[geddy]

I'm always reading about job openings throughout my country (or world, for that matter) that offer 100% remote positions, and initially the huge difference in salary was pretty jarring. Then I hopped on Trulia for some less populated (not rural, but certainly not close-to-the-city-suburbs), and realized the mortgage for a house twice my size would cost the property taxes I pay now. Literally talking about a $25,000/year difference in just the mortgage. In other words, what I pay just in property taxes annually here, is how much a house costs annually that's double the size, there.

Suddenly I didn't mind seeing zeroes falling off the salary.

[asdff]

This could be dangerous, restarting your life somewhere sight unseen just because it looks great on paper. You sell and move to that house in location x for cost alone, always pining for that life you had in location y with all the intangibles you never realized you were reliant on, and never will make enough to reverse the play and relocate back to y which has experienced ever higher property values since you've been gone.

A better move would be to move laterally, to a place with the same benefits that the one you are in gives you, be it leisure activities or a network for your field. That might limit you to metros, and particular metros that are most favorable to your activities (skiers might like CO, sailors might like FL). Suddenly your options become limited, and you find among these limited choices the same housing issues that have plagued states like CA as demand ramps up, because everyone had the same idea as you. No city in the U.S. actually builds sufficient supply for their influx in labor; even the ones that we applaud are doing quite poorly in terms of how much housing should be built and where. The ones that don't seem to have a housing crisis are experiencing a contracting local economy, and that doesn't bode well with your networking prospects and career options.

[shuckles]

There's a concept known as operating leverage which applies here: fixed costs, even if high, mean that increases in revenue multiply net income.

And of course by moving outside a greater metro area, you're also saving money by choosing not to consume any amenities of private schools, airports, large hospitals, high infrastructure recreation, etc.

[mcguire]

Absolutely true. Once you move out of the center of a high-density, major metropolitan area, you literally cannot find and use private schools, airports, hospitals, and theme parks.

And your IQ drops by 50 points. Instantly. It's weird.

[bcrosby95]

> Suddenly I didn't mind seeing zeroes falling off the salary.

Keep in mind: that asset your company is paying for can be sold and the difference will be kept by the employee, which will let them set themselves up for a much better retirement in a lower cost of living area.

It reminds me a bit of the SF Giants. They couldn't pay high salaries because they had to pay for their ballpark. But the value of that ballpark is part of the value of the club, which would be realized if the owner ever sold it. So it still was a lot like the owners pocketing the money. But not exactly.

[bhupy]

> It's literally just the lowest they can get away with paying you.

Um, yes? That's exactly how this works. Google doesn't pay software engineers what they do out of the goodness of their hearts, they do it because that's how much it costs for a highly skilled engineer to come live in the Bay Area and work there.

Humans aren't necessarily commodities, but labor is ABSOLUTELY a commodity. We have to start decoupling the value of a human from the value of their labor, because there's no use pretending that all labor is worth the same — while you and I might both agree that all humans are inherently equal. It's like any other good/service, labor costs as much as the buyer is willing to pay.

[geddy]

Totally, it's a dangerous path to tread. Suddenly your potential worth as having you as an employee is tied to how small of a shanty you live in.

"Whoa, this guy's resume says he has 20 years experience and lives in a box down by the river, wonder if we he'll take a $7,000 salary?"

[ryanwaggoner]

Wait, for anyone getting paid multiples of the minimum wage, how exactly do you think those comp numbers are set?