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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

#181

Post by top256 »

StreamBright wrote: post #146
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 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.

what were the multiple reasons?

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

#182

Post by conanbatt »

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…

That amount of money should suffice to mortgage a house if you can..people with less income buy houses in the area.

However..remember that buying a house does not save you rent. You become an owner, so either you pay rent to the owner, or you stiff him, which happens to be you.

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

#183

Post by obstacle1 »

shawnee_ wrote: post #40
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.

Not anymore it isn't; this goes 100X for women. Women being paid less means they are forced to live in the crappier parts of towns: the squalor, the commute and the danger are significantly more. When that movie "the Social Network" came out is about when I noticed it changed. It became literally overrun with sleazy easy-money landlords, big corporate entities buying up the apartments, jacking the rents, etc. There a…

>this goes 100X for women.

Using obviously ridiculous hyperbole like this is going to do the opposite of helping to solve your pet problem, FYI. Consider other strategies for advocacy.

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

#184

Post by jobu »

client4 wrote: post #14

Montana, a land of National parks, natural beauty, fast internet, and a low cost of living has a number of high tech jobs open. Full disclosure, I own an internet company here and want more tech savvy people in the area ;) Social Finanace (SoFi) | Helena, MT Oracle | Bozeman, MT OnXMaps | Missoula, MT Zaneray Group | Whitefish, MT Submittable | Missoula, MT Applied Materials | Kalispell, MT

As someone that took a tech job in a (relatively) rural area, I can say there are some amazing perks, but also huge risks. Tech jobs pay roughly the same in rural areas as they do in larger cities, but housing costs are low enough that you can get a really nice house and still afford to put money in savings.

The biggest downside is a lack of employment options. When the company had a huge layoff I started looking around for other jobs in the area and realized there weren't any.

I ended up taking a great job 1000 miles away in a major city. That's when I realized another downside to smaller markets - it's really hard to sell a house and house values don't change. Even though we bought a foreclosed house in 2007, the value in 2014 was unchanged. After looking at what we had spend on improvements and upkeep we would've been far better off renting a house and putting more money into savings.

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

#185

Post by tytytytytytytyt »

jorblumesea wrote: post #142
cobookman wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It's hardly insane for a house in a large metropolitan area! That's actually pretty reasonable, and lots of apartments in SF are 50% to 100% more in rent. If you look at current, or anything within maybe 5 years, house prices in Seattle I doubt you'll find much if anything within a 15 minute commute to downtown Seattle for a 900/month mortgage.

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

#186

Post by dboreham »

damnyou wrote: post #91
client4 wrote: post #14

Montana, a land of National parks, natural beauty, fast internet, and a low cost of living has a number of high tech jobs open. Full disclosure, I own an internet company here and want more tech savvy people in the area ;) Social Finanace (SoFi) | Helena, MT Oracle | Bozeman, MT OnXMaps | Missoula, MT Zaneray Group | Whitefish, MT Submittable | Missoula, MT Applied Materials | Kalispell, MT

How friendly to trans people is Montana?

It isn't Portland or Seattle or San Francisco but it isn't as bad as you might expect (based on what I hear from LGBT friends and my observations). There's a tradition of leaving people to do their thing. We have a democrat governor. Probably best to keep to the left half of the state though. The college towns and tech firms are in the western half.

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

#187

Post by AlexandrB »

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

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

This flies in the face of basic economic theory. If everyone in the bay area "made so much that rent doesn't matter anymore" the rent would go up until it did matter. The reason it doesn't is that quantity demanded goes down as rent goes up precisely because people are price conscious.

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

#188

Post by TuringNYC »

0x445442 wrote: post #173
cobookman wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And as long as the after tax take home pay of the 2 people is no less than 16K/month and it's a 15-20 year fixed rate mortgage then things should be fine. The back of the napkin numbers on those parameters; each of those people need to have a salary of 130-150K/year. Certainly not crazy for the well placed Apple, Google and Facebook employees but pretty much a pipe dream for the unwashed masses.

>> 15-20 year fixed rate mortgage

forgetting property taxes?

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

#189

Post by jostmey »

ng12 wrote: post #115
jostmey wrote: post #26

I've only visited SF. From what I've seen, there are far better cities such as Seattle, San Diego, ect, ect. I live in Dallas and couldn't be happier. I've been able to start a family as a Postdoc! http://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/03-29-17-us-cens...

What makes Seattle better? I've visited friends there a few times and I can't shake the feeling that it's only trailing the Bay by a few years in of affordability and transportation woes.

My opinion:

- Seattle has more diverse industry. I toured the bio-science companies down at the harbor and was really impressed. Seattle is more than just "tech".

- SF is way too restrictive with allowing new housing to be built. I did not perceive the problem to be as bad in Seattle.

- In SF, a lot of the streets reeked of weed--It's like when someone cranks up their music too loud forcing everyone to listen to it. I don't care if someone smokes weed, I just don't want to smell it everywhere--it's not family friendly. Meanwhile, Seattle's streets appeared much cleaner to me when I explored the city (on foot).

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

#190

Post by conanbatt »

jostmey wrote: post #26

I've only visited SF. From what I've seen, there are far better cities such as Seattle, San Diego, ect, ect. I live in Dallas and couldn't be happier. I've been able to start a family as a Postdoc! http://dallas.culturemap.com/news/city-life/03-29-17-us-cens...

9 months of rain?
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