So here I thought Mr. BT and I have done pretty for ourselves. We put ourselves through college (and I went on to get my MBA as well) and now both of us have white collar professional jobs.
Then I read this.............according to the Sac Bee story
"The highest-paid 10 percent of state workers earn a median annual salary of $107,580, up almost 25 percent from November 2003." The raises they have received seem way out of line with what we have received in the private sector.
This helps explain the demand for all these homes that seem ridiculously overpriced when compared to median salaries. Apparently salaries are much higher than I had realized. And yes I griped about this exact same thing last year as well, but it was related to federal pay.
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10 comments:
The joke here is, even with a $100K/year salary, that only supports house prices up to the $350K range. Even earning that kind of money, a $400K loan should be out of reach.
If 12% of Sac area workers are state employees, than only 1.2% are state employees that earn $100K+. Not enough to justify current medians.
Single income familys are the minority I believe. So thats $700K plus maybe some down payment? $100-200K and bingo, you have state, feceral and municiple workers living in million dollar homes.
You'll find plenty of them living in these price ranges. They don't have to worry about loosing their retirement. . .
Homes above $300K are not usually first time buyer 5% down payment homes.
Don't look at me, I make far less then that. The only people I know making over 100k at UC are PhDs and only if they've been with the system a while. Considering the cost of Davis, it's just ironic.
But then I know a ton of state employees and none of them are making over 65k with MAs or PhDs (and yes I looked them up).
Yea we hashed through this. My theory is still that it depends which department you work in. If you work in a "revenue generating" department, for example, I happen to know that you can make quite a bit with zero skill and little education.
well that is just the top 10%. What do the top 10% in the private sector make? Probably a lot more.
What to the other 90% average out to?
Again...throwing my hat into the ring a bit late - I guess I need to subscribe to this blog. I think many folks do not realize how many highly educated professionals work for the state locally in greater Sacramento? There are many state-employed attorneys, doctors, PhD's, scientists, engineers, political appointees, etc. who all make well into the 6-figure range. Many of them are quite comfy in their homes, or out shopping right now for their move-up home, or looking for investment property, or helping their kids purchase their first homes via FHA's non-owner occupant co-borrower caveat or 3% downpayment gift.
My phone is ringing off the hook from these types of buyers right now...and these are the buyers for my listings. ;-)
Just like the rest of CA... if you have equity to move up along with a decent salary... then you can. Sadly, without that bump, it makes the jump into the market difficult, even at our nice salary levels.
We're looking at $350-400k homes as pushing our limits even with a sizable down payment, and our household income is triple the median of Sacramento county.
This isn't scientific, just anecdotal. While there are SOME couples in which both are high-earners, I think that the norm is for one per family. That tends to be the way I've seen it, and holds true for my family and for friends as well. Especially when children or other familial commitments which interfere with work are involved.
I think in general most of the state workers are overpaid. With the guaranteed, zero-risk retirement it is really out of whack with the private sector.
Gwynster,
You're right on. The problem is that those people have good degrees from good schools. If you had a CSUB teaching credential, you could be working 9 months a year and making 75K plus a year.
Or, you could take 6 years, barely make it out of Chico with a 2.3gpa and 4 years later make 110K a year as a cop.
I've got to change profession... I need that "hero" title.
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