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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

#631

Post by [deleted] »

noonespecial wrote: post #255
TuringNYC wrote: post #157

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. Very well said. So often, some (usually older) person will tell me, "well I know this [choose your civil servant profession] and they get by fine in SF on a 60k salary, so stop your whining." Yep, I'd get by fine with 60k and a TIME MACHINE.

Yes, they don't understand that the house they bought for 80k in '86 Is now acting as a defacto million dollar savings account. It is quite easy to get along on 60k when you've already banked a megabuck.

[deleted]

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

#632

Post by TuringNYC »

pc86 wrote: post #400
noonespecial wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they don't understand that the house they bought for 80k in '86 Is now acting as a defacto million dollar savings account. It is quite easy to get along on 60k when you've already banked a megabuck.

To be fair whether your house is worth $100k or $10MM doesn't mean much unless you sell it, especially in SF where your taxes don't change with the increased value. Yes, you can spend more of your earned income if you plan on leaving as soon as you retire. But it doesn't mean $60k is easy to live on.

>> But it doesn't mean $60k is easy to live on.

It is much easier getting along on 60k when you're on a 1995 mortgage of $700/mo with frozen property taxes. Doesnt matter if you sell -- you are living in a million dollar house without paying for it. You get the space now. You get the easy commute now. You get it all for a tenth of current costs.

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

#633

Post by closeparen »

harbie wrote: post #207
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…

I feel like 'living in squalor' is an exaggeration, or at least a separate category from what a lot of young engineers are doing in the Bay Area. Maybe if they were living in SF, sure, they could be living in dinghy studios. I know plenty of new grads in the South Bay/Peninsula living in apartments or rented houses that would be considered decent or nice in the rest of the country with plenty of money to spare. Mostl…

“Relative squalor” is roommates or an hour-plus commute on unpleasant public transit, to people who are strongly averse to those things. Are they starving? No. But it’s pretty shocking compared to growing up in a place where you have to be destitute to need roommates or a commute over 20 minutes. (People still do those things, of course, but voluntarily).

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

#634

Post by Bedon292 »

micro_cam wrote: post #565
Bedon292 wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hillmap is pretty sweet. Totally nerding out about it. Geospatial stuff like this is what I really enjoy. What are you looking to do with it in the future?

Mostly I plan to use it to ski and climb all over Montana! Its actually a few years old and I was thinking of trying to make it more of a money maker at one point but other interests have proven more profitable so I'm not sure I'll ever really push for it to become a true business. I and many of my friends do get a ton of pleasure out of trips planed with it which is its own reward.

Reasonable uses definitely.

Might be hard to really monetize anyways, its really nice that you keep it available for people to use. If you don't plan on making more money from it, you could always open source it, and let others contribute too for fun.

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

#635

Post by kamaal »

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…

>>It makes me wonder that as the young rockstars and H1B recipients age, where will they go?

As somebody who worked in the US(Bay Area, CA) and then returned to India. The general idea among immigrants is to make it big via stocks and bonuses. Get a green card and move to somewhere in the east coast.

For some people that takes forever. So you just get conditioned to stuff there and live forever. Plus most don't make it even to that phase, for most Indians and Chinese, green card never happens and they return to their countries. Those who survive do it due to a unique combination of work and luck, if you are that lucky already, and are ready to do the work- you will likely go further.

Also whatever the situation is in the Bay Area, its always a huge upgrade from the home country you are coming.

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

#636

Post by kamaal »

rdtsc wrote: post #402
davidw wrote: 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.

The funny thing is these companies talk about digital connectivity moving to the cloud, editing files in the cloud, video conferencing in the cloud, make social networks in the cloud, buy things online without leaving your house, watch movies online etc. Everything is online, pretty, efficient, and convenient. Then they turn right around and tell all their employees to move to the area, then to get in their cars, bus…

>>Then they turn right around and tell all their employees to move to the area

This isn't just a modern phenomenon. Note the whole point of outsourcing was that given how well the world is connected, it barely matters from where you get work done from. But what it is in reality is basically a cost equation.

Early IT departments in most companies were considered a back office expense so remote/outsourcing work used to make sense. These days most tech companies have a lot of money, so the cost thing doesn't make sense.

Good connectivity was never reason for remote/outsourcing work, so it doesn't matter how good it gets.

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

#637

Post by MystK »

linkregister wrote: post #622
MystK wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was born and lived in the Silicon Valley all my life. I think you're over-exaggerating the issue. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1052-Montgomery-Ave-San-B... Here's a 1200 SQFT 4 bedroom home in San Bruno for only 700k. The fact is that you are looking at homes over your budget, especially if you haven't saved a sizable down payment. Yes it's worse than other areas, but there are a lot of opportunities for peop…

What a bargain! How much should a household earn in order to afford that house? Assuming the $150k down payment.

The monthly payment is a mere $3071 a month for 30 year and $4,429 for 15 year.

With his income, he can comfortably afford a monthly payment of $7,140.

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

#638

Post by MystK »

5706906c06c wrote: post #351
conanbatt wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Definitely aware of the trade offs, doing the means test indicates I should own, I digress. There is an emotional component, which is the kids. I grew up moving from one continent to another with no sense of security. I don't want the same for my kids, they deserve stability in their lives, and I've convinced myself that as a provider I need to make that happen for them.

Renting a place you don't own is definitely unstable.

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

#639

Post by linkregister »

MystK wrote: post #596
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…

I was born and lived in the Silicon Valley all my life. I think you're over-exaggerating the issue. https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1052-Montgomery-Ave-San-B... Here's a 1200 SQFT 4 bedroom home in San Bruno for only 700k. The fact is that you are looking at homes over your budget, especially if you haven't saved a sizable down payment. Yes it's worse than other areas, but there are a lot of opportunities for peop…

That house will sell for $850k.

But yes, the OP should be able to easily afford it.

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

#640

Post by lisper »

closeparen wrote: post #628
lisper wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I like wild grass And that is the problem. You're not the only one. Yes, if we turned the San Francisco Bay area into a clone of Manhattan or Hong Kong or Tokyo we could accommodate a lot more people. But a lot of people would not consider that a good outcome. People who like that kind of lifestyle can have it in any of the dozens of dense cities on the planet. The SFBay area is desirable precisely because it is no…

Vineyards and redwood trees are not found in suburban neighborhoods, and an apartment building next door does not threaten your yard. Nobody want to expand into nature areas, we want to build taller and denser where there are already buildings and transit stations.

> Vineyards and redwood trees are not found in suburban neighborhoods

They are around here. I have three redwood trees in my own yard, and I'm a half hour bike ride from multiple redwood groves. There are even a couple of vineyards around here.

> an apartment building next door does not threaten your yard

You haven't seen my yard.

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