Conference 7.286::digital

A friend, who is also a real estate agent, said that she has seen several
people come out to MA to look for housing and change their minds about
taking a job here, due to the high cost of housing.  A friend who did
come here sold their house elsewhere but was priced out of the market
by the time that they left their old job, got moved into an appartment,
and started looking around.  Since there are a lot of jobs here, there
is a big demand on housing, so prices go up.  (Also, there is less land
left to build on.)  In areas/states where unemployment is high, there
people are leaving, and there are lots of houses available, cheap.
In these areas, there also tends to be a lot of farmland available
cheap (since farming is a loss as a business now) which is available
to build on.  Supply & demand.

    If one believes the economists, then these things have a natural,
    if unpleasant, way of straightening themselves out.  Eventually,
    the high price of housing reduces the demand for it -- witness Tom,
    who is one less potential NH homeowner!  Businesses curtail their
    expansion because they can't get labor (read: Tom), and go elsewhere.
    In an ideal world, an equilibrium would be reached where supply
    and demand level off.  In practice, there's a boom-and-bust cycle
    more often then not.
    
    It's not Digital's own problem, but we're the largest area employer
    and we've not done anything to help (could we?).  Local governments
    (especially in no-state-tax NH) are desperate for RE Tax ratables,
    and they lose money on families like Tom's, which consume more in
    schools than they produce in taxes.  Hence they zone more land for
    industry and encourage it to come in.
    
    If I ruled the world, I'd identify which of Digital's land banks
    were in potentially residential zones, and  let developers lease
    or buy pieces of it to build housing (rental and owner-occupied)
    on.  But Digital, as we all know, isn't in that business.  We hoard
    land for its own sake!

    Supply and Demand? There's little land left to build on?
    
    YES, demand exceeds supply, driving prices up. But we all forget
    too often the political issues, the local infrastructure issues
    and the greed you and I have...
    
    We make MINIMUM house lots 1 or 2 acres. We maintain hundreds of
    separate town governments with a hodgepodge of local interests strongly
    regulating the availability of housing -- affordable housing. Why?
    
    First, the small, local government is a tradition of which we are
    proud. It holds off development, upscales zoning, limits major planning
    efforts and drives up housing prices which all of us owners love...but
    it costs us.
    
    Second, we all want development, more affordable housing, more/better
    roads, sewage systems, and so forth. But not in 'my neighborhood',
    right?
    
    If I sound negative, I don't mean to be, at least not totally. If
    we went to regional governments, New England would lose much of
    the charm, atleast in parts, that we've come to expect. And unbridled
    growth, by itself, is a cancer that destroys the ability of the
    area to support itself.
    
    But we have to understand the issues underlying the lack of supply.
    One big one is the political environment that each and every one
    of us contribute to, in part, to preserve what we have for ourselves
    and our children, no matter what others need.

    Caio!

    Let me just add a few cents of overseas knowledge to the "expensive
    housing" issue:
    People (like me) relocating "nationally" to Valbonne (France) are
    faced with the same kind of problem. In my case I am paying about
    the double of rent for an equivalent home to what I used to pay
    before my relocation. Not to speak of other items that make "paradise"
    = french riviera a costly place to live in. Of course you cannot
    expect DEC to compensate with a higher salary just based on the
    fact that you have moved to a more costly place. This leads to the
    thought that sunshine and beach are part of your salary. On the
    other hand the problem is not so visible to local management, as
    many engineer/manager-level relocatees are on temporary "international"
    relocation which means that the benefits are a lot better than those
    of "national" ones. No doubt, this is NOT unfair considering that
    "international relocatees" are only allowed to stay a maximum of
    4 years in paradise, while it is unlimited for the "nationals".
    What is the solution ? Work a lot harder, forget sunshine and beach
    to merit the appropriate salary for beeing able to afford sunshine
    and beach !!!
    
    Fred

    RE: .3
    
>    Second, we all want development, more affordable housing, more/better
>    roads, sewage systems, and so forth. But not in 'my neighborhood',
>    right?
    
    You said it nicely.  Everyone want more affordable housing for 'masses'
    but 'not in my neighborhood'!  I want my neighborhodd to be exclusive.
    
    And then we wonder why there is no affordable housing in and around
    100 mile radius of Boston.
    
    - Vikas
    

    	We have had a person leave our group due to the high cost of
    housing.  After trying to save and watching the prices skyrocket
    he decided his family could no longer afford to live here.  He took a job
    in NJ at a lower pay, but now rents a house for less than his old
    apartment.
    	It is a real problem.  I just went through it myself.  We went
    looking for a home on what I thought was two good salaries (two
    engineering careers) and came out shell shocked.  I was not expecting
    a palace, but I wasn't ready for what I saw.  We got lucky and found
    a place.  What does it matter what you get paid if you cannot afford
    to put a roof over your head?
	I think part of the problem is that many of the people making the 
    decisions already have a home.  There are people I work with who
    bought homes five years ago who pay less in mortgage that I paid in
    rent.  The lowering of the raise scale only makes the problem worse.
    We all had a good laugh when we read the the raises were scaled back 'due
    to the lower cost of living'.  Obviously they don't factor in the
    cost of housing in Greater Boston.  
    	I don't know what the solution is, only that the problem exists.
    It is not a case of yuppies complaining that they can't afford the
    BMW, vacation condo AND the house.  People, especially those just
    starting out, are having a serious problem with housing.

    						=Ralph=    

Is one solution to have DEC establish engineering plants in other areas of 
the country? What about in North Carolina? Maryland? the Chicago area? Texas? 
Why does DEC not want to make significant moves to other parts of the 
country (not trying to discount those plants in Colorado or in the San
Francisco area)? 

My wife was talking to someone that works in the DC area last night, and this 
person was very surprised that houses in New England were so expensive! 
And she's not the first one from that area to be surprised by this. A 
recent article in the Boston Globe said that the average house price in 
the Boston area (I forget the size of the house) was $147,000. The average 
price in the DC area was somewhere around $107,000. The average house 
price where I grew up in West Virginia is around $50,000-$60,000, almost 
$100,000 LESS than in New England. Houses in the area of Massachusetts 
where I live now increased in value by about 20% in the last year.

Jack

    Just to place some quantitative perspective on this:
    
    I recently went through a period of residence buying/renting
    searching, plus land-hunting, in the area in question (30 minutes
    or less from ZK, though I limited myself to the area near the Mass.
    line since I currently work in the Mill).
    
    Prices ARE high, but there is quite a bit of variance, and if you
    look around enough you can find pretty nice, not-too-old 3-bedroom
    offerings at $115K - $135K (presumably hagglable at least a bit).
    Add another 15 minutes to the commute, and prices drop $15K - $30K.
    Or live right IN Nashua if you don't need lots of open space around
    you:  there are nice older houses in good neighborhoods in the $130K
    range (a friend of mine just sold one), and the commuting savings
    should be good for an equivalent $20K or more.
    
    Not cheap, but within striking distance of engineering salaries
    (assuming you have SOME equity to bring over) - and certainly
    within the range of a 2-engineer family.
    
    Same with rents.  Largish apartments/smallish houses AVERAGE $700
    - $800/month, but again if you look around enough there are a few
    down in the $500 - $650/month area.
    
    Buildable land, however, is pretty unreal - and getting more so.
    You have to get out to the Fitzwilliam area (about 45 minutes from
    ZK) before anything dips below $5000/acre, and it's more likely
    twice that.  There is, however, a LOT of still-undivided land less
    than 30 minutes from ZK which continues to trickle onto the market:
    you just have to develop close relationships with the various realtors
    around so that you'll get first crack at it (it goes pretty fast),
    and - again - prices do vary quite a bit and an occasional relative
    bargain comes along.
    
    The major Boston papers are fairly useless when searching in Southern
    N.H., but more local papers (Nashua Telegraph) and freebie weekly
    fish-wrappers (Broadcaster, and don't read any of its editorial content)
    are good sources.
    
    Anyway - hope that may be of use if someone else finds themselves
    in a similar quandary.
    					- Bill
    

	Home-owner?  What's that?  I seem to recall hearing that term once
    as a child growing up in the midwest.  My wife and I have long since
    abandoned our immediate plans of becoming home-owners.  She and I are
    both Programmer/Software Engineers and we will be lucky to afford a
    new yupmobile (to bolster our pot-hole beaten fleet), much less a house.
    Kids are only a distant dream at this point.

	I must admit that the (western) frontier is looking very promising
    these days.  A fellow worker recently accepted a position at a midwest
    university which involves a salary decrease from 35K down to 25K because
    he can afford to buy a house back there much easier (even with such an
    decrease in salary).
    
	This corporation could take great strides to help employees by
    allowing decentralization from the major high-tech centers.  We've got
    the ideal technology for such a venture (the network), yet we continue
    to huddle together in crowds such as the Boston area.  What's the point?
    Why bother with a networked computer system if we can't also demonstrate
    how it can be used to decentralize?

							-DAV0

    	Just out of curiosity, if DEC had a good engineering facility
    in (don't laugh) Cleveland, and if housing were about 1/3 as expensive
    in the Greater Cleveland area, how many engineers would want to
    work there?  Either those working at DEC or those who would consider
    working at DEC?
    
    	- john (who spent 20+ years in the Cleveland area)

    I bought a starter house 2.5 years ago and am quite glad that I did.
    Since then, my house has appreciated (in dollars/week) about the
    same as my total DEC salary.  So, because housing is expensive and
    because I bought rather than rented, I've made a lot of money.  For
    those of you who have two engineering salaries and claim to be unable
    to buy a house, I would definately consider profesional financial
    planning.
    
    A couple of years ago when I was looking for a house and worrying
    if I should really spend all that money, a co-worker who lived in
    a very large 5 bedroom colonial in Sudbury showed me his mortgage
    bill.  That convinced me to buy.  It was less than my monthly phone
    bill!
    
    Jim Pappas

    re .7 and others: You shouldn't complain! The cheapest townhouses
    in Munich (Germany) cost about $180,000, and a 'real' house you
    wouldn't get for less than about $240,000 (and that includes a
    postage-stamp sized lot).

	Like I said...Young Urban Peasants.

						-DAV0

>    Home-owner?  What's that?  I seem to recall hearing that term once
>    as a child growing up in the midwest.  My wife and I have long since
>    abandoned our immediate plans of becoming home-owners.  She and I are
>    both Programmer/Software Engineers and we will be lucky to afford a
>    new yupmobile (to bolster our pot-hole beaten fleet), much less a house.
>    Kids are only a distant dream at this point.
 
    This reply is not to the author of the above statement. I do not
    know his personal financial situation. This reply is to a lot of
    people who, without reason, react to the current situation as the
    author has...
                 
    Give me a break. If you want everything NOW, you can't have it.
    If you want it, you can get it. You want a 325K$ townhouse condo
    in the Backbay? Or you want a house? There are a lot of good houses
    you can buy in the Marlboro-Hudson area at somewhere between
    110 and 140K$. Ditto for Westboro & Northboro. There are a lot of good
    houses in the Worchester area you can buy for 80 to 100K$. If the two
    of you are earning a total of $50K, depending on the degree to which
    you have been able to save, you ought to be able to buy something in
    that range.
    
    Is that too declasse? I've parlayed $100 plus rolling over my credit
    cards for six months in 1976 into $160-$180K --- in ten years. How?
    By wanting something more expensive than what I could afford? Yes,
    but by recognizing my own financial limitations, biting the bullet
    and buying below what I really wanted ... by eating at home instead
    of in restaurants ... by planning.
    
    Can't buy a house on two professional's salaries? Come back and
    explain to me how my secretary was able, through planning, working
    hard, scrimping and saving, to buy her own house. Yes, it's in
    Worchester. So what? You want a life style? You want a Porsche and
    a Backbay condo? Work at it in steps. A day at a time. Save your
    money. Leverage your assets. Spend no money with the service industry
    for a year and see what you can save.
    
    No money for kids? How much do you spend on yourself and your wife?
                                                                       
    I got my 250K$ house the old fashioned way -- I schemed, scrimped,
    worked and planned. And now I'm ready to buy a second one to rent to
    someone who doesn't have the personal discipline to do that so I can
    make more money off of them!!!!!
   
>    	I must admit that the (western) frontier is looking very promising
>    these days.  A fellow worker recently accepted a position at a midwest
>    university which involves a salary decrease from 35K down to 25K because
>    he can afford to buy a house back there much easier (even with such an
>    decrease in salary).
    
    ...yes and note the word EASIER. That also translates into less
    capital appreciation... easier to buyin, easier to make less money
    on the investment ...
                         
>    This corporation could take great strides to help employees by
>    allowing decentralization from the major high-tech centers.  We've got
>    the ideal technology for such a venture (the network), yet we continue
>    to huddle together in crowds such as the Boston area.  What's the point?
>    Why bother with a networked computer system if we can't also demonstrate
>    how it can be used to decentralize?
 
 
    Good point. We have decentralized a number of functional units.
    You might look at Colorado Springs, for example. I understand that
    housing is (or was, last year) very depressed in the Denver area.
    We're also in a lot of other parts of the countrty and the world.
    
    Decentralization is great. But computers cannot replace human
    interaction. The distance between MK and Marlboro, the two sites
    in which Channels marketing is located, is 50 miles (each way).
    That's TOO MUCH OF A DISTANCE. Neither the phone nor computers nor
    teleconferencing cover the human communications needs. There's more
    to life than electronic communication.

    The following is an EXAMPLE of a house that should be in the price
    range of a couple of programmer/software engineers, per .14. It
    may not be your style, it may not be your town. And maybe you can't
    come up with a down payment. But principal, interest, taxes and
    insurance shouldn't run more than $1000/month on it (financing 80%),
    which, AFTER TAXES is somewhere between $600 and 800 a month (depending
    on changes in the tax law, your gross adjusted income, and so forth).
    What do you pay in rent????
    
    In five years, with a 30 year payment plan, you will still owe the
    entire amount borrowed (less a couple of percent). But if property
    appreciates at 7% a year, YOUR share of the property (after paying
    off the bank) will have grown by more than $50K.
    
    Then buy something else ... and so forth.
    
    
    
    
       <<< MODULE::SYS$SYSDEVICE:[NOTES$LIBRARY]CLASSIFIED_ADS.NOTE;1 >>>
                         -< E-Net Classified Section >-
================================================================================
Note 1735.0              House for Sale in Shrewsbury                 No replies
CESSNA::VILLANI                                      17 lines  24-JUN-1986 16:45
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    3 Bedroom Ranch, near center of town
    Eat in kitchen
    New ceramic tiled bath
    Large living room
    Hardwood floors throughout
    Garage and carport
    Private lot
    Finished basement
    New roof
    New storm windows
    Quick access to routes 9 and 290
    
    Price  $119,900
    
    Call Sue Kronlund at Robert Love Realtors in Shrewsbury 
    
    842-1310
    

    The only thing everyone keeps forgetting to mention
    is the 10-20% that banks want to see DOWN before
    you start paying this renat-level-equivalent mortgage.

		I can afford the payments, but not the
    10 grand to start the dealing.

    Boy, you guys sure know how to avoid the MAIN point of the original
    note!
    
    DEC does NOT pay well. Period.
    
    If you joined this company in the last year or two you realize pretty
    fast that DEC is living on past reputation. This goes for both salary
    and benefits. The beancounters run DEC. This is great for stockholders
    (I know,I know) but bad for employees, especially new hires.
    
                        

If you do the proper financial analysis of your situation, you might consider 
getting a loan out of state or taking one of those obscure banks up on their 
offers of a pre-approved $5,000 limit VISA card. These will not show up on 
your credit check here in Massachusetts and can give you a good part of the 
down payment you may need to get started in owning real estate. Bankers don't 
like this because its called double-financing (or something), so you have to 
be low key about it, but it works......

In 1979 my wife and I borrowed $5,000 from a New York credit union and bought
our first house for $39,900. We are now selling it for $145,000. We now live
in a $300,000 house and own a condo as an income property (which has about
$50,000 of equity in it). We DID NOT win Megabucks, inherit a fortune or tap
our parents for some dough. We both worked at Digital for 8+ years. We didn't
even save a hell of a lot. The equity in this first house (which we refinanced
a couple of years ago to buy our present house) allowed us to continue to
invest in real estate with minimal out of pocket cash for a down payment.

My suggestion today is to buy something to start getting some equity; a condo, 
starter home or whatever. Although I've heard that real estate prices have 
started to come down, I'll believe it when I see it.
In any case, YOU CAN DO IT....its all a matter of how bad you want it. 

jim

   Excuse me, but is this the "Nothing Down" conference?  Or am I watching
   one of those 60 minutes "Get Rich Fast" commercial on Cable TV? 
   
   - Vikas 

    All this talk about schemes to make money misses the point.  The
    cost of living in Greater Maynard is outrageous, due to the 100%
    increase in the cost of housing in the past 3 years.  Sure, some
    folks now have gobs of equity because they bought before the big
    run-up.  It also mens that nobody else will get that chance, 
    because there's not enough money left in circulation to run prices
    up much  higher!
    
    And if prices did go higher, the situation would be far worse for
    those who don't already own houses locally, which is the point of
    this topic in the first place!
    
    I, for one, would rather be poor in Massachusetts than rich in
    Cleveland.  Or rich in New Hamster for that matter.  At the rate
    we're going, lots of us are going to get that opportunity (the former,
    not the latter)!  BTW, houses are NOT available below 150k in ANY
    habitable neighborhood in the Boston area.  A few condos are left
    in the $100k range (1BR), but you've got to get WAY out  to the
    Marlboro area (which ain't Boston!) to get lower.  NH, though, still
    has some cheap housing, if you can tolerate the place.

    re .19:  Press <KP,> to skip over uninteresting discussion.
    

    	I just finished an entire dissertation (mostly flames) on why I 
    am not interested in a back bay condo (formerly a garbage dump), a
    Victorian maintenance nightmare, or any other sort of old crumbling
    relic that gets passed off as a New England "home", as well as the traffic,
    the air and water pollution, and all the other dirty laundry I could
    think of concerning the greater Boston area, but was cut off when
    this node aborted due to a logical link error (it's just as well,
    it would have given every landowner in this area the creeps).

    	I think there is a much bigger reason why DEC can't seem to attract
    good engineers (if this is in fact the case), and that is simply the
    fact that probably half of the country has never heard of DEC!  I'm
    sorry Ken, but there's an old addage that goes "You have to spend money
    to make money".  I learned this in a Kansas City cookware sales seminar
    one summer (they were referring to spending a few dimes on phone calls),
    but this applies to DEC's advertising and public relations as well.

    	This is my major gripe towards DEC Marketing, but I think the side
    effects carry over into hiring engineers as well.  Maybe this isn't the
    case with seasoned professionals who've been around the industry awhile
    and learn the hard way how great DEC is, but what about the snot-nosed
    engineer right out of college?  Unless they had access to a VAX at school,
    then DEC is nothing more than another table at a job-fair to them.  DEC
    never even bothered to interview at the University of Iowa like the rest
    of the high-tech world.  If I hadn't have followed my wife (fiance' at the
    time) out here, then I might never have made the connection between VAX
    and DEC, etc.  This may seem rather ridiculous, but I sure as hell knew
    everything there was to know about IBM, HP, INTEL, TI, NCR, CD, DG, etc.
    who not only interviewed there, but also ADVERTISED.

    	I know it's tacky, materialistic, commercial, etc., but let's face
    it, we are living in a fast-paced mass media market these days, and
    we are either going to have to play along, or face the consequences.
    How do you think IBM has managed to maintain their market for so long?
    If you think the modern consumer is too conservative to try anything
    new or different, you're wrong - look at how many people invest in foriegn
    cars!  It all boils down to the level of familiarity people have with
    a particular product, and when it comes to deciding on the right company
    to work for, you can bet that engineers are no exception.

    						-DAV0

    	Hmmm....I can't wait to start house-hunting in NH   8^(
    
    	It is sortof odd that DEC insists on paying less and expecting
    more...but I've been looking for a job for about the last 6 months
    and I never did get my resume to my friendly neighborhood head-hunter.
    
    	Now I've been hired by Ed Services in ZK Course development,
    with relocation, with about $5000 in stock (not DEC) for a downpayment.
    My wife works part time evenings, and full time with our two small
    children all day. I don't mind commuting, so we'll probably be living
    out west and north of Nashua...but if I could afford a place closer
    to Nashua, I'd go for it.
    
    	Now what could DEC help with, in the face of ridiculous housing
    costs? How about equity sharing? Somewhere in here there's a discussion
    of 2 billion dollars sitting around in DEC's coffers. How about
    investing 5% of that into real estate? Not a bad investment these
    days. If they wrote a check for $30,000, they would own that much
    of my house, getting some sort of interest on it as the time went
    on, and after some set amount of time, I could either sell the house
    and pay them back (plus interest) or I could just pay them back
    (maybe refinance, maybe they've given me such outstanding raises,
    or maybe my wife wins big on Jeopardy). 
    
    	I don't think it's a bad idea. DEC gets a return on its investment,
    better than its doing now, I'd bet. They could make the investment
    checks up to the offered salary, and figure out the time limits
    on everything. Paying a mortgage on $XX,000 less than the market
    value would certainly help, and it would once again give DEC some
    outrageously greatful employees who are willing to do silly things
    for silly reasons, like eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches warmed
    by the vents of a VT100. (I'm only joking...working through lunch
    is serious, and shows...seriousness....:-\
    
    	Just a thought (The equity sharing idea). Of course, DEC could also
    just set up programs where employees can help each other with equity
    sharing. It still wins, by being a communication medium which helps
    employees find reasonable housing in an unreasonably expensive area,
    and lets employees make money.
    
    	Since we're on the subject (and the communication media) is
    it legal for me to ASK for anyone interested in equity sharing?
    How about house mates? Just curious... (and I just might be reachable
    by mail, YOGI until July 7th, SUPER or HARDY after)
    
    	Ed

    re: -.1 DEC does buy houses from people who are relocated and have
    trouble selling their current house.  Other companies also do this
    to a greater or lesser degree.  Never heard of a company sharing
    the equity, however!  Should DIGITAL be in the real estate business?
    
    As far as the overall housing market goes, expect to see some changes
    as the tax laws change the relative importance of the mortgage interest
    deduction!  
    
    Rick Merrill
    

    You might want to raise the issue of SAMs (Shared Appreciation
    Mortgages on the INVESTING conference (NY1MM:: is the node, I
    think...). Some of the 'investors' may know of or participate in
    private SAM pools.

In regards to DEC not advertising and nobody west of Mass knowing who we are,
I agree whole heartedly.

I'm sure SOMEONE out there remembers in late 50's (gasp) or was it early 60's
when in grade school we'd see those neat science movies produced by BELL?  They
were always moderated by some very intellectual looking person (can't remember
his name).

Anyhow, I'm sure that the only reason for producing them was not community
service.  They made a point to let you know who's movie it was (BELL was always
part of the title) and I'm sure they wanted to start planting the seeds early
(no, I;m not suggesting mind we get into mind control or the like).

However, when DEC did a few commercials several years ago, even though they
may not have produced a lot of business (or did they?), they helped some of us
feel a little better.  Why shouldn't that apply to outside candidates as well.
Look at all those adds AT&T does, I'll bet you a dollar if you go to Cleveland
and ask them who makes better computers, DEC or AT&T, that the vote would be
AT&T (wadda ya think, John?).

-mark

RE: .3    
>    We make MINIMUM house lots 1 or 2 acres. We maintain hundreds of
>    separate town governments with a hodgepodge of local interests strongly
>    regulating the availability of housing -- affordable housing. Why?

Many small towns do not have sewer systems, or town water, and require larger 
lot sizes so that septic systems (leach fields, etc.) don't foul neighboring 
wells.

RE: DEC salaries.
When I first interviewed at DEC, about 5 years ago, the manager of the group 
said to me "Well, you're talking to DEC, so you obviously don't care about 
money!"

RE: Corporate Ads
Come on - how many QUALIFIED engineers that we are interested in have NEVER
heard of us.  Its more likely that they HAVE heard of DEC, and that we have a 
hiring freeze on, so it isn't worth sending a resume.

Steve