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Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

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Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#41

Post by justherefortart »

aphextron wrote: post #34

I'll be facing this soon as well, at least they've got RV's. After getting back from my third open house for the week, with double digit atendees, I think the bay area just isn't for me. A perfect credit score and a job making double the median wage is not enough to land a 1 bedroom apartment apparently. I'll probably end up sleeping on someones couch for a few months to finish my work contract, and get out of this h…

Move outside the city. I lived in Pacifica. Pretty much anything along BART is easy to get into the city. I parked at Colma where fortunately the dead don't drive :-)

Pacifica was awesome because you're just a hill from the hustle and bustle but it felt like a detached town. So many nice people there. Hwy 1 is annoying at rush hour (or most hours) but it was a really nice community.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#42

Post by DanCarvajal »

Xavi wrote: post #5
cletus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: why are you having children in such a financially precarious situation when it’s only going to increase your living costs? EDIT: by “financially precarious” I mean that above you said you were a new grad having difficulty finding work. I assume it is your intent to work after the baby is born (rather than being the primary caregiver) or it wouldn’t matter so much about finding work. If your wife ret…

Not everyone "decides" to have kids. Sometimes it just happens.

Everyone who has kids decided to do so, the only thing that varies is the amount of options considered.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#43

Post by grandmczeb »

TuringNYC wrote: post #39
grandmczeb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the the real cost of allowing (particularly foreign) capital to be parked in real estate in the developed world. It's amazing to me that people don't recognize this as xenophobia when other forms ("Mexicans are taking our jobs!", "Migrants don't have the same values!") are so readily called out. High housing prices are a self inflicted problem. When you mix supply restrictions with tax breaks explicitly des…

I think the reason people dislike foreign capital specifically is when the houses come just a piggybank and remain empty. It is bad enough when capital (local or foreign) drives up home prices, but it feels worse when the homes sit empty. Note, this affects everyone because people get knocked down the ladder incrementally.

When I lived in NYC, a famous celebrity had a condo in the same building as me. As far as I could tell, it never got used. Weirdly enough no one minded until it sold to someone from Saudi Arabia.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#44

Post by istorical »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #6
cletus wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: why are you having children in such a financially precarious situation when it’s only going to increase your living costs? EDIT: by “financially precarious” I mean that above you said you were a new grad having difficulty finding work. I assume it is your intent to work after the baby is born (rather than being the primary caregiver) or it wouldn’t matter so much about finding work. If your wife ret…

Assuming I'm in a "financially precarious situation" is a bit presumptuous. My wife is an employed college grad, and we have much more saved than the average American. We have health insurance, and have already completely paid off the medical bills for her birth. We are fine. It's still too risky and difficult for us to relocate, though. Our family all lives nearby, so we have a support structure here. My wife has an…

The circumstances of your area are so individual that without specifying a specific city or town you're pretty much not going to get any useful advice.

And generalizing the Bay Area to all other higher salary + higher CoL places is also going to yield no useful insight. Or in other words - your parent comment about how articles like this are why you don't consider relocating neglects the fact that there are likely middle ground locations where you could be paid a higher wage while still paying a lower rent.

One simply can't extrapolate that much when looking at CoL or salary.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#45

Post by teej »

grandmczeb wrote: post #31
cletus wrote: post #7

I can’t help but think of Snow Crash where Hiro Protagonist (and many others) lived in the U-Store-It former storage facility. This is the the real cost of allowing (particularly foreign) capital to be parked in real estate in the developed world. In NYC for example most new developments are ultra-luxury not because building affordable apartments is uneconomic, it’s just that the ultra-luxury end is way more profitab…

> This is the the real cost of allowing (particularly foreign) capital to be parked in real estate in the developed world. It's amazing to me that people don't recognize this as xenophobia when other forms ("Mexicans are taking our jobs!", "Migrants don't have the same values!") are so readily called out. High housing prices are a self inflicted problem. When you mix supply restrictions with tax breaks explicitly des…

Foreign investment is certainly a factor as much as the NIMBY-ism of the Bay Area. But people would still be griping about outside money if it were New York investors buying homes and leaving them empty. But it’s not.

Just because the outside investment is Chinese doesn’t make someone xenophobic.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#46

Post by pjmorris »

gozur88 wrote: post #25
tempz wrote: post #12

There is a linguistic problem here - extending the term 'middle class' to hide prevailing poverty in the US. You are not middle class if: - you will lose home, car if you are out of job for 6-10 months; - you don't take 30 days vacation a year; - you cannot afford health services without going to debt; - you cannot send your kids to university; - your diet is mostly junk food because you can't afford fresh stuff. If…

It's cheaper to buy fresh food than junk food. If you're buying junk food it's because you don't have a place to cook or you're too lazy to cook.

My metric for food price is calories per penny. For example, the 760 calorie slice of pizza for $1.99 at Costco works out to about 3.8 calories per penny, while the 500 calorie Caesar salad for $3.99 works out to about 1.3 calories per penny. In my worked example, the fresh food is more expensive than the junk food from the point of view of 'How much money do I need to spend to keep myself alive today?' Could you post some examples of the calories per penny of the fresh food and junk food costs you are referring to?

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#47

Post by dnautics »

TuringNYC wrote: post #39
grandmczeb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is the the real cost of allowing (particularly foreign) capital to be parked in real estate in the developed world. It's amazing to me that people don't recognize this as xenophobia when other forms ("Mexicans are taking our jobs!", "Migrants don't have the same values!") are so readily called out. High housing prices are a self inflicted problem. When you mix supply restrictions with tax breaks explicitly des…

I think the reason people dislike foreign capital specifically is when the houses come just a piggybank and remain empty. It is bad enough when capital (local or foreign) drives up home prices, but it feels worse when the homes sit empty. Note, this affects everyone because people get knocked down the ladder incrementally.

> the houses come just a piggybank and remain empty

seems like a poor investment to me. You're just pissing it away on property taxes. So why not let the rich do this and basically redistribute their wealth?

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#48

Post by cletus »

grandmczeb wrote: post #43
TuringNYC wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the reason people dislike foreign capital specifically is when the houses come just a piggybank and remain empty. It is bad enough when capital (local or foreign) drives up home prices, but it feels worse when the homes sit empty. Note, this affects everyone because people get knocked down the ladder incrementally.

When I lived in NYC, a famous celebrity had a condo in the same building as me. As far as I could tell, it never got used. Weirdly enough no one minded until it sold to someone from Saudi Arabia.

Bono lives in one of the towers of the San Remo building on CPW. He bought it from Steve Jobs who had owned it for ~20 years famously never having set foot in it.

The other tower was owned by Bruce Willis and Demi Moore bought in 1990.im not sure they ever lived there either. Eventually Demi Moore got it 8n the divorce and sold it recently.

And this is in a coop, which tend to be far more owner-occupied. Luckily for Manhattan the vast majority of hous8ng stock is coops. If it were nothing but the luxury piggy banks being built on 57th street the city would be a ghost town.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#49

Post by dnautics »

martin_bech wrote: post #33
chaosbutters314 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So pretty much every scientist at my (US) company is poor? Even uppermanagement in r&d. None of us see 30 days off per year. At most of is 25 after 2 decades. I'd say 15 days instead of 30 seems fair number for America and probably 30 for europe

I feel sorry for you.. buy yes.

you've never been a scientist, have you? The experiments don't care about how much vacation you're legally entitled to.

Re: Living in a parking lot in Santa Barbara

#50

Post by dnautics »

DanCarvajal wrote: post #42
Xavi wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone "decides" to have kids. Sometimes it just happens.

Everyone who has kids decided to do so, the only thing that varies is the amount of options considered.

occasionally a deity will impregnate you in the form of a swan, or through the ear.
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