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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

#311

Post by asdff »

geddy wrote: post #36
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/y…

This could be dangerous, restarting your life somewhere sight unseen just because it looks great on paper. You sell and move to that house in location x for cost alone, always pining for that life you had in location y with all the intangibles you never realized you were reliant on, and never will make enough to reverse the play and relocate back to y which has experienced ever higher property values since you've been gone.

A better move would be to move laterally, to a place with the same benefits that the one you are in gives you, be it leisure activities or a network for your field. That might limit you to metros, and particular metros that are most favorable to your activities (skiers might like CO, sailors might like FL). Suddenly your options become limited, and you find among these limited choices the same housing issues that have plagued states like CA as demand ramps up, because everyone had the same idea as you. No city in the U.S. actually builds sufficient supply for their influx in labor; even the ones that we applaud are doing quite poorly in terms of how much housing should be built and where. The ones that don't seem to have a housing crisis are experiencing a contracting local economy, and that doesn't bode well with your networking prospects and career options.

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

#313

Post by vdnkh »

I feel like most of HN is missing something here, of no fault of their own because they're not in my demographic (20-something yuppie). Young people want to live in cities. They're fun, exciting, and enable a robust social life. Moving to rural Ohio or Michigan, or even a "lesser" metro in the midwest is not the same as living in SF or NYC in terms of social opportunity. I work remote and I live in Brooklyn and I think its great. I don't need a car or a big house. But unlike most of the commenters here, I don't have kids or a wife. Essentially, I put my money towards a better social life.

I'm not saying that my way is better, it's just that the whole "move to a big cheap house in the midwest, bro" line that HN loves to throw out is not for everyone.

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

#314

Post by bialpio »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #140
take_a_breath wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good call, I should just go get a new job in the middle of the worst destruction of jobs in history. After I do that, my one-time $1,000 stipend won't make my house bigger. The point is that if more people are going to work from their houses, then houses will need to be bigger in the medium- to long-term.

Should you live near your job if it's expensive? Your choice. Should your employer pay you more if they can pay someone less who lives somewhere cheaper? Their choice. If you want to live in a small place in the city, there is a cost. If it's not pleasant to work from there because there isn't enough space, that is part of the cost. You are competing with folks who can now work from home, and have the space to do so…

Should I subsidize my employer by reducing the need for them to rent an office space? They're basically now getting free space and shifting the cost to me. Same applies to the cost of electricity, heating (I'm at home 8hrs more than I would otherwise), time spent getting food / cooking, etc. There may be more hidden costs and some people may not be OK with their employer not participating in those. Everything's a choice, but I think people should be careful and make sure they are not cheating themselves out of something that the employer would normally provide (or at least make sure they're fine with it).

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

#315

Post by tylerjwilk00 »

First, these are NOT normal work from home times. This is currently the worst time to experience what work from home is truely like.

Second, if your job requires a lot of face to face interaction them WFH will NOT be a good fit.

Third, if your org tries to do remote communication in the same way it does place based communication. It will not be a good fit.

BUT, if remote communication is first class citizen, conditions are back to the normal state of 4 months ago, your job duties are well suited to individual creative contributions, work from home CAN be a great fit.

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

#316

Post by [deleted] »

luckylion wrote: post #264
talmr wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair - I used to live in Ohio and my parents and I lived in a 2 bedroom apartment that cost $600/mo about fifteen years ago. You could buy a 5 bedroom house for $250k. The school district I attended was also top notch. It was a great family area and I remember the mall, rec center, and numerous parks. I checked zillow recently and 5 bedroom homes are ~$300k and apartments are about $800/mo. At the time, my dad…

So if you lived in that Ohio suburb, your code quality would be reduced vs living in California?

[deleted]

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

#317

Post by toomuchtodo »

ghaff wrote: post #229
hackissimo123 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where the hell do you live and/or shop where a suitable office chair costs $1000?

That's the (more or less starting) price of a high-end Herman Miller chair like an Aeron or Embody. Which is simultaneously a lot of money and a very reasonable purchase for something you spend a lot of time in if you can afford it.

I cannot recommend an Aeron chair enough. It is worth it. I'm sitting in one right now, the one I picked up for a song in 2001 after the dot com bust from (ironically enough) a liquidated startup. It has lasted me that long.

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

#318

Post by asdff »

twblalock wrote: post #120
gremlinsinc wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get a forwarding mail box from Manhattan and tell your company that's where you live. I mean seriously if the company's gonna dick around w/ salaries like that. I mean other than mailing tax documents is it really their business where you live?

> Get a forwarding mail box from Manhattan and tell your company that's where you live. Lying to your company about things like that is a great way to get fired. Everyone should ignore this terrible advice.

So don't lie, actually have some property. Sublet an apartment with a dozen of your friends for $200/month. Make it back on airbnb. Most companies don't care if you have multiple properties in several states, they'd have to fire all their executives if they did.

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

#319

Post by asdff »

Apocryphon wrote: post #272
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Guy moves from Silicon Valley to Portland, Oregon. Portland gets too expensive for some other family, who move to Boise, Idaho. And so on... Yup. It's a fundamental values problem that can't be fixed without a major ideological shift. A large number of people do not believe that people have the right to do more or less whatever they want on their property. Until that is fixed you're always going to have people sayin…

Maybe the endgame is that these tech megacorps just do it themselves and build their own cities on empty land.

Google just killed off their condo project. I'm fine with leaving the company town in the past, though. We need more public housing, and less private land speculators.

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

#320

Post by Steven_Vellon »

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.

The scam is the fact that prices are being propped up by constraining supply. If things get to a breaking point and the State limits the abilities of municipalities to block housing construction then the price of housing will deflate significantly.
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