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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

#201

Post by city41 »

TrackerFF wrote: post #154
subsubzero wrote: post #18

One thing this doesn't mention is the pay cuts that happen if you do decide to relocate to cheaper areas. Both me and my Wife's company have pay bands based on geographical region(most employees know nothing about this and most companies employ these salary COL changes for relocation) and certain regions you can take a big pay cut. Say your salary in the bay area is 100k for example, move to the South, say Florida an…

Higher income means higher taxes, and if you're in a high COL area, then there's the added expenses. Of course, if you've purchased a home in said high COL, that could be seen as an investment - and the high mortgage goes towards equity. I can only talk about my own experience is the living / working in low vs high COL area: When I live in a high COL area, most my money went towards housing. And while my salary was s…

I definitely feel that stress about living in a high COL area. The very large rent/mortgage is always looming. Even if you have a good emergency fund you’ll burn through a ton of money if it takes a while to find a new job should you lose your current one.

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

#202

Post by tyre »

daenz wrote: post #167
troydavis wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently, the market for location-based labor is deeper than the market for location-agnostic labor, so employers assume that their competition is local - and often it is. That's less true for the top 20% or so of tech candidates. A person with known skills and a good network can obtain offers from multiple remote-friendly companies today. There's already a location-ignorant market for their skills (probably not at…

Interesting, thanks for the reading. I am tempted now to get a higher salary in an expensive location, work on-site and then remotely from that location, then quietly move away without telling anyone. As long as my hours are the same and work quality don't change, nobody should be the wiser.

you have to have payroll run in the state where you work

so you couldn't do this without either updating with HR or tax fraud

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

#203

Post by take_a_breath »

bradlys wrote: post #173
take_a_breath wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

==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.== Now add a partner who also works from home. Will the extra space (and hardware) needed to comfortably fit all these new home workers be another cost shifted from companies to employees? If my company wants me to work from home much longer; they need…

So... $1000 for a fancy electric standing desk. $1000 for a fancy chair. $1000 for better monitors + arms. $200 for a keyboard. $100 for a mouse. We're looking at less than $3500 for a mid-level setup. The cost of a bit of equipment is a joke compared to the cost of another bedroom. Adding another room to a house is tens of thousands of dollars. Buying a home with another room is also the same cost or more depending…

==I wouldn't get hung up on equipment costs when the cost of space is far greater.==

I think you misread my comment because this was my exact point. Fundamentally shifting 8-10 hours of our day back to our homes will directly impact how we set up our homes. What might those impacts be? More space is the first one that comes to mind because I feel it everyday with two people working-from-home.

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

#204

Post by take_a_breath »

edm0nd wrote: post #199
acituan wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People need bigger houses for other reasons too, including a growing family, having space for gathering with their friends and community, for their hobbies etc. And I’m not talking about a luxurious McMansion, just something bigger than a $3500 1 bedroom apartment where you can’t have a friendsgiving with more than 4 guests. Being able to work from home long term means not being tied to ultra-premium land for your pr…

God damn. $3,500 for a 1br apt. You must for sure live in SF lol. That's enough to purchase a full on mansion here in Louisiana.

It's $500 more than my mortgage for a single-family-home in Chicago.

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

#205

Post by bpyne »

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.

People with younger kids are probably having a hard time balancing work with kids' needs. My 14yo is absolutely independent with distance learning. In the 6 weeks or so that she started it, she needed help less than 10 times.

You can't imagine the relief from just being able to throw in a load of laundry mid-morning, take the dog for a walk at lunch, and starting a meal immediately after work. Working from home is a major stress reliever for family people. My wife and I are also saving quite a bit from not driving our cars, not going out for coffees or lunches, etc.

When we're not in the middle of a pandemic and kids are at school, camps, etc., working from home is a major boon for family people.

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

#206

Post by mcguire »

"But the trend raises complicated questions. If employees move to a less expensive location, should Twilio adjust their salaries accordingly? “It’s probably not great business practice to pay Bay Area comps in Michigan,” Lake says. And when it comes time to promote, would those employees have the same opportunity to advance as everybody else? “We need to think proactively,” she says."

I wouldn't sweat it. After the pandemic has died down, companies will be requiring everybody back into the office and all those people moving to Montana will be packing up again.

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

#207

Post by gonehome »

shuckles wrote: post #70
gonehome wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forcing artificially low housing supply via legislation.

The land values are legit. That they cannot be amortized across many occupants is not.

Tokyo seems to be able to do it without an issue. [Edit: I think I was confused by the negatives in your comment, I think we're in agreement]

It’s an incentive problem, and a lot of people are incentivized to keep supply down.

Housing can be affordable or it can be a long term investment, but it can’t really be both.

If a lot of people are desperate to have their property grow in value, they will fight anything that threatens that.

I think it’d be interesting to revoke prop 13 in a staged way. You can either build some large X amount of new housing each year or you can accept a 10% increase of the property tax on your property each year until it reaches the market value rate.

If you’re going to constrain supply you should have to pay the cost.

Though for the same power reasons this could never pass politically.

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

#208

Post by scirocco »

_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'm young with no kids and appreciate remote work / working from home (up to 3 days a week but not more).

Can exercise when I want during the day, easier to run errands and less frustration of commuting.

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

#209

Post by davidw »

Another thought: those workers and their companies could contribute to changing the situation in Silicon Valley and the rest of California: https://cayimby.org/

Without a change in housing policy in the US, this just becomes a big game of musical chairs:

Guy moves from Silicon Valley to Portland, Oregon. Portland gets too expensive for some other family, who move to Boise, Idaho. And so on...

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