So making 100k+/year doesn't allow you to live comfortably in SF nowdays?
It depends on what you mean by comfortable. It's worth pointing out that the median income in San Francisco is $50k or so.
Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
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Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#72Unless I won the stock option lottery, I think it'd be more cost effective for me to do a complete career transition to, say, medicine or dentistry, including lost income and educational debt, than it would be to move to SF as a programmer. Granted, I'm fortunate to have a relatively high salary in a much cheaper location right now.
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#73Most people don't live by themselves in a 1 bedroom. They usually live 2+ people per room, so that they can afford it. For example, a 2 br apt might have 5 people living there, two couples and then one living in the living room. That's how they can afford the $5000/month rent.
> Most people don't live by themselves in a 1 bedroom.
Citation required. None of my post-college friends are sharing a room (though many do share their apartment). Yes, rent is high, but it's not that high when compared to dev salaries.
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#74Which is silly....honestly companies need to start opening offices in more affordable areas. Colorado (Blouder, Denver, The Springs), Texas (Austin, San Antonio), Missouri (Kansas City, Saint Louis)....there are so many places you can put your employees that saves them money as well as your company a lot of money not only in Salaries because you'll be able to employees less but your rent/power/etc.
For people who like big dense cities, you have NYC and SF. That's it. SF has all the 99% of the good tech jobs and great weather.
However, as soon as my employer opens up an office in Berlin, I'm out of the US. Even denser, even cooler and way better public transit.
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#75That's the new normal. In the 1950s, the average New York City resident paid 10% of the income for rent. It was federal, state, and city policy to keep rents down, with new low-cost housing being built by Government agencies and insurance companies.
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Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
Median rent for a 1-bedroom in Seattle is $1,615, compared to $2,800 in SF (from Rent Jungle)
Wow, Seattle actually doesn't seem that much more expensive compared to the $1,263 average 1br in Dallas. But SF... Holy shit. And I'm actually seeing $2,965 on Rent Jungle for SF right now.
The crazy thing is that it will be very hard to find a decent 1 bedroom for even that price, realistically you are looking at $3.5k to $4k.
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#77This article makes the rather flawed assumption that all the housing in SF is being taken up by people who work at startups, and not by people who work at Facebook/Google but live in the city and commute, who likely are both more numerous and have even greater salaries. The article doesn't mention studio prices at all, which are high but not stupid high.
FB/Google do not employ more in SF than the long, long, LONG tail of startups in the city. They probably do have higher than average salaries though.
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#78That's ok. When Airbnb, Square, and Stripe IPO in 12-36 months, all of the people currently flooding into SF to work for them will surely be able to sell their pre-IPO shares to ... Well, I don't know, honestly. I doubt that employee #1000 at Square would even be able to pay the down payment on a SF condo with their earnings. Also, just FYI: Seattle isn't that much cheaper than SF, the people are way meaner, traffic…
Visited Seattle for the first time yesterday (from Australia). I have to say that unless you start paying me off I'm going to start promoting it. The people were super friendly. The weather was great (two days of sunny blue skies). The food was great. Even the roads were easy to deal with I do take bitcoin.
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Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#79I was recently contemplating the hostility between tech workers and some SF residents who have lived here longer. Long-term residents blame tech workers for increasing housing prices and resulting evictions, but high rent is detrimental to both groups.
Then I considered the interest group who is coming out on top in all of this: SF property owners. The total value of all residential property in SF is probably well into the hundreds of billions (a few hundred thousand units, multiplied by a resale value probably approaching a million dollars per unit). That value is driven by scarcity.
So you have a group protecting a half trillion dollar investment. Is it really so surprising that they have convinced long-term residents (most of whom still rent) and populist politicians to rally in favor of scarcity?
Is anyone trying to organize a coalition of tech workers _and_ long-term residents against SF property interests?
Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent
#80Which is silly....honestly companies need to start opening offices in more affordable areas. Colorado (Blouder, Denver, The Springs), Texas (Austin, San Antonio), Missouri (Kansas City, Saint Louis)....there are so many places you can put your employees that saves them money as well as your company a lot of money not only in Salaries because you'll be able to employees less but your rent/power/etc.
Or even Oakland. I don't understand why there aren't as many startups on the eastern shore of the bay: same pool of candidates; often cheaper/quicker commute for people; cheaper housing.