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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

#161

Post by geogra4 »

gk1 wrote: post #134
geogra4 wrote: post #107

I live in Detroit, own a 4bed/2bath and bike to work everyday for a mortgage that's less than 1/4 of the rent median SF 1br. SF is a cartoon world. Yes salaries are less here, but I feel so much more at ease owning my place and can live a pretty comfortable life. If worst comes to worst, there is always remote work.

I live in Baltimore, which is only a notch above Detroit in people's minds (we're talking perceptions here...). I work remotely and can afford to live a life I'd only dream about in Brooklyn, NY: Great apartment, great neighborhood, and enough disposable income left over for travel and other activities.

The nice thing about owning a reasonably sized home is that I have a pretty decent home office setup when I need to WFH. I can segregate it from my 'play' area enough so I don't feel like I'm constantly on the clock.

Baltimore seems like a great place. Plus you have the advantage to ultra-commute to DC if you need to.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#162

Post by vonmoltke »

WalterSear wrote: post #33
nullrouted wrote: post #2

Which 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.

This is one of those things that is a great idea until it isn't. When your employer goes belly up, in SF, you have to fight off job offers. That's not going to be the case elsewhere. It's also much harder on the employers: if you think finding one good job is hard, try hiring an entire team of decent employees at once. Ultimately, it's worth the extra cost of staying where the tech is, prefixing your city name ala 'S…

> When your employer goes belly up, in SF, you have to fight off job offers.

That's a chicken-and-egg problem. Companies choose to set up shop there so employees will feel more comfortable taking risks because of the demand for developers. However, the demand for developers exists because companies tend to set up shop there.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#163

Post by bau5 »

morgante wrote: post #73
steven2012 wrote: post #36

Most 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.

"in a 1 bedroom" means living in a 1 bedroom apartment (might also include living in a studio. What you're referring to would be "in 1 bedroom". The article "a" changes the meaning of the phrase.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#164

Post by newsreader987 »

This is precisely the reason why I turned down an offer with a big company in SF to work for a software company in Utah. I just graduated from school 6 months ago, but I am living very comfortably - the payment on my 4 bedroom house is less than half of what I would have paid in SF for rent in a 2 bedroom apartment.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#165

Post by mikestew »

retbull wrote: post #139
vertis wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

NOOOOOOO. Don't tell anyone. It is terrible here and there is lots of sadness from all the rain. I hate Seattle. Seriously though F * 405 traffic. The new "Toll route" is a nightmare and now everyone is using side roads making my drive to work from a quick 10 min jaunt into a 25-30 min parking lot.

I ride a motorcycle every day from Redmond to Seattle. The new express lanes have screwed it up even for me, even though I get to use those lanes. Problem now is getting to those lanes. Traffic in the other lanes is now worse, and I can't cross the double white lines until about a mile after I get on 405. Granted, it adds maybe five minutes at most. But it poses the question: who are those lanes supposed to help if it only adds time an inconvenience even for those that have access to them?

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#166

Post by pakled_engineer »

famousactress wrote: post #6
nullrouted wrote: post #2

Which 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 not open offices (shameless remote work soap-boxing)

Airbnb's new 72,000-square-foot office allows employees to work wherever they want inside (no fixed workspaces), so why not just let them work remotely instead of spending millions on a new building.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#167

Post by geebee »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #4

That'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…

Oh, I know about the "joke". There may be an uglier side to it than some people want to admit, though.

http://www.washington.edu/uwired/outreach/cspn/Website/Class...

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#168

Post by danso »

idlewords wrote: post #84
danso wrote: post #44

Do (m)any of the SF startups allow workers to occasionally commute from places like Sacramento? I actually knew bankers who lived in Sactown and got up at 5AM to head out to SF every morning. But technology requires less in-person time. And Sacramento is much, _much_ cheaper than the Bay Area...I shared a great 2-bedroom place in the nicest area of town for around 1,200, where you could walk to great food, parties, a…

The commute from Sacramento to SF is not really workable. Traffic across the Bay Bridge has reached a point where there's almost no lull, and parking at BART stations is impossible to find. I go to a Sacramento colo sometimes and would never dream of trying to make the trip on a weekday or Sunday afternoon.

Oh good point...I'm speaking from experience that is now about 7 years old...

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#169

Post by falsedan »

xenadu02 wrote: post #92
proksoup wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am spending 50% of my after-tax income on rent. The 50% I have remaining is more in SF than what I was making in Phoenix or Little Rock or Lincoln. The amount of choice in employer I have as an individual is also much greater here. Still, I'll probably head back to one of those "small" towns soon. Not really worth it here for me personally, despite the employer-choice and the $.

I'm spending 25%. I have the whole house 3br/2ba, a garage, and a back yard. Unfortunately single-family homes in SF aren't rent controlled. You only have to spend 50% if you want to live in a hipster/trendy area of SF.

The cheap places in the Sunset disappeared a long time ago

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#170

Post by eastbayjake »

azakai wrote: post #136

The reasoning here seems wrong. Yes, > "the rule of thumb is that you shouldn't spend more than 30% of your monthly take home on rent", as they say, but that's just a rule of thumb. What actually matters is how much money you end up with. For example, assuming taxes remove 30% of income (probably close enough; would need to look up federal and state tax codes to be precise), 1. A Zynga employee makes 147,000, loses 3…

The other faulty reasoning here is that living without roommates is a reasonable expectation for most single, urban twentysomethings. Most engineers I know have roommates as much for social reasons as economic reasons.

If you take most of those two bedroom rents and look at the cost per month per room, most are less than 30% of after-tax income. (And that's if you choose to live in SOMA, which also seems like an extravagant and uncommon choice for most engineers I know, many of whom are happy with a short commute to the Mission, Pacific Heights, or Oakland.)

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