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Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

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Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#71

Post by jsonne »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #51
robbrit wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fourth category: people who have lived here for a long time, and were able to buy property back before it became unaffordable. These are typically the managers or senior employees. It makes me wonder that as the young rockstars and H1B recipients age, where will they go? They certainly can't afford to buy a house. I imagine as time goes on, companies in the Bay Area will be awash with young junior talent but will s…

They'll go to cities like Denver and Austin and promptly get to work turning them into the only thing they know, SV.

Live in Denver. This is a little too real. There's a very real irony to the people that move here that "hate the bay" then act, vote, and do everything in their power to make it exactly like SF.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#72

Post by nopinsight »

rainboiboi wrote: post #35
prostoalex wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just copy Singapore.

I'm from Singapore, what about it?

Dense but nice to live in. Good public transportation and on-call options. Commute time is shorter than what is required for many people in the Bay Area.

What do you think?

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#73

Post by abritinthebay »

chis wrote: post #21
nimbius wrote: post #16

Most of the bay area employees are divided into 3 categories from anecdotal experience: young rockstars that are willing to live in relative squalor for a chance to prove themselves, vested and moneyed elites (CEO's, presidents, VC funded overlords) who are so out of touch with the average employee its best they not show up to the office that frequently, and H1B visa recipients that endure the soul-crushing San Jose…

Is it worthwhile to work there for a few years as a 20-year old though? I'm thinking it's a unique experience even if monetarily it's a poor choice.

Depends where, for who, and doing what.

Working in a big city at a variety of companies and roles is always a good thing for experience and personal growth.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#74

Post by frandroid »

taxicabjesus wrote: post #24

I've been thinking that apartment cooperatives might be a way to break "investors'" stranglehold on housing. The last landlord I had was a decent fellow - the property was well maintained and he fixed problems promptly. But my rent certainly went to pay his mortgage on the property, and I now have nothing to show for the $thousands I paid him. One time he was showing off the little 8-unit complex to someone he wanted…

All you need is for the state to back up the mortgage. Canada had a vibrant coöp housing creation model from the 70s to 1995. The same Crown corp that backed residential mortgages backed the purchase or construction of a building with a 30-year mortgage, which was paid back by members' housing charges (aka rent). They did add extra general subsidies and there is still an affordable housing subsidy tied to it for those who need it (Rent Geared to Income, where you pay only 30% of your income towards rent), but it could still work quite well without that. Once the mortgage is paid you can reduce housing charges or use the extra capital to renovate/upgrade the building.

Equity is never returned to members, they just contribute to cooperative living. Also, members cannot just sell the coöp to profit from increased real estate values; part of the founding charter of the non-profit corporation which manages the coöp says that if it was to disband, the main assets would have to be donated to charity.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#75

Post by damnyou »

polskibus wrote: post #50
jorblumesea wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a fair amount of people "grandfathered" into the region. Bought back in the 90s/early 2000s in closer in cities or neighborhoods. They have it pretty good, but at the expense of everyone else.

Could you explain that bit more? How is that at the expense of everyone else, did they achieve their wealth illegally?

Breaking the law is for chumps and poor people. Rich people change the law to favor them.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#76

Post by pm90 »

msluyter wrote: post #9

Austin resident here. My wife and I have been talking to renovators and have heard several times that projects simply take longer these days because many workers now must live farther out from the city core than they used to. I wouldn't be surprised the same thing happens here -- to a lesser degree perhaps, as we have more geographical space to expand into -- with avg commute time being the primary constraint on grow…

Austin is a lot more progressive about accommodating new residents. Of course you do hear a lot of folks complaining about how the skyrocketing rents are destroying some long-time businesses, but like you said there is a LOT more land to expand and accomodate new residents.

Also, the Domain development has somewhat eased the traffic situation by shifting a lot of new businesses slightly closer to the Northern Suburbs. Which is a welcome respite: the traffic situation would have been a LOT worse (if that's possible ;-) ) had the Domain not been developed.

I'm pretty optimistic about Austin's future. It offers an extremely high standard of living on a developers salary. Most suburbs are not too far away. There is a lot of undeveloped land. And the City Government is proactive and responsive to the needs of citizens. I think it can evolve into another Tech hub, maybe rivaling Seattle. For it to rival Bay Area, I think we would need a lot more VC's to set up shop here.

Disclaimer: lived in Austin for 5 years now, loved every year so far.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#77

Post by ef4 »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #23
tfha wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah. It's not so much about distance, it's about time. Better infrastructure for moving people in and out of the city enables a larger city, and a more populated one.

I agree. Six lanes of traffic moving an average speed of 25mph is a hell of a lot more net volume than three lanes at the same speed. Good infrastructure also side steps a lot of the social problems that come with high population density. Cue whining about how pollution and an over-priced mass-transit utopia and high rise apartments will solve all our problems.

> Six lanes of traffic > Cue whining about how pollution and an over-priced mass-transit utopia and high rise apartments will solve all our problems.

You do realize that six-lane highways are every bit as expensive as mass transit lines, right? And that a pair of railroad tracks down the median of that six lane highway can move a volume of people about 3x bigger than all the lanes put together?

Honestly even if you just love driving, you should be in favor of anything that will get other drivers out of their cars, because otherwise the end-state is horrific traffic for you to sit in.

There is no known way to scale up a city while keeping cars the dominant mode of transit. You can only add so many lanes before you run out of space, and long before that point you start hitting un-enlargeable bottlenecks in parts of the system that propagate outward.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#78

Post by mabbo »

It seems ironic that the land of self-aggrandizing free market disruption (Uber, AirBnb) seems so against the obvious free-market solution to their problems: increase supply.

You have too little of something, and it's causing prices to skyrocket because demand is increasing. So make more of it, reducing the price.

I just got back from a visit to the Bay Area. Outside of SF itself, not a single building over 4 stories tall. All that air space that could be condos, homes for people, anything at all, wasted so that "people can see the mountains better". Meanwhile, my friend and his girlfriend are paying $4000/month for 1000 sqft. Their rent is more than the median total pre-tax income in large swaths of America.

This is a self-inflicted wound. I have little pity.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#79

Post by epistasis »

acangiano wrote: post #27

Why aren't tech companies buying or building massive apartment complexes, making them appealing with a few amenities, and renting them out for cheap to their employees? I know building development in San Francisco proper is limited, but in the general bay area or South is not. Now you have a very attractive package: a relatively big salary and somewhat affordable housing. Talent would be much more willing to relocate…

Local city governments have made it impossible to build large amounts of housing. The entrenched interests of current land owners do not want lots of housing in their city. From their point of view, it's only hassle. More people on the roads, things changing, etc. Also it stops their property values from rising so quickly.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#80

Post by woolvalley »

polskibus wrote: post #50
jorblumesea wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a fair amount of people "grandfathered" into the region. Bought back in the 90s/early 2000s in closer in cities or neighborhoods. They have it pretty good, but at the expense of everyone else.

Could you explain that bit more? How is that at the expense of everyone else, did they achieve their wealth illegally?

If you bought a place even in 2011 your income / mortgage ratio is significantly better. If you bought a place before 2005, your also doing fairly well.
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