Live data from Hacker News

San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.

bloomberg.com

301–310 of 640 posts

Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.

#301
post #189

Dating - the #1 app for cities.

And SF is the worst large city for dating in the world.

I'd say LA is worse, but not by much. Every date is a 75 minutes away and then 75 minutes back. SF is only 72 minutes ;)

Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But those 100m are going to grow up in a world where remote working is the norm.

If remote was the best (most profitable) way to do things, companies would've figured this out well before COVID.

Not saying wfh is as productive as in office, but the tech stack needed to make wfh work became available only very recently. Skype didn't cut it.

Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.

#303
post #185

There is currently an article (in German) in the Frankfurter Allgemeine called "The Demise of San Francisco" [0] in which the possible reasons for this are discussed. One reason given (which I cannot verify as I don't live there) is: people are fleeing the city because it has become a terrible place to live: Quote from the article, Google translation: > Jayson Hill recently stopped by his old apartment. He didn't fee…

Anecdotic, but this is the main reason why I left SF last month.

Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.

#304
post #185

There is currently an article (in German) in the Frankfurter Allgemeine called "The Demise of San Francisco" [0] in which the possible reasons for this are discussed. One reason given (which I cannot verify as I don't live there) is: people are fleeing the city because it has become a terrible place to live: Quote from the article, Google translation: > Jayson Hill recently stopped by his old apartment. He didn't fee…

This is definitely a thing in the city, but it depends where you live as to how much of this you would see. This sounds like the tenderloin.

Not being able to take walks at night is more of a city thing than just tenderloin though.

Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.

#305
post #214
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very different. San Diego is not a mega city like LA or the great Bay Area. Much better weather than SF, seems a bit more relaxed pace and not as overrun.

Looking at a map there really isn't much of a gap between LA and San Diego. It's pretty much one mega-city.

They still feel a world apart, though I expect that to change over the next 20 years.

Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.

#306

I live in downtown SF: streets are filthy, homeless situation is worse than ever before, everything that I would want to do outside is closed, there’s no reason to live “close to work” anymore, I only go outside for groceries and laundry. I’m moving to LA in 3 weeks.

> I’m moving to LA in 3 weeks. Asking out of cluelessness and as a non-Californian: why is this better?

Weather, food, life, people, rent price, etc. is my guess.

LA is 4 million people, SF 800k people. There are very different cities.

Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.

#307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yep - rent is the quintessential example of inelastic supply. A tiny shortage of housing can cause a huge jump in price.

Elasticity features depend on the specific housing market but in the basic mental model housing supply can contract in the medium term when demand contracts and vice versa. Demand is also elastic at least in the sense that people get bigger houses / move on to their own earlier / get roommates depending on the situation. And geographically people spread out further if prices get high or move in from neighbouring loca…

Housing supply is 100% inelastic in the 6 month time frame. In the medium run it's pretty inelastic in the bay because of NIMBY backed zoning laws not allowing for densification.

Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.

#308
post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to other big tech-hub cities, I'd think SF would be one of the better ones to spend the pandemic in. There's great parks like Dolores, Lands End, etc, and they'll still be comfortable to be in during this winter. Is there more to it than that?

The positives have to out weight the negatives of high crime, a large homeless population, high rents, small apartments, etc. Having nice parks is not unique to SF.

The actual reason people are leaving the city are high rents and small apartments. How the hell do you work from home when you're sharing a place with roommates? And affording extra space for an office given current rents is a huge problem.

Crime and homelessness, while problems, aren't major factors for people in my experience. After all, those two things haven't really changed.

Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WFH is a huge part. Just moved from a tiny 1 bed near downtown LA to a 3 bed place in Chicago with lower rent. My girlfriend and I both get our own offices, we have a yard, and enough places that are half open nearby that we're pretty happy.

Please report back in February after experiencing a -40 day :)

There are no -40 days in Chicago, but I'll agree the winter is unbearable. I don't mind the cold. I mind the never ending cold. December + January are fine, February is depressing, but March and April really are awful.

Re: San Francisco Apartment Rents Crater Up to 31%, Most in U.S.

#310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But Seattle has seen the same thing, the market has gone crazy here and there isn’t much housing supply to meet demand. That is just the forsale market, rentals are much weaker.

Seattle's reckoning/correction is coming. The city is doing everything in its power to chase money away, Amazon is trying to move to Bellevue as an example. People are growing tired of the messy streets, needles are tents are spreading as the city ignores the problem. On the plus side, our landlord is doing everything in his power to keep us happy, for the first time.

> Seattle's reckoning/correction is coming. The city is doing everything in its power to chase money away

And yet the skyscrapers and office buildings are still going up. The construction boom hasn't mitigated. Seattle isn't doing a good job at chasing money away.

> People are growing tired of the messy streets, needles are tents are spreading as the city ignores the problem.

It's just a handful of streets. It's certainly not endemic to the city. 99.99% of seattle doesn't have that issue. Unfortunately for seattle, that problem is concentrated around the touristy section.

> On the plus side, our landlord is doing everything in his power to keep us happy, for the first time.

Is he lowering the rent?

Post reply on HN