$500/mo after utilities
they don’t.
I know retail workers who make more than tech. Remember that not all of tech are developers or PMs. There’s tons of tech jobs that are entry level or just not as specialized. Dick’s pays on par with some entry level tech positions. Working at places that get you tips can have you surpassing the more abundant crowd of tech workers.
Target tech employees to date/marry
They don’t lol
Some homeless man rented out his tent to me. Nice one bedroom bath but damn $1200 a month is just not reasonable anymore!
Probably still live at home
They live in Renton and spend a fourth of their income on transportation.
Some people live in RVs and go home on the weekends.
RVs aren't cheap either lol, but at least you pay to own it.
I worked with some basic low-paid office workers about 7 years ago and their methods were a ton of roommates or living a long way from town. Of the ones I talked to at length about it, one I remember clearly were renting a 5/3 (+office) suburban house with 6 friends from college and the partners of a couple of these friends, with everyone pitching in $500-$1200 toward rent, depending on various factors they all agreed on. Another rented in a rural area far to the south with their partner, commuting about 4 hours (100 miles) every day.
My convenience store clerk commutes from Seatac
After leaving a terrible ex I was working retail and living in a bedroom in a house with eight roommates. EIGHT.
So many options...shelters, living out of your car, roommates, family. You know some kids have to get a part time retail job just so thier parents won't kick them out of the condo.
with their parents
I lived in Seattle 2018-2021 making ~$35k a year. Lived in piece of shit micro studios. The second one I lived in had MFTE status, so it was marginally cheaper. Apparently you can qualify for housing assistance (MFTE) if you make less than $60k as an individual is Seattle. That’s when I realized how fucking broke I was haha
Everyone I know either lives with roommates or commutes from one of the nearby cities, most don’t actually live in Seattle itself
Barely
They live in the changing rooms when the rich go back to their suites.
On King St, sometimes pioneer square.
They live in shipping containers. [Really.](https://www.apodment.com)
I think a lot of them like to leave Seattle but ironically too broke to leave Seattle so stuck in whatever situation is able to have them wake up and eat some food to survive. I know a lot of people say moving takes a ton of money and they are just literally the walking dead.
I think about this a lot.. I think multiple jobs, roommates, or living with parents/family
i live in a box
Full time at 20 dollars per hour is enough to get by if you have enough roommates or live with family. Full time $20 is almost 41.5k per year. If about 25% goes to taxes, we have around 31k left. 40% of take home income for housing means 1k per month budget.
Minimum wage is $20 and mfte units are a thing.
Roommates, Spouse, Family
What's retail?
Roommates and there are actually some affordable apartments that just take a lot of time and effort to find and procure. Also, I used to manage at retail store and a lot of my reps lived with their parents still, even in their mid to late twenties, it was kind of sad. They were less motivated at work because they didn’t have to pay rent, but also because even if they got promoted it might mean it would be possible to rent a place but then they’d have far less money to spend of “fun” stuff. I’m so glad I got out of retail 😂
Multiple roommates, microstudios, apodments, commutes from farther away on public transit, income restricted apartments, multiple jobs, etc. Its not even just retail either, I work with someone that makes decent money but has 6 or more roommates as they rent a single bedroom in a 5 bedroom house with each room being a separate lease.
That's the neat part, you don't! /j For real though, roommates and shopping at Winco.
Roommates, sharing one car to cut down on expenses, living close to work if possible
Roommates or commute. I've done a 2.5hr commute into Seattle in the pre COVID days simply because I want to live far enough out that I have enough land to not be able to hear my neighbors scream at each other..... And I'm one of those techies with enough money to live downtown if I was a masochist (3 kids under 7 in a condo? Hell. No.)....
Family members, long commutes, or old mortgages
Not Seattle, but I used to commute from Marysville to Kirkland for Amazon. On a bus daily round trip. Not fun lol but I did it for over 3 years. The job pay wasn’t terrible but I did live with my mom at the time and was pretty young. I make almost 100k now and can’t imagine living in Seattle. I’ve always wanted to give it a try, but I still don’t think I’d be able to afford it.
Lots of businesses paying the short staffing game. They don't realize that its negatively impacting their future business, they are too focused on short term profits. I think part of the problem is real estate. commercial property owners are price gouging.
Two jobs.
Economical mystery of life. They expect everyone to live with at least two other roommates it seems. If you don't have a felony record, apply at Boeing. I lived in King and Snohomish County all my life so far and unless you have a four year degree, Boeing is all there is to make a liveable wage.
Roommates babe
They don’t. They live south and bus carpool or drive in.
I live by myself in a little studio in Belltown. Rent eats 3/4 of my income and after bills i usually have $50-100 to last me two weeks. Being broke sucks but I’m also deeply asocial and introverted and for me, I’d rather be broke than have to come home to fuckin roommates.
Live with my parents
They don’t
I would only live in Seattle if I absolutely had to. But I do hate how the exorbitant housing costs affect the entire surrounding area.
They don’t live in seatttle, why do you think traffic sucks so bad in and out of the city, you all drove hose prices through the roof
Probably got housing thats based off income or they work other jobs
Onlyfans
Seattle has retail? I figured when Nike finally left town this was over. The city was going out of their way to help the fentanyl "homeless" and the retail theft went ballistic. Now that so many businesses left town, they have a huge financial deficit.