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San Francisco median one bedroom apartment rent hits a new peak of $3,690

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71–80 of 195 posts

Re: San Francisco median one bedroom apartment rent hits a new peak of $3,690

#71
post #62
post #56

Excuse my ignorance. SF doesn't look anywhere like Hong Kong, possibly the most crowed places on earth, and it is not close to Tokyo or Seoul. It has plenty of Spaces, for many coming from Asia, most part of SF is like country side so to speak. What cant there be more housing development on the edge of SF, or taller building with many smaller apartments etc. Underground packing lot? Edit: Ok, is it because it is in a…

Locals fight against further developing the land. They don't want skyscrapers in their suburbs.

Skyscrapers? Suburbs? They don't want 5-story buildings in their dense urban area.

Re: San Francisco median one bedroom apartment rent hits a new peak of $3,690

#72
post #56

Excuse my ignorance. SF doesn't look anywhere like Hong Kong, possibly the most crowed places on earth, and it is not close to Tokyo or Seoul. It has plenty of Spaces, for many coming from Asia, most part of SF is like country side so to speak. What cant there be more housing development on the edge of SF, or taller building with many smaller apartments etc. Underground packing lot? Edit: Ok, is it because it is in a…

>What cant there be more housing development on the edge of SF...

Three of the edges of SF are water.

Re: San Francisco median one bedroom apartment rent hits a new peak of $3,690

#73
post #56

Excuse my ignorance. SF doesn't look anywhere like Hong Kong, possibly the most crowed places on earth, and it is not close to Tokyo or Seoul. It has plenty of Spaces, for many coming from Asia, most part of SF is like country side so to speak. What cant there be more housing development on the edge of SF, or taller building with many smaller apartments etc. Underground packing lot? Edit: Ok, is it because it is in a…

From what I've heard it's very difficult to develop new housing in San Francisco due to various regulations. Apparently, you even need to apply for permits to change your windows. Having lived in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, San Francisco does feel like country side.

Re: San Francisco median one bedroom apartment rent hits a new peak of $3,690

#74
post #12

On one hand, it’s a very high price. On the other hand, no one is entitled to a one bedroom unit in the heart of one of the human epicenters in the world. Many people here have roommates or alternate living arrangements. There are several reasons why the prices have gotten so high (lack of supply, politics, etc). But don’t expect to move your Texas ranch or Midwestern single-family-house lifestyle to SF with no compr…

People are entitled to build whatever they want on their property. As Silicon Valley is ruled by rent seekers who make building illegal, people have every right to complain.

> People are entitled to build whatever they want on their property

Not in a world where zoning and nuisance laws exist, with good reasons.

Re: San Francisco median one bedroom apartment rent hits a new peak of $3,690

#75
post #20

Note that Zumper is not a reliable source for median rent data. CityObservatory wrote an article about their data problems a few years ago [1]. Zumper's data is, of course, based on apartments that are for rent and doesn't include currently occupied units. That alone skews high, especially when there is a lot of higher-rent new construction hitting the market. Also, it looks like Zumper's data skews towards higher-en…

I guess it depends on what question you're asking. You seem to be pointing out that you think the real question is: "what is the median rent for anyone living in San Francisco?" whereas Zumper seems to be more answering the question: "if someone moved to San Francisco today, and has zero connections, what rent would they pay?" Both are valid questions, but I think it's good to set the context for if you're having a c…

Even then, it's not as clear. First off, median caries the implication that these are all "valid" places, whereas in reality, most apartments that are still up for grabs probably aren't rented for a reason, therefore including them in a median is misleading.

Next up, the data itself needs to be "fresh" for this to work. It could be that cheaper apartments appear on the market frequently, but are rented right away. So as someone new in the city, you could find these cheap places if you looked for a bit, but a single survey will probably not catch these.

A better approach would be to look at the median of all new rented apartments throughout the year. That will give you an idea of what someone who comes to the city will realistically pay.

Re: San Francisco median one bedroom apartment rent hits a new peak of $3,690

#76
post #72
post #56

Excuse my ignorance. SF doesn't look anywhere like Hong Kong, possibly the most crowed places on earth, and it is not close to Tokyo or Seoul. It has plenty of Spaces, for many coming from Asia, most part of SF is like country side so to speak. What cant there be more housing development on the edge of SF, or taller building with many smaller apartments etc. Underground packing lot? Edit: Ok, is it because it is in a…

>What cant there be more housing development on the edge of SF... Three of the edges of SF are water.

Hence 'edge' in the singular, I think.

Re: San Francisco median one bedroom apartment rent hits a new peak of $3,690

#77

I always wonder how those who are not in the high paying jobs can afford to live there. I'm talking about police, fire, EMS, coffeehouse workers, etc.

Rent control. If you live in a unit constructed before a certain year, you have rent control and the landlord is limited to a small increase in rent each year.

If you have been living in same place for years it's possible your rent is less than half as much as someone who moved into a similar unit this year.

The other case is that people not in high paying jobs don't live there and instead live far away and have 1 hour plus commutes.

Re: San Francisco median one bedroom apartment rent hits a new peak of $3,690

#78

When headhunters contact me about SF (or even Bay Area) jobs, I just scoff and shut them down. If you're fresh out of school, no family, and willing to live in a hovel for some interesting life experience, sure. But if you're an adult, it's no way to live. And putting kids through it is frankly unethical.

Well it depends. I'll agree with you that if you work at a rando tech startup, the costs of living are going to be quite high, and make it probably not worth it. But , the whole equation changes if you are working for a big 5 tech company, or hot unicorn company. These companies will pay you double what the rando startups pay. Who really cares if you are paying 40k a year on rent, if your total compensation breaks 25…

But the cost of living is so high there that the inflated salaries are pretty much required to bring anyone out there. A company wants to have competitive hiring so they offer a little bit more than competition so what was a $200k job is now $220k. Prices increase to what these inflated salaried workers can afford and the cycle continues. It will be incredible to watch when SF finally starts to allow for more high density housing. Housing prices will fall and the salary bubble will pop. A lot of companies will start cutting back on starting salaries and as a result, experienced workers will start either taking paycuts to switch jobs or be first in line for layoffs because they cost the company too much.

Re: San Francisco median one bedroom apartment rent hits a new peak of $3,690

#79
post #61
post #56

Excuse my ignorance. SF doesn't look anywhere like Hong Kong, possibly the most crowed places on earth, and it is not close to Tokyo or Seoul. It has plenty of Spaces, for many coming from Asia, most part of SF is like country side so to speak. What cant there be more housing development on the edge of SF, or taller building with many smaller apartments etc. Underground packing lot? Edit: Ok, is it because it is in a…

Tokyo is certainly an earthquake zone as well so I don't think that explains it.

Tokyo is an earthquake zone in a country with a total liveable land mass that could comfortably fit inside a single US state. In fact the totality of all land in all of Japan, including mountains, is smaller than California. A lack of options will drive people into close quarters, but no such pressure exists in San Francisco. Wanting to be close to venture capital isn’t as compelling an build a megalopolis as some people with vested interests seem to think, no matter how much they dress up the issue with altruistic claims about the homeless.

The truth is that it’s prime real estate with a beautiful climate, and risks of earthquakes aside (and you can’t avoid natural disasters of some kind wherever you live) lots of people would like to live there. That’s no more an argument to build build build than it is to knock down any existing popular city or town and build high rises. While this argument is often derided as “NIMBYism” it is also true that it is in fact already some people’s back yard in the first place. A balance needs to be struck between the people and interests who’ve invested generations in a place, and people who want to flood in and change it to suit their desires.

Re: San Francisco median one bedroom apartment rent hits a new peak of $3,690

#80
post #36
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On one hand, it’s a very high price. On the other hand, no one is entitled to a one bedroom in the heart of one of the human epicenters in the world. Many people here have roommates or alternate living arrangements. New York is the “human epicenter” in the US. San Francisco is in the same tier as Houston or DC: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/gawc/world2018t.html . Paying New York/London prices to live in a city that is no…

SF maximizes technological intelligence, Wall Street maximizes financial intelligence. Plenty of overlap, but the top talent stays where the rest of the top talent is.

Having technological intelligence doesn’t make San Francisco a “human epicenter” (whatever that is). I wouldn’t even call San Francisco a technological epicenter. Even within computer technology, much of the most important technological intelligence in the US is outside San Francisco: in Portland (Intel), Seattle (Microsoft), San Diego (Qualcomm), and maybe San Jose (Cisco). Put differently, what cities would be most devastating (in terms of impact on US technological capabilities) to lose early in WWIII? I’d put Boston or Seattle ahead of San Francisco.
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