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Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

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Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#21

Post by capableweb »

_jal wrote: post #13
aripickar wrote: post #8

I'm pretty bearish on the pandemic actually leading to massive change in the number of people permanently working from home. My boss put out a survey a week or two ago among my org (30 or so people), and 70% said that they want to work from the office, full time, 20% said some time or most of the time, and 10% said fully remote. And this is a group of people that would be largely well suited to working from home duri…

> young, no kids, etc There is your major reason for that survey result. Companies with median-older workforces will see more enthusiasm for remote work.

I read it the other way. Only people who are young with no distractions at home, favor working at home. People who usually have family members at home, get too distracted compared to a office environment, to prefer working at home.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#22

Post by pwinnski »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #16
aripickar wrote: post #8

I'm pretty bearish on the pandemic actually leading to massive change in the number of people permanently working from home. My boss put out a survey a week or two ago among my org (30 or so people), and 70% said that they want to work from the office, full time, 20% said some time or most of the time, and 10% said fully remote. And this is a group of people that would be largely well suited to working from home duri…

> And this is a group of people that would be largely well suited to working from home during the pandemic (young, no kids, etc). I just don't think that this will change much. I'm not sure that follows. It seems to me that people with spouses and especially children would be more interested in working from home, not less.

While working from home, kids can often be a major distraction. Not insurmountable, but especially given that most people have been forced into some variety of home-schooling at the same time they were pushed into working from home, I could understand many people with kids choosing to go to an office.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#23

Post by iab »

aripickar wrote: post #8

I'm pretty bearish on the pandemic actually leading to massive change in the number of people permanently working from home. My boss put out a survey a week or two ago among my org (30 or so people), and 70% said that they want to work from the office, full time, 20% said some time or most of the time, and 10% said fully remote. And this is a group of people that would be largely well suited to working from home duri…

I have to agree. It brings to mind the Friends episode with Rachel being excluded for not-smoking; same dynamic will come to play with the in-office vs. remote.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#24

Post by [deleted] »

mikestew wrote: post #5
epistasis wrote: post #2

An evergreen headline... In the 90s I remember hearing this too. Use the high salary and property value increases to build a nestegg, but keep an eye out for other geographic opportunities because the locals are determined to keep you out, as a class, even if they are friendly one to one. These days, the property value scam has been going so long that new high wage workers are often locked out for many years, to the…

In the 90s I remember hearing this too. What, that due to the fact that we're all working from home because of a global pandemic, and my employer says I can WFH long-term, I'm thinking about moving out of SV? You must run with a different crowd than I do, because I don't recall a single person saying that in the 90s.

[deleted]

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#25

Post by dougmwne »

It must be tempting to make even a short-term move out of the Bay area. If your lease is coming due and you were planning on looking for a new place anyway, why not move back in with family or get a short-term rental somewhere further out. Rents will likely be going down over the next few years, not up, so it's a terrible time to lock yourself into a new lease. And we can expect re-opening to happen slowly, so there should be plenty of warning for most workplaces before you're required to be in the office again. Based on my Zoom calls, my co-workers have been fleeing the city, moving back in with parents, moving into parents' second homes or picking up vacation rentals on the coast or in the mountains.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#26

Post by sigfubar »

zaidf wrote: post #14

People won't continue making their current SF salary by working out of Farmville, Ohio. I think this point is missed by many I fully expect Twitter, for example, to come out with salary adjustment policies for people who want to work from home from an entirely different city and state

There are plenty of people who moved out of NYC/SF and continued making their NYC/SF salary while working remotely from Nowhere, USA. Companies who cut pay based on locale will soon see their workforces dwindle to nothing.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#27

Post by dv_dt »

ngngngng wrote: post #12
aripickar wrote: post #8

I'm pretty bearish on the pandemic actually leading to massive change in the number of people permanently working from home. My boss put out a survey a week or two ago among my org (30 or so people), and 70% said that they want to work from the office, full time, 20% said some time or most of the time, and 10% said fully remote. And this is a group of people that would be largely well suited to working from home duri…

I asked this casually with /polly in slack the other day and was surprised that our engineering department was split 50/50. 50% thinking we should go fully remote and 50% being very adamant that they needed an office to work in the majority of the time.

That actually isn't bad is it? Cut back 50% on office space for savings (or leave some extra for growth), and have both groups accommodated.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#28

Post by brenden2 »

Desirable areas will always be (relatively) more expensive. Even if we see significant deflation (which is unlikely given the scale of money printing), these areas (NYC, SF) will probably remain expensive so long as they remain significant culturally and economically. When it becomes uncool to live in SF or NYC, then perhaps people will move to places like Wyoming en masse.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#29

Post by mips_avatar »

I'm considering it. But I am pretty sure that once things open up, my office culture is going back to one where all the important decisions get made in the hallways after a meeting. Being remote in that scenario means you have no say, and you miss out on important information.

Re: Tech workers consider escaping Silicon Valley’s sky-high rents

#30

Post by gonehome »

geddy wrote: post #17
aripickar wrote: post #8

I'm pretty bearish on the pandemic actually leading to massive change in the number of people permanently working from home. My boss put out a survey a week or two ago among my org (30 or so people), and 70% said that they want to work from the office, full time, 20% said some time or most of the time, and 10% said fully remote. And this is a group of people that would be largely well suited to working from home duri…

It's a damn shame, really, the slavish devotion to one's car and spending hours a day sitting in traffic apparently is apparently preferred over actually getting time back in your everyday life. It's like people have adapted to having no life outside of work, and now they're just so bored they'd rather lose that time than just find a new hobby or learn something. I don't think I've ever thought about anything more de…

They probably live really close to the office and the commute isn’t an issue.

I’d also suspect that young people with no kids is not the dominant work from home demographic - I’d guess that would be middle aged people with kids.

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