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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

#301

Post by oftenwrong »

rahrahrah wrote: post #51
twelvechairs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its the land not the apartment which is expensive. Land, especially in cities, is finite. This makes it different to other mass produced products

So build up. Here in London people don't build up, for some reason (I mean other than office spaces, obviously). I think it's this nefarious british mentality that old is good. So you never demolish any 2 story buildings, you just build more outwards. Then you complain that the prices are insane.

In San Francisco there is a lot of progress that can be made without building up. For example, building more Accessory Dwelling Units [1] and subdividing oversized streets [2].

[1] http://sf-planning.org/ACCESSORY-DWELLING-UNITS

[2] http://narrowstreetssf.com/mcallister/

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

#302

Post by bogomipz »

oneplane wrote: post #136
xor1 wrote: post #122

Los Angeles though... :( One of my friends just moved here and is sharing a 5-bedroom home with 25 other people. I thought he was bullshitting me, and I still couldn't believe it when I went over. He's paying $600 a month to share a bedroom with four other guys. He told me it was the best thing he could find on 1-day notice. He pays for rent online, and he has no idea who the actual owner is, nor who is actually rece…

Woah, I knew about things being bad in the USA, but I didn't know living conditions are going towards third-world standards :/ Where I live (The Netherlands) there are laws that even protect foreign workers (i.e. from Poland) from all being stuffed in a single room. At this point it's starting to look like even jail cells have more room and privacy.

Things are not that bad. The OP's post is kind of odd as many others have pointed out. Four adults sharing an apartment is something you would see broke college students doing. It is not the norm and has very little to do with Los Angeles which a huge place.

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

#303

Post by da02 »

brianwawok wrote: post #293
da02 wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Very nice. What about the dating pool? Small? What education/degrees were required for your remote job?

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

#304

Post by kevinburke »

sagarm wrote: post #281
kevinburke wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth - Four of the eleven Supervisors (in San Francisco) were just up for re-election. Some of the candidates were much better than the others. Marjan Philhour, a pro-housing candidate in District 1, lost by 1000 votes. If she won, pro-housing SF Supervisors would have had a 6-5 majority on the board. We were 1000 votes away from a much better housing situation in SF. If you live in SF, the way we chan…

Hillary Ronen, Campos's former chief of staff, could turn out to be pro housing. She included building 5,000 units of "affordable" (BMR) housing in her platform: http://hillaryronen.com/hillarys-plan/ There's nowhere near enough public funds to subsidize that much BMR housing, so in theory she would have to support mixed developments. In practice it might just be lip service.

Affordable housing is great but gets more expensive as market rate rent increases, and won't meet the demand for housing. I'm much more concerned about the market rate housing stock.

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

#305

Post by r2pleasent »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #258
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.

No, no it's not. I live in Launceston, Tasmania - population approx. 100,000 people. living in LA/SF/NYC is a luxury that people pay a premium for. Yeah nah. I don't really follow this. Unless you consider terrible traffic and less than idea air quality luxuries . Having said that, I did live in Adelaide for 13 years. Okay, I'm being too critical, too inflammatory. Big cities bring people together in a pretty special…

Yeah nah. I don't really follow this. Unless you consider terrible traffic and less than idea air quality luxuries. Having said that, I did live in Adelaide for 13 years.

It's a fact, not a matter of opinion. People definitely do pay a premium for the luxury of living in LA/SF/NYC. Just look at the rents as you move further away from the center of the cities.

You and I may argue whether it's worth paying that premium, but that's a separate conversation. Location is the most important valuation metric in real estate. A one acre piece of land in rural America could be worth $5,000. An acre in Manhattan is worth $90M+.[1]

[1] http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/13/2100-a-square-f...

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

#306

Post by 1337chan »

jasonkester wrote: post #285
zappo2938 wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been to the Adventurer Hotel which is the first on that list a long, long time ago. I would not recommend it. I had a layover at LAX, their bus pulled up right in front of me, and some kids said get on. The staff, all the girls were from Russia or Poland and the guys were from New Zealand, Australia, and one bloke from England, on the bus made a pit stop at the liqueur store. They bought at least 12 liters of bo…

I'm with you right up to the point where you say you don't recommend staying at this place. From your description, this sounds like every backpacker hostel, everywhere. Or at least what they aspire to be. Sadly, everything moves upmarket, and "hostel" tends to now translate to giant soulless hotel where they have two or three bunk beds in each room and no real shared space or opportunity to meet other travelers (who…

I've found if you read the hostelworld reviews carefully, places that are described as "not a party hostel" tend to have a good sense of community.

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

#307

Post by jpindar »

oneplane wrote: post #136
xor1 wrote: post #122

Los Angeles though... :( One of my friends just moved here and is sharing a 5-bedroom home with 25 other people. I thought he was bullshitting me, and I still couldn't believe it when I went over. He's paying $600 a month to share a bedroom with four other guys. He told me it was the best thing he could find on 1-day notice. He pays for rent online, and he has no idea who the actual owner is, nor who is actually rece…

Woah, I knew about things being bad in the USA, but I didn't know living conditions are going towards third-world standards :/ Where I live (The Netherlands) there are laws that even protect foreign workers (i.e. from Poland) from all being stuffed in a single room. At this point it's starting to look like even jail cells have more room and privacy.

There are laws in many parts of the US forbidding more than a certain number of unrelated people from living in one house or apartment. How well they are enforced varies from town to town.

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

#308

Post by vertex-four »

ryanlol wrote: post #291
ryanlol wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I skipped to the conclusions as I have no interest in reading over 100 pages, and there is no statement in the conclusions that migrant workers are more likely to perform untaxed work than local workers.

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

#309

Post by BurningFrog »

ptaipale wrote: post #274
laurencerowe wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF has a net commuter inflow so it's better characterized as the peninsular becoming more like SF when it used to be more like SJ.

Indeed. If there are more jobs than apartments in SF, and more people commuting to SF than from SF, it doesn't sound like "the entire peninsula dumps their housing problem onto sf"; it's rather the other way round.

But there is also vastly more jobs than apartments on the peninsula.

I think it's the East Bay and Deep South Bay that gets "dumped on".

The fact that it's seen as a burden/sacrifice for a city/region to provide housing tells you a lot about what's wrong with California.

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

#310

Post by IndianAstronaut »

pascalxus wrote: post #235
rsync wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Did something change regarding development in SF? Or was the NIMBY effect always a bit over-stated? Anyone care to speculate?" No, not much at all has changed and the "building boom" consists of 5 or 6 high rises and a small handful of quarter-block sized rental apartment complexes. Think of the normal background level development that is always occurring in Denver/Minneapolis/Portland ... that suddenly happened her…

NIMBYs are extremely powerful. sometimes they even sue developers, raising the cost of housing for everyone. Environmental legislation also causes a huge increase in development costs as well.

NIMBYs are also a major cause of the wealth inequality we are seeing.

http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2015/03/wealth-i...

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