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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

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no hard rules, but very few of my non-white friends are OK with Phoenix or most other red states. AZ especially given the papers-please laws employed 'randomly' on brown people. Besides jobs, California offers open minds and much a much friendlier atmosphere for brown people.

Anecdotally, as one of the "brown people" that is okay with Arizona, I've never been hit by "your papers, please". Ironically, I feel that California offers much less in terms of "open minds" - I am strongly liberal on social matters and advocated for homosexual marriage rights in AZ. Here I feel legitimately scared to mention that I have conservative views on business affairs without fear of potentially losing a job…

This sounds more like it, but most Bay/LA Area Californians would never believe it's possible to e.g. have civil liberties, be spiritual/religious, and be socially liberal all at the same time.

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

#302
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Seattle is quickly becoming 'bay area'-ish from what I can tell. Housing is certainly becoming difficult at incredible rates. Here in Bellevue, a colleague of mine bought a house for ~400k, it's now worth well over ~500k only a year later. Many houses in that area also sell for at least 700k+ assuming you can even get an offer in before a cash buyer grabs it. Don't even get me started on the traffic. I run as many of…

best thing you can do -- buy a town home or home -- try to manage the minimum 10% down payment (if you can manage 20%, thats great) and then rent out the bedrooms to other single folks. I wish i had done that when i was a entry level software engr.

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

#303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no hard rules, but very few of my non-white friends are OK with Phoenix or most other red states. AZ especially given the papers-please laws employed 'randomly' on brown people. Besides jobs, California offers open minds and much a much friendlier atmosphere for brown people.

Anecdotally, as one of the "brown people" that is okay with Arizona, I've never been hit by "your papers, please". Ironically, I feel that California offers much less in terms of "open minds" - I am strongly liberal on social matters and advocated for homosexual marriage rights in AZ. Here I feel legitimately scared to mention that I have conservative views on business affairs without fear of potentially losing a job…

Can you name one person who was fired for "conservative views on business affairs", please?

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

#304

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?

Prop 13 largely.

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

#305
post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flip side to that is without prop 13, families like this would quickly find they can no longer afford to pay the taxes on their house and are forced to leave. Which is also not a great situation.

"Forced to leave" is a bit strong, evoking images of someone thrust into debtors prison. What would actually happen is they'd sell their house for 5x the price of the same house in a more reasonable housing market, and 10x what they paid for it, and move to a different location with a nicely multiplied bank account. I'll acknowledge that some stability is good. But it has a cost, and that cost is currently much highe…

But if they have family or regional business networking connections, they would make money on the house and have a life reset everywhere else.... all to sell a house at market prices that are just has high as the other high priced properties. I'm skeptical that the added turnover will do much more than shift the demand curve by a negligible amount while putting people out of their homes.

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

#306
post #59
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 is large. Drawing people "from California" is about as precise as drawing people "from the East Coast and Appalachia" and says nothing about Bay Area flight, apart from the broader trend of expensive real estate in CA. I applaud your persistent Bend boosting, but there's practically no software industry there, and it seems to have given up any illusion of being a startup hub. There are no tech jobs. You're right about Bend attracting people with its low housing costs. It mostly attracts retirees.

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

#307
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about regular people? Is everyone expected to be some high paid unicorn/big 4 engineer? Society is more than just rich techies.

"Regular people" in big populated urban areas can't expect to own a detached home, they can live in condos/apartments like they do in Asian cities, NYC and other densely populated cities.

The bay area isn't urban - we're talking about large stretches of suburbia. The area also isn't converting to urban despite the demand, which is part of what the article is talking about.

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

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well...the guy in question is fairly widely disliked in the state (I've met him a few times -- seemed ok but he believes the earth is 4k years old which is .... just weird). He was elected I think because a) many people vote Republican regardless (see Trump) and b) mail in votes had already been counted at the time and this is a state with a high proportion of mail in ballots. I really wouldn't take his actions as an…

4k? The usual fundie lunatic number is 6k. Oh, well, Sumer don't real, I suppose.

Engineering approximation..

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

#309
post #264
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

400k in Bellevue buys you a dilapidated shack at the outskirts. For anything decent you’re talking $1m and up.

At this point I'd be perfectly happy with a dilapidated shack in Bellevue. Anything to cut down on the soul-crushing commute. Now if only employers embraced remote-work fully, I'd move to Gold Bar or somewhere else in the Cascades and dispense with the city altogether.

I'd give anything to work remote here. My partner and I have discussed buying a small 'ranch' on the other side of the cascades as a 'weekend home' and downsizing to a small studio here on weekdays. We figure the two combined would be about what we pay in rent each month now, if not a little more, but at least we'd be able to escape on weekends. We love pnw, but hate having to live in the most crowded part of it for the sole purpose of making our commute tolerable.

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

#310
I still get a couple of emails every week from recruiters with job openings in Bay Area. I always tell them I am willing to talk but only if I don't have relocate to Bay Area. I rarely receive a reply back and if I do they usually tell me job location is not negotiable. The multitude of tech companies that refuse to allow remote work (or do not allow working from a different office because of location of hiring team etc.) are also a big part of the problem.
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