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

bloomberg.com

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

#31

Post by otoburb »

dv_dt wrote: post #27
ngngngng wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The follow-on repercussion is that the pendulum swings even further to open-seating hot desk arrangements.

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

#32

Post by seibelj »

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…

I live in Boston and commute on the subway. I specifically live in a major city because I like the city atmosphere, events, night life, restaurants, etc. I have co-workers that live in the suburbs and do the car thing (although many take the commuter train), but I don't. So I have no problem commuting to work. I like the subway.

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

#33

Post by BurningFrog »

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…

A lot of people have moved out.

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

#35

Post by toomuchtodo »

capableweb wrote: post #21
_jal wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Mid 30s, partner, two kids, will only work from home. Will not consider a commute or an office. Have worked remotely for almost a decade. Doing the math, I've saved almost 3360 hours by not having to commute (~2 hr/workday), not to mention wear and tear on a vehicle and the associated commute costs.

When my office door is closed, everyone knows I'm "at work". If you don't have a separate physical space where you only work, I can see how this might be a challenge.

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

#36

Post by geddy »

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

I'm always reading about job openings throughout my country (or world, for that matter) that offer 100% remote positions, and initially the huge difference in salary was pretty jarring. Then I hopped on Trulia for some less populated (not rural, but certainly not close-to-the-city-suburbs), and realized the mortgage for a house twice my size would cost the property taxes I pay now. Literally talking about a $25,000/year difference in just the mortgage. In other words, what I pay just in property taxes annually here, is how much a house costs annually that's double the size, there.

Suddenly I didn't mind seeing zeroes falling off the salary.

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

#37

Post by epistasis »

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.

The headline is the evergreen part; certainly the specifics are different now then they were back then!

Edit: also, check out Raldi's link to a 1993 post for complaints about housing costs and more: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23181981

(That said, the housing costs are far worse now then in 1993 on a wage to land price basis, I hear!)

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

#38

Post by jseliger »

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…

It's also possible that a thing won't work until it does. Electric cars had that quality and don't anymore, like many other practices and technologies.

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

#39

Post by gonehome »

dh5 wrote: post #15
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…

Not sure what the scam is. Sounds like normal supply and demand.

Forcing artificially low housing supply via legislation.

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

#40

Post by mjg59 »

lalaland1125 wrote: post #9

This could finally help solve the housing crisis in many of America's large cities. Every employee who moves out frees up one apartment for everyone else. 30,000 employees leaving is equivalent to building 30,000 apartments.

The number of tech workers in the bay who have zero roommates is a lot smaller than you seem to think.
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