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

#411

Post by rgbrenner » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 7:03 PM UTC

alistairSH wrote: post #361

toasterlovin wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it terrible for minorities?

In the US, they are (very) generally less affluent, so they are less able to absorb cost increases. This is particularly the case in areas that are rapidly gentrifying. It's a visible issue in some neighborhoods in DC. Blocks that were nearly 100% minority 15 years ago are predominantly young, white, and affluent. But, the corner church is still run by a minority pastor, with a largely minority congregation, all of w…

wouldn't it be more accurate to say poor people then? It's not just poor minorities who can't live in these areas.. poor whites, poor elderly, etc aren't living there either.

And I'm sure Satya Nadella doesn't have a problem paying for a house anywhere, even though he's a minority.

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

#412

Post by dtech » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 7:04 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #266

irrational wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same in Portland. A house down the street was purchased for 180k 2 years ago and recently sold for 520k. And that isn't some outlier. It seems all anyone wants to talk about is how quickly home prices have inflated.

It's funny that the Fed is still dreaming about having low inflation while the number one expense most people will have experiences rampant inflation.

It's impossible to control skyrocketing house prices in booming tech areas with anything other than a massive amount of new housing developments.

Even if everything you can buy suddenly got 10% cheaper, the houses in those areas would immediately increase back to the old level because the prices is driven by a high demand relative to supply.

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

#413

Post by teemwerk » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 7:04 PM UTC

guelo wrote: post #379

maxxxxx wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny that the Fed is still dreaming about having low inflation while the number one expense most people will have experiences rampant inflation.

Housing is not experiencing rampant inflation when you look at the nation as a whole. We have one currency so the Fed has to try to strike a balance that works for everyone.

That's an interesting thought, does the government have cpi-like numbers for different localities, or just the one number?

Rents are included in cpi, but home prices aren't. Now, of course they are correlated, but that's certainly one of the arguments against using cpi.

edit: answered my own question, the bureau of labor statistics has more numbers than you can shake a stick at.

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

#414

Post by jogjayr » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 7:04 PM UTC

city41 wrote: post #241

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 what if they don't want to leave? Many of these people have lived here their whole lives. If they must leave due to the market, I'd argue that's being forced out. Even if they do make a tidy profit. Anecdotal, but I've heard this is happening in Hawaii now with vacation home prices skyrocketing, causing natives to get stuck with property taxes they can no longer afford.

The solution there is to restrict operation of vacation rentals to certain neighborhoods, limit total percentage of housing stock allowed to be converted to vacation rentals, extra property taxes on vacation rentals (versus regular rental properties, which still contribute to housing stock). If you make vacation rentals more expensive to own, you drive down the ROI on them and make them less attractive to investors.

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

#415

Post by floatrock » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 7:04 PM UTC

city41 wrote: post #133

xtacy wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Expanding on the comment below, it's an unfortunate combination of many prevailing issues. 1. One of the things Prop 13 does is to cap the maximum rate at which a property tax grows per annum to 2%. However, due to housing demand, the property values grow at a much faster rate (7% is not unheard of). The property tax can change when there is a sale. 2. Bay area prices have skyrocketed. 3. The peninsula topography and…

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.

Or they might realize that building more medium-density housing near major transit corridors might actually be a good thing... sure, the Undesirables might move closer, but if that slows down the increase in taxes, maybe it's a negative feedback loop that helps people see Those People aren't that scary after-all and there's a certain vibrancy to medium density housing instead of traffic-clogging suburban sprawl.

Honestly, Prop 13 created an unsustainable market distortion that pulls out the rug for anyone wanting to start a family.

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

#416

Post by WalterSear » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 7:05 PM UTC

tezzer wrote: post #385

WalterSear wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-driving cars are going to be rewriting the commute paradigm. It's important to factor that in.

So I still won't be able to see my kids awake because of a 1.5 hour commute each way, but I'll be able to read the newspaper on the way to work? No thanks.

You do what you like.

I'll arrive at work at 11 for my first meeting, having gotten a solid 1.5 hours of uninterrupted work done already, and be wrapping up any collaboration in order to return to my mobile cubicle by 4.

Of course, I'll still be available via skype. The morning stand up may happen while everyone is leaving their driveway.

Soon enough this new daily routine is going to be about as disruptive to productivity in the office as taking lunch, since almost everyone with a car will taking advantage of it. The start and ends of business days are going to become 'private', with people keeping their heads down, and interacting via video and chat/mail as the norm, with face-to-face work performed during the middle of the day.

We may even have to do away with lunchtimes as we know them, since they take away from prime face-to-face work time. Or perhaps, with all the other communication going on, daily team-bonding time over food might be one of few on going reasons for direct interactions.

And vehicles are going to start being designed to be really comfortable to work/play in. Every mid-morning, people are going to have to choose between getting up from the work they are stuck into and moving to the desk in their office, or staying focused on the task at hand. Eventually, people are going to start choosing the privacy and comfort of their car over the relative space of a cubicle, and more and more people are going to start working from the parking lot. Companies may even start expecting a portion of their workforce to bring their own vehicles, in the manner of 'bring your own device' and alter/reduce their use of offices.

Of course, things could go the other way: in the city, you'll want to the car to go pick up the groceries and do errands, and then find a in a nice empty shaded spot out of town for the day, and to find a new spot if anyone sketchy shows up.

This is just one tiny, tiny change as we move from a civilizations of vehicles to a civilization of intelligent transport. Cars and buses are about to be replaced by the equivalent of very small mobile homes/buildings.

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

#417

Post by Animats » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 7:06 PM UTC

OK, jobs are down a little, and this means the housing problem is getting worse? That seems backwards.

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

#418

Post by damnyou » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 7:08 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #399

mixmastamyk wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plenty of space, too many NIMBYs. Just heard a lady in my neighborhood in L.A. complaining about the development of a parking lot and crackhouse into a modern apartment building. Didn’t even bother to argue, sometimes the divide is too great.

And what exactly is wrong with NIMBY-ism? Not everyone likes living in dense cities. I don't see anything wrong with groups of people who prefer to live in less dense development working together to create less dense places to live. The problem is that there are (as I said) more people who prefer to live in less dense development than there is space to accommodate them all. At that point, the market takes over and de…

Soviet-style central planning is not "the market." Euclidean zoning is Soviet-style central planning.

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

#419

Post by reducesuffering » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 7:09 PM UTC

johnbrodie wrote: post #172

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think it’s a great place to be for a while at least. I’m 33, have been here over ten years (grew up nearby) and am still chugging along. The mindless commute through unending traffic to get to the same office day in and day out is slowly driving me a little mad (not really... I think) but I’m beginning to question if I want to stay here long term. Still, I’ve had amazing experiences here and this is a place of…

Cali is the only US state where lane splitting is legal. How many people with a long commute are riding motorcycles to work every day? The weather is great for it. Were I in the bay area, I'd be riding in every day. If not for the love of motorcycles, just to shorten my commute times.

I work in Silicon Valley but live in Fremont in the East Bay. Traffic is awful, would take an hour by car, and no one at my work lives that far. But on a motorcycle? A fun 30 min ride in the midst of traffic.

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

#420

Post by refurb » Mon, Oct 23, 2017, 7:09 PM UTC

projectramo wrote: post #294

latencyloser wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is actually hopeful since there are so many secondary and tertiary tech cities. This means: we should all buy houses in the secondary tech hubs that are still affordable so our kids can afford to have families at tech firms when housing becomes unaffordable.

Trust me, it's not different this time. The crazy hot housing markets will eventually falter and go down in price. It always happens and as interest rates start to rise it's going to happen in the not too distant future.