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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

#191

Post by defen »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #172
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…

How much does a decent house or decent condo cost in an nice (not very nice) neighborhood in SF? I can look at Zillow but I do not know which areas are good vs. bad.

Median condo price (including 1-bedroom and studios) is $1.1 million

This is the cheapest home available in SF, for $288,000, in the worst neighborhood http://sf.curbed.com/archives/2015/05/27/at_288k_san_francis...

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

#193

Post by rokhayakebe »

hwstar wrote: post #173
Nicholas_C wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a PE firm based out of Austin called Vista Equity Partners that does this. Recently they purchased a tech company and moved their headquarters from San Diego to downtown Dallas. This is probably a great way (for the PE firm) to get high salary employees to quit and hire employees at the lower Dallas salary rates. Also probably a stealthy way for them to shed headcount without layoffs and without running the r…

PE firms kill companies over the long term by sucking all of the value out, then spitting out the (much smaller) shell of a company. When a company becomes controlled by PE, cost-cutting is the number 1 priority. Layoffs happen, the company slow-pays its suppliers and is constantly on credit hold, pay gets cut, benefits are cut, schedules become completely unrealistic, and misconceived products are launched which fai…

Perhaps that is their goal: "Buy it, get 30% return on it, let it die. BUT if the people there somehow manage to revamp it, sell it."

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

#194

Post by vonmoltke »

rconti wrote: post #174
ec072201-474b wrote: post #79

I 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 in…

Prop 17 in CA magnifies the effect. When your property taxes can only go up by a small amount every year, there's literally no incentive for your property values to not go sky-high.

The critical flaw in Prop 17 is that it applies to nearly all properties. Florida did homestead protection right. The homestead protections there are nearly as strong as, if not stronger than, Prop 17; however, only owner-occupied residential properties qualify. I think it is ridiculous that someone can move out of their house or condo in SF, rent it out, and still reap the property tax benefits.

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

#195

Post by joesmo »

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 not going to be the case elsewhere."

In my experience, this is not going to be the case in almost every major city and in some areas not near a major city. Places where I've found/been recruited for jobs easily: Seattle, Portland, Austin, Philadelphia, Central NJ, NYC, San Diego, Atlanta, Dallas, DC. And those are just the places I was looking into at the time. Sure, if you're looking for a very specialized niche, the bay area is a better choice, but for most engineers that just isn't the case.

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

#196

Post by davidw »

ecdavis wrote: post #186
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 33/33/33 rule aims to provide you with enough savings to cover your current cost of living in retirement. It's based on the assumption that your cost of living won't drastically change in the meantime. That assumption breaks down when you're living in a very high cost of living area where you don't intend to retire. I doubt that very many people who live in 1BR apartments in downtown SF will maintain that lifesty…

Realistically, they won't maintain that lifestyle once they have kids.

One of the reasons I got out is that it was too weird living in a place with tons of 20-somethings (I was one too, at the time) and not a lot of everyone else.

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

#197

Post by joshrotenberg »

mmanfrin wrote: post #80
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 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.

I think it's happening.

Uptown is getting busier, and this just happened: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/real-estate/201...

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

#198

Post by Nicholas_C »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #5
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.

Lyft is moving its customer service team to Nashville due to the cost of SF rent. SFBA companies! Get it together! Learn to be remote teams. It makes you a better company in the end. EDIT: And you're not slaving your employees by forcing them to spend so much of their income on the unnecessary expense of SFBA housing.

>Learn to be remote teams. It makes you a better company in the end.

Does it? I hear everyone on here say that more work should be remote but I haven't seen any studies that show that workers can be just as productive when not in the office. I would assume they would be.

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

#199

Post by meatysnapper »

mmanfrin wrote: post #80
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 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.

because the Bart, which better than most of what the US has, is basically a shambling 3rd world disaster. It's slow, uncomfortable, constantly delayed and doesn't go that many places.

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

#200

Post by jsn117 »

sologoub wrote: post #135

The rent around RadPad is not that cheap. While you might be able to find something for that price, it won't be pretty. Most of westside is starting to be as expensive as Venice/Santa Monica and these two aren't that different from SF in prices. Unfortunately, you don't get much besides weather and ocean breeze, unlike in SF where public transit and neighborhood cafes actually exist.

They were no where near SF prices when I lived in both places last year
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