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Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

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Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#61

Post by dugmartin »

chrisseaton wrote: post #14

I think a lot of people living in cities think there's only two options - living in an apartment downtown in a megacity, and living in a car-bound wasteland suburb. But there's a third option - towns. I know you have them in the US! I've been to a few of them. Walkable towns with coffee shops, restaurants, bars, culture, dating. You can even find a few in the Bay Area if you don't want to look too far. Isn't the smal…

I live in one (Shelburne Falls, Mass - https://shelburnefalls.com/).

Everything is in walking distance and most of the houses and buildings are 100+ years old (the town is on a river in a bowl of a valley so most of the buildable land ran out 100 years ago). We have a drug store with a soda fountain counter, a nice grocery store and a few nice restaurants and bookstores.

I moved here around 20 years ago after stints of living in Boston and Chicago after college. It has been a great place to raise kids but now that they are in their teens the main downside I'm seeing is the public high school options are sub-par compared to "magnet" schools available in cities. I don't think my kids are as ready for college as they would have been if we would have stayed in Boston. However, if we did want to drop the money there are a lot of world class private schools in the area.

We have been lucky enough to make sure to travel as the kids have grown so they don't become "townies". They have been on trips to England, Spain, France and Italy and many places in the US. We have also hosted two year-long exchange students so they realize there is a wider world out there. In my mind the biggest risk of raising kids in a small town is that they become provincial.

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#62

Post by renewiltord »

ghaff wrote: post #32
ssequeira wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some examples of Bay Area towns? It seems like everyone in my friend circle in tech lives in San Francisco and puts up (or used to) with the long commute.

Quite a few of the towns in the South Bay have walkable cores: Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Mateo... You also have smaller cities all over the country. Now, you get into truly small towns in places like New England and there really isn't a lot in the town center and it's unlikely you'll be living walking distance from it.

No way, man. You have to pay like $1.5 mil for a home in Palo Alto and Mountain View. You do all that and you get a glorified suburb. No way. The city is like 400x as city life for like 1.1x the price.

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#63

Post by randycupertino »

haram_masala wrote: post #52
ssequeira wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some examples of Bay Area towns? It seems like everyone in my friend circle in tech lives in San Francisco and puts up (or used to) with the long commute.

Alameda comes to mind. Completely walkable, charming, great community feel. It's an island, so going over bridges or through the tube to go anywhere can be a bit of a hassle, but it's well worth it.

The pinball museum in Alameda is one of my favorite spots! I hope it survives the shutdown, they always seem to be operating on a shoestring budget. Super cool place if anyone hasn't checked it out before, highly recommend!

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#64

Post by refurb »

techsupporter wrote: post #40
refurb wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the same attitude when prices go up? “Wild that tenants having to deal with rent going up and having to negotiate a commercial transaction is “grim””. “The market dynamics shifted. No big deal.”

> You have the same attitude when prices go up? No, but the people on the opposite side of the transaction (the landlords) for damn sure do. "Market price has gone up, what can you do" is something I've been told when trying to negotiate lease renewals, and I'm outside the Bay Area. Landlords could, as a group, have pushed to help make pricing stable and make their investment a long-term, very secure asset. Instead,…

They could have pushed to stabilize the market?

The only reason it’s dropping is because of Covid. How could they have avoided a mass exodus due to a pandemic?

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#65

Post by refurb »

8note wrote: post #47
refurb wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have the same attitude when prices go up? “Wild that tenants having to deal with rent going up and having to negotiate a commercial transaction is “grim””. “The market dynamics shifted. No big deal.”

I think there's a difference between needing a roof over your head vs needing to protect your investment portfolio.

Well, my landlord in SF was an old lady whose husband died suddenly at 50 and their retirement portfolio was their apartment building.

But screw her right?

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#66

Post by renewiltord »

jasonv wrote: post #37
epistasis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The picture of a house they show nestled in the trees is incredibly dangerous, incredibly resource intrnsive, and just ecologically unsound. We need to be building massive amounts of housing in city centers to let as many people live in them that would like to. Instead we lock down any new construction in cities, which requires the least amount of infrastructure and environmental damage, and instead let pretty much a…

> We need to be building massive amounts of housing in city centers to let as many people live in them that would like to A model/example where this has been done well? I hear this all the time, but if you build more dense versions of the cities/towns we have now, it'll be miserable. Thin-walled apartment homes built along narrow-sidewalks without proper public spaces and reasonable bike/pedestrian zones, etc. I thin…

There's an appeal to the SFR, not going to lie, but my flat in London was absolutely great. Massive concrete on the river, couldn't hear either of my neighbours unless we were both out on our balconies, access to city life.

Nah, man, cities can be awesome. London is an example. Love it there.

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#67

Post by dugmartin »

ghaff wrote: post #44
mjayhn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They almost never have decent internet if you're someone trying to wfh. Most of them are POTS lines only. The ones that have muni fiber would be a possible option but you're making definite trade offs elsewhere. Pubtrans, bike lanes, food options, travel optins, etc.

Rural broadband is certainly an issue generally. But a lot of people seem to be under the impression that as soon as you leave the city limits of a major city, you're in the wilds of Wyoming. Somewhere like Massachusetts, there are a ton of towns and smaller cities not called Boston that have broadband.

We have about 98% coverage from Comcast here in Shelburne, MA (about 2 hours west of Boston). It kid of sucks because the towns with less coverage surrounding us got more MBI (https://broadband.masstech.org/) money and are building out fiber networks. MBI doesn't handle the last mile which means I can look out my office window at a town building that has a (dark) fiber line terminated inside it that MBI installed which may never be lit up.

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#68

Post by pkaye »

refurb wrote: post #27
nimish wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wild that landlords having to deal with their investments losing value and having to negotiate a commercial transaction is "grim" The market dynamics shifted. No big deal.

You have the same attitude when prices go up? “Wild that tenants having to deal with rent going up and having to negotiate a commercial transaction is “grim””. “The market dynamics shifted. No big deal.”

Landlords are investing so they have to accept some risk and downturns. I have much more sympathy for the tenants.

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#69

Post by ghaff »

dcolkitt wrote: post #57
refurb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What confuses me is the home buying far outside urban areas. I understand that people will be working from home for 12 months, but buying a home an expensive transaction. If forced to go back to the office, these folks are looking at very long commute. I assume they: 1) know for sure they can wfh permanently, 2) are betting they will be able to wfh permanently or 3) are willing to quit when asked to come back to the…

Isn’t this a case of the expectation creating the outcome. If half the employees bought homes outside commuting distance, what can the company do? Seems like they’ll be forced to adopt remote first whether they like it or not. No company is going to be able to lay off half its workforce. The labor market for software engineers and most other professionals is still extremely tight. Until it’s otherwise, the workers ar…

This hits on one of the reasons why permanent remote vs. return to office is sometimes a contentious topic. In sufficient numbers, those in an area like tech who favor remote-mostly effectively have veto power over an aggressive return to in-person.

And, while I don't think people buying houses outside of commuting range did it for this reason, it is a clear signal that, if forced back to an office for other than sometimes trips, they'll leave.

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#70

Post by refurb »

dcolkitt wrote: post #57
refurb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What confuses me is the home buying far outside urban areas. I understand that people will be working from home for 12 months, but buying a home an expensive transaction. If forced to go back to the office, these folks are looking at very long commute. I assume they: 1) know for sure they can wfh permanently, 2) are betting they will be able to wfh permanently or 3) are willing to quit when asked to come back to the…

Isn’t this a case of the expectation creating the outcome. If half the employees bought homes outside commuting distance, what can the company do? Seems like they’ll be forced to adopt remote first whether they like it or not. No company is going to be able to lay off half its workforce. The labor market for software engineers and most other professionals is still extremely tight. Until it’s otherwise, the workers ar…

It depends on the roll obviously, but I can see a company saying “hey everyone, 6 months from now we’ll all be in the office” and then deal with those who push back on an individual basis.

High performer who is hard to replace? Sure, we’ll be flexible.

Low performer with 10 people lined up, ready to take the role? If you’re not in the office on Monday, you’ll be fired.

And the thing that gets me is some of the booming housing markets are far away from jobs. Tahoe for example. If you can’t work from home, it’s unlikely you’ll find another job locally.

Who knows, maybe all these folks thought all this through and took the risk eyes wide open?

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