Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

mercurynews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 302 posts

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#161

Post by fokinsean »

aphextron wrote: post #84
fokinsean wrote: post #8

I recently had an opportunity to move out to the Bay Area with my current job (I am currently at a satellite office). The commute time combined with CoL and a few other factors made the decision easy to not go. I currently have a 3 minute commute and I would honestly lose my mind if I had to commute 90 mins one way. I have also been seeing a general rise of articles mentioning how many people are leaving, how insane…

>. I have also been seeing a general rise of articles mentioning how many people are leaving, how insane the commutes are becoming, and general unpleasantness of living there if you aren't in the top 10%. But if you are in the top 10%, life is amazing here. It's an absolute paradise. Every single time I'm sitting in traffic hating my life, I try to do a pro/con on getting the hell out of here. Every single time I jus…

> But if you are in the top 10%, life is amazing here

I totally agree. I wouldn't be in the top 10% if I moved out there even _with_ a relatively good tech job.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#162

Post by logfromblammo »

moultano wrote: post #83
timr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a tiresome argument. Even if you could suddenly build all of the housing required to reduce prices on a short timescale, you'd have to solve the infrastructural problems that come with it (roads and transit), and convince developers to build into a massive loss (i.e. I am a developer, and you expect me to build and finance at today's costs, and pay for it with tomorrow's lower rents). Construction is a s…

Building more housing decreases traffic as people move to shorten their commutes. Building offices without housing is what increases traffic, which is what most cities in the bay are currently doing.

Indeed. If the offices were in the same building as the homes, some of that commuter traffic even moves to the elevators and stairwells, and never leaves the site.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#163

Post by jlarocco »

I feel bad for people who have to do this. I'm sure they can justify it to themselves and explain it away as not a big deal, but I've done it, and know that it's terrible. There are so many better ways to spend that time than sitting in a vehicle.

If I can't reasonably ride my bike to work then I'm not interested. It's just not worth the decrease in quality of life.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#164

Post by nerfhammer »

conanbatt wrote: post #100
nerfhammer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

75% of SF rental units are rent controlled.

75%?? source? That sounds like too much.

this source claims 72% is more accurate: https://www.quora.com/What-percentage-of-San-Francisco-apart...

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#165

Post by tedsanders »

ryanSrich wrote: post #68
thirduncle wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the ridiculous salary and equity while I'm here would be foolish to pass up So - how much of the "ridiculous" salary is left after subtracting living costs and taxes, actually?

Average FANG salary is $200k with roughly another $200k in equity each year spread out over 4 years. So that's roughly $400k per year in total comp. Conservatively 40% of that is going to taxes, so take home is closer to $240,000. While $240,000 is a nice salary it's not even close to what you'd need to afford a house in SV. And that's just housing. All in all it feels like a bad deal.

Do you have a source for the average FANG salary being $200k cash plus $200k in equity?

Glassdoor shows Google software engineers make a base of $127k cash plus $75k bonus and stock:

https://www.glassdoor.com/Salary/Google-Salaries-E9079.htm

Senior software engineers make more, but there seem to be many fewer of them relative to software engineer.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#166

Post by stefano »

kolpa wrote: post #133
abritinthebay wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're putting $5k away every month when your take home pay is ~$8k a month? I assume you must live a VERY spartan life in the Bay. Basically pay your rent (which must be shared or very cheap for the Bay) and utilities and not do much else... I mean the average Bay area rent is more than the difference between your take home and your savings... edit: I'm using ADP's calculator, don't know why SmartAsset is different…

Take-home pay on $175K in CA is $10k/month, not $8k/month https://smartasset.com/taxes/california-tax-calculator#RZ3V1... Sharing an apartment isn't "spartan", it's "normal"

Earning 10k/month after taxes and still having to share an apartment is not normal.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#167

Post by majewsky »

commandlinefan wrote: post #159
jasode wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then maybe everyone creating textual output for a living wouldn't have to transport their physical body to an office. Remote work hasn't taken off on a large scale because massively successful multi-billion dollar companies like Google/Facebook/Amazon/Apple/SpaceX were not built with remote workers . You get (relatively) minor companies touting it such as Automattic and Basecamp. Those smaller businesses haven't ach…

> Remote work hasn't taken off on a large scale Which is fortunate for any US or European citizen who hopes to ever find employment again.

Even with remote work, cultural barriers are still an issue.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#168

Post by j4kp07 »

abritinthebay wrote: post #78
timr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a tiresome argument. Even if you could suddenly build all of the housing required to reduce prices on a short timescale, you'd have to solve the infrastructural problems that come with it (roads and transit), and convince developers to build into a massive loss (i.e. I am a developer, and you expect me to build and finance at today's costs, and pay for it with tomorrow's lower rents). Construction is a s…

Instead lets do nothing? That is the tiresome argument.

Straw Man Fallacies are also tiresome.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#169

Post by slothario »

spyspy wrote: post #16

The sad fact is that long as people are willing to put up with this nothing is going to change. The crazy rents and terrible commutes sound insane to anyone living elsewhere but people are continuously more than happy to continue doing them to work at companies that haven't been priced out yet either. It's not an issue of social mobility either, since people living in the bay area are some of the most socially mobile…

Or enough people never move there.

I recommend every CS graduate move to a city like Austin. Austin is a great city at a reasonable cost-of-living.

I don't see why you'd want to start a family and set up roots in a place where property values will eat you alive. You can have a similar programming career in a place where you can actually afford a decent house on a junior dev salary.

Personally, I graduated from a top CS school and I'm in Houston (due to family reasons). I do not envy my peers who went to Silicon Valley.

Re: 90-minute ‘super commutes’ more common as Bay Area housing shortage intensifies

#170

Post by nerfhammer »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #92
nerfhammer wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

75% of SF rental units are rent controlled.

Its still difficult to understand, even if one is under rent control, it is still beneficial to push for more housing units. Additionally, single family homes do not fall under rent control in Alameda County, where nearly half of the housing units are rentals.

How is it beneficial? It removes the vast majority of the benefit at the very least
Post reply on HN