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Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

wsj.com

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Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#211

Post by ghaff »

jeffbee wrote: post #162
ghaff wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nature's your priority though, you don't live in SF or SV proper. You live in the Santa Cruz mountains, Marin, or further north along the coast or in the mountains (or in the Sierras). Those aren't cheap either in many cases of course until you really get out of Bay Area commuting range.

I don't think this is generally true. You can bike right out of San Francisco over the Golden Gate Bridge and be away from the city in minutes. You can walk or bike out of the west side of silicon valley into a huge area of contiguous parkland. If you leave San Jose in the right direction you could hike for days without seeing anyone.

Certainly if you want both a city and nature, SF can be attractive in that regard. But the comment I was responding to was specifically about nature. If I don't care about easy access to the city and SV, I'd live elsewhere.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#212

Post by brandur »

dmode wrote: post #154
blisterpeanuts wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

SF also charges a city income tax of 1.5% (flat rate).

SF has no income tax. This is incorrect

Your parent's comment is out of date, but what you said isn't a fair representation either.

The 1.5% tax they're talking was the 1.5% payroll tax that SF had in place until 2012 [1]. Payroll tax isn't quite the same as an income tax because the onus isn't on the employee to figure it out like state and federal, but it still did cost most businesses in SF an extra 1.5% on every employee's salary to be there.

Prop E shifted most of this to a gross receipts tax instead (although there's still a 0.38% payroll expense tax in place [2]). Again, the numbers your parent is talking about are out of date, but the spirit of it is right in that it does just fundamentally cost a company quite a bit more to have an employee in SF.

---

[1] https://sftreasurer.org/business/taxes-fees/gross-receipts-t...

[2] https://sftreasurer.org/business/taxes-fees/payroll-expense-...

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#213

Post by adjkant »

randycupertino wrote: post #204
adjkant wrote: post #192

These HN comments don't seem to grasp that there are two distinct groups of people here, and these trends can/will counteract eachother: the ones that are in the city for work, and the ones that are in the city because they love cities. COVID creates an exodus of one, but people in the latter category are also moving into cities as well as prices drop and they are no longer priced out. HN folks love to complain about…

> who are very much not doing as well mentally and are looking forward to being back in the city. Why do you think they're not doing as well mentally? Isolation? Lack of things to do? I've noticed that the pandemic really emphasizes my relationships with my neighbors. We've never been so close, and now all of our world is smaller, so we're talking a lot more from our balconies, sharing recipes and planting tips. It's…

Your suggestions mostly hit it. When you're used to constantly meeting friends in the city, it's a drastic social life change. I think also many people who enjoy cities like high levels of stimulation, and the suburbs simply don't offer as much. I'm thinking museums and events and the like. So even in the city, people will still struggle on that end. So basically yeah, I suspect lack of things to do in those cases.

FWIW, I'm actually not interacting much with neighbors but I'm glad to hear you are and would not be surprised to find a macro increase in that right now. Interesting to see how people are adapting in different ways!

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#214

Post by randycupertino »

tjr225 wrote: post #95
ghaff wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If nature's your priority though, you don't live in SF or SV proper. You live in the Santa Cruz mountains, Marin, or further north along the coast or in the mountains (or in the Sierras). Those aren't cheap either in many cases of course until you really get out of Bay Area commuting range.

Yes I tried to call that out in my post. Even towns like Bend, Bellingham, etc(even somewhat places in Idaho and Montana by now) are by no means cheap and on top of that they don’t have a robust job market to justify the cost.

I wonder if the pandemic is going to decimate the housing markets even more in those remote mountain towns. I have two coworkers who just moved to Bozeman, MT to be closer to skiing and fishing. I would think places like Kalispell, Coeur d'Alene, Jackson Hole, Taos and Bend are all going to see a large influx of remote workers who like outdoor lifestyles.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#215

Post by twalla »

justchilly wrote: post #181
lostmyoldone wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Fransisco has one of the highest, and in some cases - highest - housing and rental prices in the US. If taxes are as high as you claim, it would be more rational to argue that the high prices are indirectly caused by that tax, rather than prices being held down by taxes. Several causes seems more likely for a change in inventory, or pricing. An extremely high cost of housing and the consequently smaller than aver…

If you make $250k in SF (sounds high, but about average for the people I know that are leaving SF), state income tax alone is $19,996. If you make that in Texas, state income tax is $0. That $20k/year is for many people a bigger deal than the cost of living. Most people I know leaving were home owners or rent controlled. Source: moved to Austin in June.

Property taxes in TX are generally higher but the lower average home price sort of negates that. Regardless, I'm looking forward to competing with even _more_ cash offers over listing price within 24 hours of a listing going up.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#216

Post by Nasrudith »

jeffdn wrote: post #187
pyrrhotech wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh yea, I agree the natural beauty is astounding. It's the extreme left wing, near Bolshevik culture and attitude that has destroyed it for me. I say this as a lifelong democrat.

I'd hazard a guess to say that actual Bolsheviks would be appalled by American liberals, many of whom engage in conspicuous consumption and are vastly more interested in the appearance of affecting change than in the actual work required to make it happen. There is a vast difference between American liberals and left-wing politics.

The Bolsheviks still had the complete case of "missing the goddamned point" and beligerence such that they put totaltiarians in power. I am afraid that "more interested in the appearance of change" applied to them as well. Hell they fit the exact same framework of "fanatical hatred for those with more minute policy distinctions". Their most damning flaw was that they were in the end more interested in killing anyone better off as a scapegoat and dogma policing than them than doing anything to make life better.

They aren't the same (thank god - the original Bolsheviks were psychotics!) but plenty of resemblences. There is still the absurd supply-and-demand denialism common to both the area and the self-proclaimed left-wing. Then there is the whole "fight new higher density housing as gentrification" making everyone worse off as the supply doesn't rise but rents do anyway.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#217

Post by jasode »

adjkant wrote: post #192

These HN comments don't seem to grasp that there are two distinct groups of people here, and these trends can/will counteract eachother: the ones that are in the city for work, and the ones that are in the city because they love cities. COVID creates an exodus of one, but people in the latter category are also moving into cities as well as prices drop and they are no longer priced out. HN folks love to complain about…

>there are two distinct groups of people here, and these trends can/will counteract eachother: the ones that are in the city for work, and the ones that are in the city because they love cities. COVID creates an exodus of one, but people in the latter category are also moving into cities as well as prices drop and they are no longer priced out.

I don't think it's as simple as one group replacing another so it's a wash. I don't know if the WSJ article dives into it but cities seem to care what type of workers they attract because higher-salaried employees (e.g. tech workers) provide a higher tax base. This was demonstrated by various cities falling over themselves trying to attract Amazon's HQ2 with the promise of high tech jobs. Cities aren't on a public campaign to attract more bohemian artists. It's the high tech workers that are currently more desirable.

If tech workers exodus of San Francisco is a real sustained phenomenon, are the replacement workers' taxable income higher/lower/same? Since you envisioned lower prices for housing, doesn't that mean it would be caused by lower income workers?

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#218

Post by randycupertino »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #128
amw-zero wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m very skeptical that 60% of all people prefer to work from home. In my experience, it’s a small but vocal minority who don’t value the social component of an office. I think work from home should totally be optional, but why do work-from-homers assume that everyone else likes to work that way? I do not.

I think the factor you're missing is the large chunk of people who just... aren't particularly fulfilled by their job. A lot of the people in that 60% are perfectly fine with it if working from home means they're less productive or achieve less of a personal connection with their coworkers - I know more than a few people who'd be happier watching Youtube alone for 8 hours than working.

Ha! On my worst days, I'll admit I'm in the group who would binge watch youtube over filling out a spreadsheet. I've struggled keeping a good routine during wfh, there are some days where I'm not as productive as in the office.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#219

Post by neltnerb »

momokoko wrote: post #142

I think you have to realize this is San Francisco specifically. Not the entire Bay Area. A lot of people worked in places south of San Francisco and then commuted south because SF is basically the only city nearby that isn’t awful. But now that everything is closed down, all the good parts of SF are generally gone. Who wants to live in a cramped apartment with too many roommates and no yard? The trade was always that…

I suppose it's also extremely reasonable to not want to live in close quarters with too many roommates you don't actually know all that well who may or may not be adhering to the same level of safety as you want to.

But if that was it, why isn't NYC seeing the same? Are apartments actually bigger there or more commonly single occupant or something?

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#220

Post by kleton »

chrisco255 wrote: post #206
vecinu wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiking in the Bay Area is extremely difficult right now. You have to wear a mask EVERYWHERE outside where you are near people. On trails with 90+F weather you have to put your mask on every 30 seconds with how many people there are, it's a mess. My mental health is not improving when there are a million people all trying to do outdoor activities in the limited space we have nearby.

I can't believe California is making people where masks outdoors.

I think the order is for masks outdoors when distance cannot be maintained. So almost never outdoors.
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