Google Employees Secretly Living On Campus

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Seriously? Google employees make all that money and still have to secretly live on campus to avoid paying rent?

Technically, you weren't supposed to live at the office, but people got around that by living in their cars in the parking lot of the office or the Shoreline parking lot," one Googler writes. "[One] guy lived in the camper for 2-3 years. Showered at the gym. Did his laundry on campus. Ate every meal on campus he could. After the 2-3 years, he had saved up enough money to buy a house.
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If I didn't live in an area where weather can get to -40F in the winter I'd consider that for a while.
 
Rent prices in that area are often higher than mortgages in most other states. Living in a camper near shoreline makes sense.

It's tough to see people who take jobs at Home Depot and move into the area only to realize their salary wouldn't cover the cost of renting, so they have to share rooms in apartments with people. My friend manages several apartment buildings and they lose renters all the time because they can't afford the rent increases. He feels badly for them, but no thing he can do because that's the market rate and owners want what they can get, even if that lead to high turnover.
 
Smart move if it fits your lifestyle. People, including Steve apparently, underestimate/don't realize the power of living frugal even with a healthy income. If you can put away an extra $1500/mo for 5 years that's a cool 100k extra in your coffers. $1500/mo is probably a low estimate, too.
 
Get your first home and skip the mortgage phase?

Are we so brainwashed by our belief in the debt system that we MUST not sacrifice, but instead finance like good little drones?
 
Rent prices in the bay area are higher than mortgage payments in the bay area if you are looking for anything in the same city as you work.

Friend told me about rent on a fully furnished apartment in Redwood City, very reasonable at $6k / month. That is a payment on a $1.25M mortgage!

We are looking at moving into a decently nice area of Santa Clara / SJ. Our mortgage will be less than rent. It's just the fact that a lot of people just don't have a down payment or want to be tied down.

And the one guy from the article... "I had a house payment and alimony to pay" ... The other guy was smart ... "After the 2-3 years, he had saved up enough money to buy a house" ...
 
Can confirm that in southeast Michigan the mortgage for a recently new 3 bed 2 bath home is cheaper than renting a 2 bed 1 bath apt.
 
A lot of Google employee do not make $$$; not everyone there is making 6 figures.
Unfortunately the price for real-estate and rentals out here has gotten way out of hand and it's quickly snow balling across California and into other states.
It's pretty hard finding anything affordable out here even if you're looking in high crime rate area's. The price of housing in gang areas is even out of reach for anyone making 80k or less. Shit With rent being soooo damn $$$$$$$$$, small 250 - 500 square ft studios can run 1500 -2200 and one bedrooms 2k -4k.
So this story isn't surprising to read about.
 
You could buy a pretty damn nice camper for $20k, and live in that for a while avoiding rent. Hell, I would.
 
AMD T-type said:
Can confirm that in southeast Michigan the mortgage for a recently new 3 bed 2 bath home is cheaper than renting a 2 bed 1 bath apt.
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Its the same here. Its the reason I own my house.

The downside of living in a college town. Anything that is actually nice is priced higher than hell to keep the college kids out. Oh well the churn in this town because of this makes it easy to sell a house.
 
Technically, you weren't supposed to live at the office, but people got around that by living in their cars in the parking lot of the office or the Shoreline parking lot," one Googler writes. "[One] guy lived in the camper for 2-3 years. Showered at the gym. Did his laundry on campus. Ate every meal on campus he could. After the 2-3 years, he had saved up enough money to buy a house.
Click to expand...
That's awesome!
I've thought about doing this myself.
 
I would say the living in the car perk gets them $ 12,000 + a year. That's a pretty good perk.
 
That's pretty much the reason I don't live out West. Live in the midwest or south, and pay mortgage on a 2000sq ft brick mansion, a nice yard, out in the burbs where there's no crime for $1500/mo. WFH 2-3 days a week...yeah I don't even care about commuting anymore.
 
The liberal mecca of California building/growing themselves right into another bubble that will burst.

Something Something wages don't keep up from all the liberals yet their homeland is the far worst at it.
 
Epic| said:
Smart move if it fits your lifestyle. People, including Steve apparently, underestimate/don't realize the power of living frugal even with a healthy income. If you can put away an extra $1500/mo for 5 years that's a cool 100k extra in your coffers. $1500/mo is probably a low estimate, too.
Click to expand...

Low? Lol. A google engineer living at work, eating at work, would be able to put away $10,000 a month without even trying.
 
russnuck said:
Friend told me about rent on a fully furnished apartment in Redwood City, very reasonable at $6k / month. That is a payment on a $1.25M mortgage!
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Friend was full of shit, while yeah they CAN get that high, that is hardly a "reasonable" rent for Redwood City. Closer would be in the 1200-$2000 range for an apartment there, which is hardly a good deal, but it's no where close to $6k is reasonable.

That said, I've know quite a few people who live on boats for a fraction of the cost of apartment living. One actually lived right off Pier 39, not that you would want to if you actually live in the city, another currently lives a bit further south at a marina, but still she paid $5000 for a boat, and pays like $250/month for dock fees, after 4-5 months she's at her break even point compared to the basement apartment/studio she lived in before.
 
XvMMvX said:
The liberal mecca of California building/growing themselves right into another bubble that will burst.

Something Something wages don't keep up from all the liberals yet their homeland is the far worst at it.
Click to expand...
Put the bath salts down , step away for the computer and get you head out of your ass.
This has nothing to do with being ran by a specific political party .
This is all about an extremely growth / injection of population, extreme greed and letting things get away out of hand to quickly. The local governments were sleeping on the job or just not caring about what was going on until it because to late.
It would not make a single difference which political party ran the local and state government be it far left ,center, or right... Dem , Republican , Libertarian or Green this shit would have happen not matter who was running the show out here.
 
So what's the problem here?

Company provides certain benefits, employees use them to their fullest. Employee saves money toward something tangible and long lasting.

Crappy apartment complexes are full of nice cars (usually) because a large number of residents spend too much on their car and don't have enough left over for a higher level of housing. Saw it all the time. Nice neighborhoods full of single family houses with an older Accord or Camry in the driveway, apartment complexes with Subaru Impreza GTIs and Ford Raptors in their numbered stalls.
 
If I were single, I'd do it. Basically live rent free for a couple years, putting all that money into savings. In a couple years, pay cash for a home with little/no debt. Smart. Very smart.

With a family, things change. But, excellent move if you're single.
 
AMD T-type said:
Can confirm that in southeast Michigan the mortgage for a recently new 3 bed 2 bath home is cheaper than renting a 2 bed 1 bath apt.
Click to expand...

So same part of state as Detroit is in mortgage is cheaper than rent... ok.

I will say one thing about home ownership in California, is that those of us who didn't buy when the price was high, is that if we want to move to just about anywhere else in the country we can... and it would be a major upgrade... with money left over. Hell I could probably buy a whole city block in Detroit... but then I'd have to live in Detroit :D
 
Ur_Mom said:
If I were single, I'd do it. Basically live rent free for a couple years, putting all that money into savings. In a couple years, pay cash for a home with little/no debt. Smart. Very smart.

With a family, things change. But, excellent move if you're single.
Click to expand...

This. I would live as frugally as I could knowing that there was a large payoff in the end.
Teardrop trailers are cheap, and if I had easy access to shower and do laundry, I'd do it.
 
pavementeater said:
Put the bath salts down , step away for the computer and get you head out of your ass.
This has nothing to do with being ran by a specific political party .
This is all about an extremely growth / injection of population, extreme greed and letting things get away out of hand to quickly. The local governments were sleeping on the job or just not caring about what was going on until it because to late.
It would not make a single difference which political party ran the local and state government be it far left ,center, or right... Dem , Republican , Libertarian or Green this shit would have happen not matter who was running the show out here.
Click to expand...

The prices are high here in CA because the demand is high and the supply is constrained. People are asking for high prices and getting it. It's not a government issue, its a market issue.
Unless of course there is a desire to have the government setting housing prices, which I'm pretty sure we don't want since they've shown an utter and complete lack of financial acumen.
 
A small/medium sized camper? Sure I could do that for a year. A toilet is a requirement, sorry, I'm not running a marathon across the parking lot in my PJ's if I have a late night colon attack.

But sleeping in the back of a Volvo wagon? Maybe a week tops, and it had better be 90 seconds away max. At least if these are all from northern CA (Bay area) the temps aren't hot.
 
Oh, and you can probably get lucky being the guy who lives in "The Google RV", but you think the guy in the Volvo got any action? Not likely.

WHY NO EDIT???? Come on Steve!
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Get your first home and skip the mortgage phase?

Are we so brainwashed by our belief in the debt system that we MUST not sacrifice, but instead finance like good little drones?
Click to expand...

I live in the East Bay of northern California. Average home price is ~$850,000. Over on the peninsula, where Google is, property is more expensive. How would one go about paying cash for a house in these areas (in order to not be a drone)? Drug smuggling? Bank robbery? :rolleyes:

I'm sure I can avoid a house in cash in bumblefuck, USA but that doesn't help if you work in Silicon Valley.
 
PhaseNoise said:
The prices are high here in CA because the demand is high and the supply is constrained. People are asking for high prices and getting it. It's not a government issue, its a market issue.
Unless of course there is a desire to have the government setting housing prices, which I'm pretty sure we don't want since they've shown an utter and complete lack of financial acumen.
Click to expand...
I lived in SF from 1996-March 2014 and now live in Oakland. I know all to well and first hand what is going on. The local governments are one piece of the issue here and yes they are partially to blame here... The supply and demand is a half hearted excuse as to why the prices are so hyper inflated.
Many of the local officials are property owners and have rental units, so they too have a lot to gain for the high rental prices.
In SF people like to say there's not enough rental units in the city but actually there are tons of empty rentals units out there but due to the extremely high rental and move in cast a lot are being left empty. Some units are being kept off the market to so the building owner can sit on it hoping the price will go even higher ... in some cases the owners are splitting the apartments in half creating two units and sitting on those until for a bit then slipping them by the local Gov and renting the new units out as bachelors Apt. < no kitchen + share bath rooms> .
This all plays in with the Lack of reasonable regulations, house law enforcements and then reasonable permits . Also all the back door deals are like big 3x6 board shoved in the spokes of the wheel out here for many local Govs. Esp SF.
Err hope that came out right.
Oh one more thing all over the bay Area a lot of units are also being pulled off the market and used a Vacation Rentals... AirBNB etc etc.
 
Put the bath salts down , step away for the computer and get you head out of your ass.
This has nothing to do with being ran by a specific political party .
This is all about an extremely growth / injection of population, extreme greed and letting things get away out of hand to quickly. The local governments were sleeping on the job or just not caring about what was going on until it because to late.
It would not make a single difference which political party ran the local and state government be it far left ,center, or right... Dem , Republican , Libertarian or Green this shit would have happen not matter who was running the show out here.
Click to expand...

PhaseNoise said:
The prices are high here in CA because the demand is high and the supply is constrained. People are asking for high prices and getting it. It's not a government issue, its a market issue.
Unless of course there is a desire to have the government setting housing prices, which I'm pretty sure we don't want since they've shown an utter and complete lack of financial acumen.
Click to expand...

High taxes, higher regulations, restricting building expansion with gov regulation, more cost associated with employing people, etc etc etc. Yes the government is a MAJOR contributor to the problem out there. Google probably supported the politicians but now doesn't want to pay their employees enough to live in the area they work.

There are other cities booming (Houston, TX) and there is plenty of affordable housing in non-ghetto areas.
 
Restricting building expansion? Have you seen the Bay Area from San Francisco to Silicon Valley? It's a peninsula, there's no place to expand. Compared to Houston which is over 600 square miles and it can still go outward, San Francisco is 13 times smaller, and there's a lot less property per housing unit too. I live in San Francisco, I don't want to see more housing, there's no place to park as it is, traffic is horrible in the city when all those workers leave the city to go to work, and the amount of open space is laughable at best. There are people who want to see a NYC type of city come out where things go vertical, I most certainly do not want to see that.

In SF people like to say there's not enough rental units in the city but actually there are tons of empty rentals units out there but due to the extremely high rental and move in cast a lot are being left empty.
Click to expand...
A lot of this is due to rent control laws, I'm not sure how the rules are in Oakland, but renters actually have more power than home owners in the city. If you rent to someone with low prices, you'll basically but stuck at those low prices and you're not allowed to move people out when their lease is up in order to get higher priced tenants, you have to give the tenant the right to renew their lease for the year and the inflation index dictates how much you can raise rent.
 
Secretly? Then no one must know about those people doing it, but all of us know. It's like a quantum secret or a quantum Google employee or maybe a quantum leap. Oh boy.
 
Kelvarr said:
You could buy a pretty damn nice camper for $20k, and live in that for a while avoiding rent. Hell, I would.
Click to expand...

You'd have to be pretty good at stealth camping to do that, otherwise you're going to be paying rent at some rv park.
 
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