RE: Coming from the other side of it, It’s always aeuslotbly baffled me why people consider their income to be something so deeply personal that it’s unforgivably rude to ask about it. I’ve seen people who are willing to divulge intimate details about their sexual fetishes or health problems who blanch at the thought of putting their income range on an anonymous survey. What’s the deal? Can anyone explain this to me? Please, I am genuinely puzzled. Maybe it’s just a generational divide.By the by, as people seem to be having difficulty with this whole incomes thing, lemmie help you out a bit. The median household income in King County is $53k year at last I checked.The per capita is $29k.According to wikipedia, for the city of Everett, the median household income is about $40k and the per capita is about $20k.From my admittedly rough calculations that means the 50th percentile of incomes in Everett can afford approximately a maximum of about $200k on a mortgage at todays interest rates. Once again, rough calculations. So you may want to readjust your thinking on what is affordable . You could assert that the 50th percentile has no business owning a home and should rent, as I have seen it not stated but implied on these forums before. In that case, we could bump it up to the 60th or 70th percentile and say that the prices are bang on, but that creates a simple supply and demand problem. If you are arbitrarily reducing the percentage of the population that should be able to afford a home, to say 30% to pick a random percentage, you had better make sure that there are only homes available for 30% of the population and a hell of alot of rental space. Otherwise supply exceeds demand and prices will have to come down. I think it’s important that people get over their (baffling, to me) squeamishness about incomes and start really looking at what kind of money people make around here. Presuming everyone is about like me is foolish.
RE: Coming from the other side of it, It’s always aeuslotbly baffled me why people consider their income to be something so deeply personal that it’s unforgivably rude to ask about it. I’ve seen people who are willing to divulge intimate details about their sexual fetishes or health problems who blanch at the thought of putting their income range on an anonymous survey. What’s the deal? Can anyone explain this to me? Please, I am genuinely puzzled. Maybe it’s just a generational divide.By the by, as people seem to be having difficulty with this whole incomes thing, lemmie help you out a bit. The median household income in King County is $53k year at last I checked.The per capita is $29k.According to wikipedia, for the city of Everett, the median household income is about $40k and the per capita is about $20k.From my admittedly rough calculations that means the 50th percentile of incomes in Everett can afford approximately a maximum of about $200k on a mortgage at todays interest rates. Once again, rough calculations. So you may want to readjust your thinking on what is affordable . You could assert that the 50th percentile has no business owning a home and should rent, as I have seen it not stated but implied on these forums before. In that case, we could bump it up to the 60th or 70th percentile and say that the prices are bang on, but that creates a simple supply and demand problem. If you are arbitrarily reducing the percentage of the population that should be able to afford a home, to say 30% to pick a random percentage, you had better make sure that there are only homes available for 30% of the population and a hell of alot of rental space. Otherwise supply exceeds demand and prices will have to come down. I think it’s important that people get over their (baffling, to me) squeamishness about incomes and start really looking at what kind of money people make around here. Presuming everyone is about like me is foolish.