Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by ambivalence » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 5:35 PM UTC

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…

This is happening but, unlike software, cannot be bootstrapped by a few hackathons.

Just one example: http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-housing-menlo-park-2...

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

#142

Post by jorblumesea » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 5:35 PM UTC

cobookman wrote: post #109

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…

I'm fairly early in my career at a company ( 80-10-10 mortgage on a 1mil home is only 100k down. And the monthly payments split by 2 people (aka a couple) is ~2k / person / month. That's 4k/month all in once you include the tax rebates.

Jesus, 2k / person a month is insane. This is what people are talking about. This is not acceptable or normal. I pay $900 / person a month for a large house in Seattle that's a 15 minute commute from downtown. Even with the bay's high salaries you're not doing very well. Throw in bills and other expenses and you're looking at ~40% of your monthly income, assuming a salary of 130k. That's ~50k per person, per year, in addition to 100k down.

I'm good on that, thanks.

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

#143

Post by lisper » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 5:35 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #59

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…

> where will they go Other tech hubs. Portland, Seattle - even little Bend has plenty of people from California who are attracted by the (for them) low housing prices. They, in turn, put pressure on housing prices for 'ordinary' people here. California's housing crisis has repercussions all up and down the west coast.

> California's housing crisis has repercussions all up and down the west coast.

You're looking at it the wrong way. It's not that the situation in California has wider repercussions, it's that there is a wider problem whose symptoms happen to manifest themselves earliest in California because it's one of the nicer places to live: there are simply too many people and not enough space for them all to live in the nice places.

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

#144

Post by refurb » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 5:36 PM UTC

kfriede wrote: post #63

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…

> and I now have nothing to show for the $thousands I paid him You had a roof over your head while you paid him. That's not nothing. > my rent certainly went to pay his mortgage on the property Whereas the alternative is for him to not have the property at all because he can't afford it, and you're stuck finding somewhere else to live?

It's interesting how visceral the urge is to own a home when in fact, it's not always the best choice financially.

People love to say "if I had only owned my home I wouldn't have thrown away so much in rent." This is typical in areas that have seen large increases in home prices.

You rarely hear about the opposite which is "I'm $100K underwater on my house" because people don't talk about it when things go south.

Renting and not owning removes you from the whims of the housing market. If your landlord took a 30% hit in the value of his property, as a renter you get to walk away and let him/her deal with it. That's worth something.

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

#145

Post by cat199 » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 5:36 PM UTC

vasilipupkin wrote: post #84

chis wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You should go where the opportunities are. Optimizing for things like cheap rent, etc. is silly. You should aim to make so much ( eventually ) that rent doesn't matter any more

> You should aim to make so much ( eventually ) that rent doesn't matter any more

Unless this is an unrealistic aim, in which case you are throwing your future away on a false hope..

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

#146

Post by StreamBright » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 5:36 PM UTC

robbrit wrote: post #31

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…

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…

I have spent few years there but when it was time to have family just left. It is simple not feasible for multiple reasons to raise a child there.

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

#147

Post by turc1656 » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 5:36 PM UTC

cobookman wrote: post #109

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…

I'm fairly early in my career at a company ( 80-10-10 mortgage on a 1mil home is only 100k down. And the monthly payments split by 2 people (aka a couple) is ~2k / person / month. That's 4k/month all in once you include the tax rebates.

You honestly think that paying 100k out of pocket in addition to a recurring 4k a month (48k a year!) just on housing is reasonable?

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

#148

Post by CalChris » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

oldsklgdfth wrote: post #88

abritinthebay wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read up on Prop 13 a bit. That’ll explain it.

Related to prop 13 that is also how golf courses in cali metro areas are able to exist, despite taking up huge swaths of land and having very few members. There was a revisionist history episode on it: http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/11-a-good-walk-spoile...

That’s because Prop 13 applies to commercial real estate as well because corporations are people too.

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

#149

Post by binthere » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 5:37 PM UTC

I've been living in the bay area for about 7 years working as a software engineer. When I arrived, rent was around 1.7k for a 2 bed 2 bathroom apartment. Today, the same place charges you around 3.5k. The cost more than doubled while this is pretty much not true about your salary.

You either need to get huge promotions in 7 years to double your salary which is very difficult (and this is just to keep your living standards) or be forced to move to somewhere farther and face a crushing commute of at least 2 to 3 hours everyday.

Roughly speaking, buying a house is also not a win since houses closer to where you work will usually be more than 1 million dollars. Mortgage would be around 4k-5k with 20% down payment. So again, you'd be forced to buy somewhere farther.

There's really not much to do about it, it's supply and demand and you need to accept it. There are a couple of things though that tech companies could do: either working with local authorities to help improve public transportation or decentralize the workplace.

Companies, however, are doing exactly the opposite: Buying lands which were previously residential areas and building huge mega-structures so everyone can work in a single place while not having the best from public transportation (e.g. Apple).

I naively thought that making the lives of their employees easier would be in the best interests of tech companies but I just see things getting worse every year.

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

#150

Post by btrautsc » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 5:38 PM UTC

mabbo wrote: post #90

5706906c06c wrote: post #49

38, two kids and a wife. Have been living in a 900SQ/FT apt, I don't know how much longer I can take this before rage quitting and relocating somewhere else (don't know where). The sad part, as a ethnic-minority, I have just found our community for my kids, etc. It would be really tragic if I have to tear my kids away from that. Don't get me wrong, my daily 30 minute commute on BART isn't the worst. The worst part is…

Get out, man. The region isn't trying to help people like you, with families, it's trying to help the entrenched who bought 20 years ago. You may make less money in terms of income in most other cities, but your retirement savings will grow a lot faster regardless. I work on a traveling/remote team. One of my teammates lives in Chattanooga. His 3 bedroom house with I think 2 or 3 aces of land put him back a whopping…

Came to suggest this, cool that it already happened.

Can confirm. Founder in Chattanooga. About 13 of our people live here / TN.

Housing options (that appear) much better than in this thread with good public schools and sub-30 minute commute available. Specific ethnic communities may be harder to find.

Pretty great housing from $250-600k all over the place