kancell

Hey guys,

I work for General Electric in the UK as a Senior Engineer/Project Manager in the Oil & Gas Industry. One of the major benefits of working for this company is the opportunity to travel to different businesses and countries if you so wish.

My wife and I have a one year old son, and we fancy moving somewhere for a 2 - 3 year secondment before he is due to start school. There are various options available around the world, but coming from cold and wet Scotland I quite fancy a bit of sun and outdoor life.

A suitable job has recently arisen in San Ramon in California, and I am looking a bit more into the area etc. My major concern is the potential expense of living in California and I am really looking for some information and real life experience.

At present I earn a good wage, £61k plus car allowance, bonus, private medical for family, pension etc, which is great when the average house price in my area is £130k. Realistically a nice 4 bed detached house with a big garden in an excellent area is £250k, so all in all pretty affordable.

I'm not quite sure what the equivalent wage would be for a staff member transferring to a different country, and I can only assume it will be increased in line with what other senior members of staff are paid. However I am keen to get a flavour for what sort of salary range is required to live an equivalent life in San Ramon or the great bay area? Also what a typical wage would be for a Senior Engineer/Project Manager in CA?

Thanks,

Kevin

AmerLisa

Salary.com Salary Wizard- Do you know what you're worth?

sherbert

Which part of the UK are you living in now? That will make a difference as to whether you find the cost of living high.

I'm not in the SF area but generally cost of living in California is a bit higher than other states. I've found supermarkets extremely expensive (fresh/non prepared food, bread, milk, fruit, veg etc) but then the price of petrol is laughable so I suppose it balances out.

OCKF

If you fancy escaping the rain you may be better of to look at Southern California. Just a thought and best of luck wherever you end up!

CAdreaming

i live in Tri Valley area - very nice- tis expensive renting/buying but nice small town feel

CAdreaming

hardly any rain here in East Bay - we could do with some -non in Jan and non to date in Feb

kancell

That's the kind of info I'm looking for, how expensive is it to rent a nice 3 bed detached house in a good area. Also what kind of money do professional people in this area earn.

From the link above it indicates $100-120k but from the supposedly expensive house purchase and rental prices I don't think that's going to stretch far.

I'm trying to work out if I earn £60k in Scotland and have a nice £275k 4 bed house in great area and live very modestly but comfortably what would the equivalent lifestyle be in CA i.e. Would i need to earn $200k to buy a house worth $800k to live a comparable life. Of course I'm being quite generalistic and materialistic here but I'm just trying to get a flavour for what is a comfortable middle class existence is in CA.

I'm right up for moving and giving it a go but I might have to consider other destinations as I would prefer not to move and struggle financially.

Pulaski

Take a look at trulia.com and zillow.com for examples of rents in the area, or other real estate web sites (realtor.com has houses for sale, not sure if it also has rentals).

Bear in mind that the "round trip" costs of buying and selling a house in the US are very high, with most of the cost falling on the seller, based on the selling price; expect the round trip cost to be about 10% of the sales price. So buying a house for $100,000 might cost you $2,000 in various fees, but if you sell it for $150,000 you will pay $9,000 (6% of $150,000) as a fee to the agent to sell the house, plus other fees that will see the total approach $15k (incl the $2k you paid up front).

In short, it is usually not a good financial decision to buy if you don't expect to stay for at least five years. ...... Then there is the matter that as a new immigrant with no credit history you might find it difficult to get a mortgage. .... A "standard" deposit in the US is considered to be 20%, though many mortgages are actually for more than 80% of the purchase price.

kancell

Thanks, as you suggested I'm unlikely to purchase and it will likely be a rent whenever I end up. However the comparison of wage earned to house purchase price just gives me some method of comparison. Yes it's a bit crude but if I know a salary to house price is a multiple of 4 times in Scotland and it's 10 times in CA, then at least it gives me a flavour for things. It also gives me an idea how much I would need to earn in CA.

CAdreaming

i would say that you will be hard pushed to find a decent apartment - and im not talking luxury or anything - for under 2k a month - most decent ones are circa 2,300 - 2,500 a month - for a small 2 bed
houses will be more of course
Not sure of salaries but i would say its indeed very expensive living in the Bay area - as expensive if not more so than London really

Having said that - it is a great place to live- its Feb and the temp is in the late 60s - close to airports - city etc - friendly people and lots of job opportunities

Marc_ely

People are always shocked in the UK when I tell them how expensive it is to live in California. Some of them have been to the USA and thought it cheaper than the UK. This is because the stuff you are typically exposed to when a tourst, are largely cheaper than the UK.
For example: Eating out, clothes, electronics etc.

But when you live here these are not your dominant costs. Those are rent, food shopping, insurance (car and home), cellphone bills, TV, internet, property tax (if you own). All of these are more expensive than the UK. As to exactly how much more expensive - that depends on where you live in the UK and how you live life.

Of these costs, rent is the most variable across the US, but where you are looking is not cheap. Quickly looking on Zillow the cheapest 3bed single family home in San Ramon is $3500 a month. If you're on $100k a year you're going to be taking home say $70k, so around $5800 a month. So 60% of your net pay will be rent.

Make sure you do your sums before you make the move. I grossly under estimated costs and had to ask my new employer for a 20% raise within 3 months of being here, just to break even every month.

kancell

So what's considered a good comfortable wage for an average family renting an average house to live on? Sounds like at least $150k?

I know if I was asked the question for Scotland I would respond that if you are earning a sole or joint salary income of £60k you will be able to live a comfortable life i.e. Average house, nearly new car, two holidays a year, out for tea a couple of times a month etc

md95065

There really is no such thing as "average" and there are many variables but, yes, I think that at about $150k you are starting to get into the range that some people would think was "comfortable". You won't have vast amounts of spare cash but you won't be counting every penny either,

fozzyb

What costs would your employer be picking up. If its just for a 2-3 year assignment then the "startup" costs need to be considered - removal/shipping, car lease & insurance, what happens to your UK house etc.

Make sure you get a commitment in writing from your employer to sponsor you for a green card if, when the time comes, you find yourselves wanting to stay in the US. When we went to the US we intended it to be an adventure for a year or so and planned to settled down afterwards in the UK, but after 2 years out there found the US felt more like home than the UK did - and found it quite hard adjusting back to life in the UK when we had to return.

For what its worth when I was recently considering moving back to the Bay area, I did a whole bunch of spreadsheet calculations factoring in everything I could think of. Its a bit different to your situation as I was considering it as a permanent move, so trying to include everything from taxes (federal+local+property), healthcare, university fees as the kids grow up, pensions, ...

For me, comparing Cambridgeshire with Income=£85K House=£450K with Santa Clara Income=$155K, House=rent@4K/month for a year then buy @$1.2M, the difference over a 15 year window was negligible. Over a shorter window the UK wins (less time to amortize the relocation and startup costs), over longer window the US wins (assuming at retirement we can move to somewhere else in US with lower property costs).

For me the US wins narrowly for absolute standard of living, but the UK wins massively for financial security (In UK once mortgage is paid off you can live very cheaply if needed, not so in the US).

kancell

Fozzyb and md95065, great information! That is just what I was looking for! Gives me a good flavour for where things stand and a blunt measure of how the UK and CA compare.

I'm really just researching potential locations just now i.e. what businesses and opportunities GE has in various countries, they are pretty limitless to be honest. California, in addition to Perth and Florence are the ones that have stood out for me to be honest.

It just so happened I applied for a job in San Ramon yesterday, it's not really in my current field of work, more software project management (unsurprisingly for CA) however I will see how it goes.