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Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

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Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#291

Post by ryanlol »

ryanlol wrote: post #280
vertex-four wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's significantly less incentive to do that when you don't have to. Or, in other words - why would a Polish worker do that any more than a Dutch person, when both of them are otherwise there entirely legally?

The cheap migrant worker probably doesn't care if he pays the Dutch taxes or not, but his employer will definitely be very happy if he and his coworkers don't. Unreported employment is super common.

Must be the americans downvoting me :) This isn't a new thing to anyone in the EU... I think?

http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_402_en.p...

Employers have every incentive to save that 30%+ by paying their employees in cash.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#292

Post by escherize »

idrios wrote: post #175
hkmurakami wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard of "hacker house" type places in the Bay Area which sound exactly like this. I think the rate was something like $30/day or so. I've also heard of operators of these places who will sign a regular rental contract with a landlord, "convert" the place to such a high density dorm, milk it until the landlord finds out, and when the landlord does, apologize, end the contract, then find another rental to rinse a…

As I'm currently living in a hacker house in San Jose, I'm obligated to say that this is mostly true except that you make it sound shadier than I think it usually is. Mine is a 5 bedroom that fits 15 people (one of the 5 bedrooms is for the guy who runs it + his gf). He himself is renting from a landlord who knows that it's a hacker house and is completely happy with that--the landlord gets paid rent while the host t…

I've stayed at 2 of this guy's (Vic) properties. The first time was in the sunset in SF and it was pretty great. The cops did come bursting into our bedroom at midnight on a weeknight once, but besides that I have fond memories of it.

I also stayed at Vic's hacker house in San Mateo, where the stoner host and his buddy were often up to no good... One guy actually decided to stop paying rent, and exercise his tenant's rights. Basically things were going horribly there so I was able to convince my fellow tenants to split a 3 bedroom apartment near by.

I get that Vic takes care of the house that he lives in. It's just not the case for all of his properties.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#293

Post by brianwawok »

da02 wrote: post #110
brianwawok wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I pay a $800 a month mortgage for a 3500 square fort castle with 5 beds and 4 baths on 1/2 acre in BF Indiana. Doesn't mean I am getting a good deal though, just where I happen to be. I would way rather be paying more for a city home :)

What job did you get there? Or did you move there because of love/marriage?

I work remote for a startup out of San Jose ;) SV job, BFI house.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#294

Post by brianwawok »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #109
brianwawok wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I pay a $800 a month mortgage for a 3500 square fort castle with 5 beds and 4 baths on 1/2 acre in BF Indiana. Doesn't mean I am getting a good deal though, just where I happen to be. I would way rather be paying more for a city home :)

But how many tech jobs are located within a reasonable commute of your home?

So the exact metro I live in has about 250-300k people. So there are tech jobs.. maybe 100-200.

But yah, not great. So I work remote.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#295

Post by brianwawok »

s_q_b wrote: post #244
brianwawok wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I pay a $800 a month mortgage for a 3500 square fort castle with 5 beds and 4 baths on 1/2 acre in BF Indiana. Doesn't mean I am getting a good deal though, just where I happen to be. I would way rather be paying more for a city home :)

I'm in the opposite situation. I moved to Washington from a small Rust Belt city. The last house I toured there was a historic 5500 ft^2 Victorian 6 bd 5 bath, in the most desirable location, and thus with near instant liquidity. It was listed for $500k. With a local bank, which knows the housing market in the area, the mortgage would have been less than $2000/mo. Considering the inexpensive housing, an excellent Jes…

Well I left Chicago, and am planning my return. I won't return to my same condo, but I will still return!!

Living like a king in the sticks is overrated IMO.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#296

Post by danharaj »

mhenr18 wrote: post #275
repsilat wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is your $215k Aussie house in close to town in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane? There are plenty of cheap houses in America too, living in LA/SF/NYC is a luxury that people pay a premium for.

It's interesting that a lot of people act like living in those big cities is a necessity rather than the luxury that you've pointed out it really is.

As a software contractor, yea it's a necessity for me.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#297

Post by chrisabrams »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #252
freyir wrote: post #236

A 2 bedroom in my building dropped from $3950 to $3250 over the past few weeks. The landlord can't unload it. And today I got a notice that they're raising my rent. Shortsighted -- they'll have another vacant apartment on their hands soon.

Ha, I'm in Hollywood, and my complex has been sending out emails offering promotions to recommend friends on a bi-weekly basis for a few months now. Vacancy has got to be around 20%. Meanwhile, there's 6 new luxury complexes with over 1500 units opening or that have opened this year-- JUST ON MY BLOCK ALONE [2,3,4,5] (for reference, the entire population of Hollywood is roughly 22k [1]). The new complexes are practic…

Most of these projects were planned and approved many years ago. One of the challenges with development is that you start a project knowing people won't move in for 3-5 years (when construction completes).

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#298

Post by e40 »

refurb wrote: post #7

A friend used to rent out a spare room in SF on a regular basis. Two years ago, he could get $1850 for a single room with it's own bath room, furnished. We're talking 6-10 replies from a Craiglist post within 24 hours. Stopped renting it out about a year ago. He just posted it again. Zero takers at $1850. Finally got someone for $1600 (-13% decrease in rent) after a month. A dramatic change. The rental market in SF i…

So the market is being depleted of high-income people seeking rentals.

Across the bay, a month or two ago, a coworker saw an apartment in Uptown that astounded me. 4 bedrooms for $8500/mo. That's only $2125/mo per person, but you have to live with at least 3 other people to get that. Crazy.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#299

Post by TulliusCicero »

Bombthecat wrote: post #255
pascalxus wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That, plus a complete refusal on the part of government and voters to build any more housing. not to mention all the environmental impact fees, taxes, and endless regulation which increase housing costs way beyond where it would be without. It's not just LA and SF (gold rush cities that have housing problems). In CA, even the rural areas with miles of space in every direction, housing still costs a lot more than the…

I'm not sure where you plan to build in new york for example? Build even higher buildings?

Sure, why not? If zoning regulations were relaxed, developers would definitely be willing to build more housing. Even most of Manhattan doesn't have very tall buildings, just look at Google Maps in 3D view.

Re: Rents are plunging in the most expensive U.S. markets

#300

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

mooreds wrote: post #289
SomeStupidPoint wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think of it as: NIMBYism keeps high-density zoned land high value, so the floor never comes out of the market, even if you squish the top down. Houses don't belong in (the core of) major metros anymore, but there are a lot of wealthy home owners who live there, and have built up political networks over decades or centuries. It's a tragedy of our system that we let 20 residents keep out 200.

Should the 20 just be bought out, or forced to sell, or allowed to rezone and then sell one by one (with the first person getting the most money, as each lot is turned into a high rise). We are facing some of this in the city in which I live and I don't really know how to address it (I can see validity in the arguments of both sides) so was wondering what you see as the path forward.

This is a tough one.

I'm generally leery of things like eminent domain, because they can be very problematic. On the other hand, there's a good chance that converting a lot of blocks also means we need to up utility capacity in the area, which can be very disruptive for residents, so it also makes sense to rebuild an area at a time.

I like the idea of having the city nominate regions, and then any time 90% of a block agrees, the whole block is sold as a unit (or maybe auctioned with minimum bid) and rezoned at that time. (This kind of idea meshes well with the development plan of having several high density clusters smattered around the city as neighborhood focal points, which is what my city recently switched to.)

It doesn't quite fix the utilities problem or some people being forced out, but I think it balances out a lot of competing forces reasonably, and keeps us from working with weird lots during development (as the city can repartition the block during rezone).

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