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San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.
201–210 of 640 posts
Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.
#202Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would counter that proximity to work is a huge influence on where people decide to live. There are (or will be) bars and restaurants everywhere, which means if you can work from home, there is significantly less incentive to live in a small, overpriced apartment.
The bars are restaurants available in most cities in the USA do not compare to the bars and restaurants in cities like SF, Los Angeles, NYC, Tokyo, Paris, etc..... I mean places like Flagstaff Arizona, or Temecula California, etc.... In the cities listed in the first paragraph there are, unique bars (not sure what word to use) and interesting restaurants. In most cites there are just places like AppleBess and the loc…
Flagstaff is a decent sized mountain town. Decent sized mountain towns have pretty good food and bars, including unique establishments. Of course they won’t please a true snob looking for a new home, but they plenty suit low key snobs like me. Last time I made a pit stop in Flagstaff it took 30 seconds on Yelp to find a great independent Cajun-creole joint with a pleasant patio, friendly staff, and delicious food and craft beer.
And frankly, let’s not let SF off the hook for its large proportion of mediocre restaurants and bars. IMO they are a another sad consequence of Prop 13: old businesses with low property taxes don’t need to be much good to survive, but the cost of starting a new business is spectacularly high.
Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would counter that proximity to work is a huge influence on where people decide to live. There are (or will be) bars and restaurants everywhere, which means if you can work from home, there is significantly less incentive to live in a small, overpriced apartment.
The bars are restaurants available in most cities in the USA do not compare to the bars and restaurants in cities like SF, Los Angeles, NYC, Tokyo, Paris, etc..... I mean places like Flagstaff Arizona, or Temecula California, etc.... In the cities listed in the first paragraph there are, unique bars (not sure what word to use) and interesting restaurants. In most cites there are just places like AppleBess and the loc…
This was maybe true twenty years ago, but not anymore. In addition the variety of food available at grocery stores or online is vast and with an actual kitchen you can make food you like at home.
Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.
#204I think people are asking the wrong questions. We know that people moving back in with their parents is up about 3 million due to COVID [1]. It would follow that studio apartments are the mostly likely to be rented by those same young people, thus the demand has dried up. The question we aren't asking is, what happens when the economy recovers and these people move out of their parent's homes? Will they go back to th…
My guess as to what will happen, for the sake of playing along with the hypothetical simply because it’s fun. Destination cities will still be desirable, however there will be a very slow rebuilding of demand. The magnitude of that demand will never reach the same height. The entire world was forced to work from home for an extended period of time, introducing those from industries that would scoff at the idea to a d…
> The magnitude of that demand will never reach the same height.
I don't believe this; very few companies are okay with permanent remote work after the pandemic is over, even though they are very notable exceptions, eg Facebook.
This also assumes the population of people interested in living in destination cities is constant, but it's been growing every year the last decade except this one. COVID and the possibilities of remote work and COVID will dampen growth, but when we get through COVID, I expect demand to be higher than ever. It's not like SF will solve their systemic housing problems in the next 20 years, or our lifetimes.
Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.
#205Like a few lawyers at the bottom of the ocean, that's a good start, but it should be city and state policy to chop another 80% off the price of housing, to get it back to historical norms.
80% off is historic norms? That would bring the price down to what it was in the 80’s and inflation alone has doubled that.
The Case-Shiller index is adjusted for inflation, and it has quadrupled in 30 years. So, 75% off then?
Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a counter anecdote, I know three people from the bay area who moved out during covidtide, but had already planned the move beforehand. (This is a very high percentage of people I know from the bay area, hence the anecdote). All had the same rationale: taxes and housing were simply far too high when they could work remotely and live anywhere else. Sure, you don't get the same outdoors, food or retail scene, but ple…
This is the mindset I really don’t understand though. Sure your company can say “we’re all remote” today, but they can just as easily say “everyone has to come back” in six months. Or “everyone doesn’t have to, but those who don’t are the first laid off next time”. I’ve been fully remote since March, so I’ve been weighing this for awhile”
Young people are extremely agile. When I was in my 20s, I could decide to move today, and by out of my apartment and into the new one by Saturday. Except for my queen mattress, I could probably still do that. Same will probably happen upon the return to SF
Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.
#207Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) 'Marginal buyers' could explain it - but it might be something else. There is a smaller group of buyers, investors, of the inelastic type - who if they run away, will cause a market to plummet. They are the opposite of price sensitive, they're maybe from overseas snapping up property at 'above asking' because they need to get $1M out of their countries and they're looking for any kind of return that's reasonable.…
The "yellow peril" theory that Bay Area housing bubbles are caused by foreign money laundering is popular on Nextdoor but I think on HN you're going to need some evidence. Prior to this pandemic 97% of dwellings in San Francisco were physically occupied by actual living people. Nobody is parking money in empty SF condos. It's true that investors are attracted to Bay Area real estate, because the government has dedica…
No one said they have to be empty for foreign real estate investment to be a problem. Especially when you have you foreign nationals and companies making it harder for your local residents to buy property and prosper. I think something like Vancouver’s, “ Foreign Buyers Tax (which) applies to foreign national, a foreign corporation, or taxable trustee buying a residential property in BC. BC Foreign Buyers Tax rate is 20% of the property's fair market value after February 21, 2018.” Is a fair comprise to allow people who have no local ties to invest in the market but allows the residents and those with local ties (those who will add money to local economy, shop/ eat local) a better shot then those who just want to invest.
Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.
#208Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a counter anecdote, I know three people from the bay area who moved out during covidtide, but had already planned the move beforehand. (This is a very high percentage of people I know from the bay area, hence the anecdote). All had the same rationale: taxes and housing were simply far too high when they could work remotely and live anywhere else. Sure, you don't get the same outdoors, food or retail scene, but ple…
> food or retail scene In my experience this is becoming less and less true, smaller cities are really catching up, it's not 2010 anymore. My pet theory is that social networks like Instagram have done a good job spreading fashion and food experiences/expectations that were previously exclusives to big city centers.
If you have to eat outdoors, a mobile restaurant (aka “food truck”) can recreate a good portion of the experience anywhere.
As one example, NYC opens Governor’s Island to the public for only part of the year. Food service comes in the form of a “food court” made up of a bunch of food trucks/container kitchens.
Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.
#209Earlier quoted context omitted.
Rent controls do sometimes specify how much rent can be raised year over year. Drop it too low one year, be stuck with relatively low prices in the short term.
They regulate rent increases in Oakland at least. Of course our landlord took the maximum allowed rent increase each time, as if it were the required increase rather than the maximum. I don't live in the bay area and pay half the rent for three times the space in Boston... not exactly a small town... the Bay Area was already unattractive for me financially and I have an advanced degree in an engineering field.
I, like many of my peers, moved out of Oakland this year over the summer. For a while, I was considering staying around and trying to lock in a lower rent on a larger space, but rents really didn't budge.
Your effective rent _did_ drop, but landlords did it by offering 2-3 months of free rent on a one-year lease (with old rates applying.) It doesn't take Nostradamus to see what happens in 12 months: maximum allowed rent increase and no more sweetheart deals, meaning an effective increase of like 35% (or move again to try and get another deal somewhere else.)
It wasn't worth it to me, so now I'm paying less than half my previous rent for around 2x as much space in SLC.
Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
The events of the past 6mo have caused tons of people in places like NYC, SF, etc who were on the fence to cash out an move elsewhere. Housing prices, local politics, just about everything is gonna suck real bad for the people in the destination locales because a bunch of people with more money than them are showing up and trying to tell them what to do.
I'm really curious about the macro political effects too- if a surge of CA-based liberal leaning tech workers move to Texas, is Texas purple?
This has already happened in Nevada and now Arizona.