When interest rates again are low, money is cheap, people will look for ways to make money on money, there will be another boom and massive demand for people.
I can't get archive.is to work with this, but if you're subscribed to Apple News+ (e.g. through the Apple One bundle), you can read it here: https://apple.news/AWYHVpxN6QQWlM1h__Hp9nA
The median household income in the Greater Seattle Area is $121k [0] and the median house sale price is $775k [1].
This means the median income to house ratio is roughly 1:5.5
This is fairly standard across the US, and was true even 20 years ago.
For example, in 2000 the median household income ($46k [2]) and house price (~$240k [3]) ratio was roughly 1:5.5. This ratio held true in 2024 as well with a median household income of $83k [2] and a median house price of ~430k [3].
As such, the cost of buying a house as a ratio of household income hasn't changed. The only thing that has changed is the perception.
> Uber driver Juan Prado made six figures in 2021, often shuttling passengers in town for job interviews and doing frequent drop-offs near downtown tech offices. Now, he said, demand is much lower. “There are moments where you can be online, and in certain areas, it shows nothing.”
"Seattle has the nation’s most expensive Uber rides" (Seattle Times). Rides to the airport have increased 50% for me in the past year, to about $75, and it's at best twice as fast as the $3 train. I doubt it's just fewer tech jobs suppressing Uber activity since 2021.
Leaving Seattle 10 years ago was the best decision of my life. Awful weather, high prices, physical isolation, traffic. It had a good job market, though... Without it, I don't know what's left.
1. The tech companies knew an H1B price change was coming
2. They offshored and front-loaded their H1B hiring
3. AI means much smaller teams, they will just hire 01
The damage has been done, American workers are just bag holders.
Most companies began opening offices abroad with P/L and roadmap ownership responsibilities during the initial Covid layoffs, because the first employees cut were those on work visas. Despite the stereotypes on this forum, this included a lot of PMs, EMs, and Principal Engineers.
When companies began rehiring during the COVID recovery, they began rehiring these former employees, but giving them a significant salary premium while allowing them to open and manage entire offices abroad. On top of that, CEE, Israel, and India all give massive subsidizes and roll the red carpet for companies to open high headcount offices which made it easier to do this move.
Now in 2025, you can see the 75th percentile of TCs in India and Romania in the $50k-60k mark and the 90th percentile breaking the $75k-85k mark, so it's not only cheap back office work.
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[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 33.2 ms ] threadWhen interest rates again are low, money is cheap, people will look for ways to make money on money, there will be another boom and massive demand for people.
This means the median income to house ratio is roughly 1:5.5
This is fairly standard across the US, and was true even 20 years ago.
For example, in 2000 the median household income ($46k [2]) and house price (~$240k [3]) ratio was roughly 1:5.5. This ratio held true in 2024 as well with a median household income of $83k [2] and a median house price of ~430k [3].
As such, the cost of buying a house as a ratio of household income hasn't changed. The only thing that has changed is the perception.
[0] - https://data.census.gov/profile/Seattle_city,_Washington?g=1...
[1] - https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/seattle-top-cities-home-pr...
[2] - https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA646N
[3] - https://www.fedprimerate.com/new_home_sales_price_history.ht...
"Seattle has the nation’s most expensive Uber rides" (Seattle Times). Rides to the airport have increased 50% for me in the past year, to about $75, and it's at best twice as fast as the $3 train. I doubt it's just fewer tech jobs suppressing Uber activity since 2021.
1. The tech companies knew an H1B price change was coming 2. They offshored and front-loaded their H1B hiring 3. AI means much smaller teams, they will just hire 01
The damage has been done, American workers are just bag holders.
Most companies began opening offices abroad with P/L and roadmap ownership responsibilities during the initial Covid layoffs, because the first employees cut were those on work visas. Despite the stereotypes on this forum, this included a lot of PMs, EMs, and Principal Engineers.
When companies began rehiring during the COVID recovery, they began rehiring these former employees, but giving them a significant salary premium while allowing them to open and manage entire offices abroad. On top of that, CEE, Israel, and India all give massive subsidizes and roll the red carpet for companies to open high headcount offices which made it easier to do this move.
Now in 2025, you can see the 75th percentile of TCs in India and Romania in the $50k-60k mark and the 90th percentile breaking the $75k-85k mark, so it's not only cheap back office work.
Salesforce has been laying off in a big way. Maybe they'll change their slogan from "No Software" to "No People".