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

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

#451

Post by juniper_strong »

lukeschlather wrote: post #232
corytheboyd wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

WFH is fine. Bothers me not at all. I hate not being able to breathe the same air as my friends. It makes so many things impossible - things that are also impossible unless my friends mostly live within 30 minutes travel of me.

Have you made your last friend or could you make different ones if you moved somewhere else?

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

#452

Post by [deleted] »

gmadsen wrote: post #417
rcpt wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that you can't buy a whole jackfruit at the grocery store in most of the US but I've always been able to find good restaurants of some variety with minimal effort. It's real hard to justify SF prices based on food options.

depends on your priorities. I would rather have nice restaurants than a nice apartment or house. I've lived in a culturally devoid suburb, where the options are fast food, or chain restaurants, and it affected my quality of life substantially.

[deleted]

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

#453

Post by asdff »

adjkant wrote: post #446
burlesona wrote: post #51

I would say the city being “closed” is the major driver. Among my group of ~40 coworkers, about 30 (including me) have left the city. As far as I know all but one were renting. Everyone who left gave the following rationale: - we can work remotely so move wherever or nomad now - SF is not very fun during the pandemic - WFH in my tiny apartment is much less enjoyable than when I was working in the office and didn’t sp…

What is curious to me is that NYC rents haven't seen the same crater at all (link says 15% but anecdotally most of the desirable top of market neighborhoods aren't budging). I don't buy the "SF is not very fun during the pandemic" rationale as more special than any other notable city, and NYC tends to have less space than SF. To me, that says the SF case has more complexity. IMO, the key factor here is that there app…

I haven't seen rents really drop in LA either. Commercial landlords would rather let the building go half vacant and try offering 1-2 months of free rent before they drop the base rent.

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

#454

Post by howlgarnish »

tchaffee wrote: post #437
Daishiman wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Effectively, there's never more than a dozen cities, tops, in any country in the world where you can get close to top-level food quality, and even so that applies only for a few genres of food.

Except for Italy, Peru, Mexico, Japan, France, Thailand, and many other countries where you can find top quality food in thousands of small towns and out of the way places. So probably not a great rule to go by.

You can get top-quality Japanese food in thousands of small Japanese towns, and top-quality Thai food in thousands of small Thai towns. However, rest assured you will have a very hard time finding (say) Mexican in either. The only places in either country where you have a genuinely cosmopolitan food scene are Tokyo and Bangkok respectively.

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

#455

Post by Kalium »

scollet wrote: post #425
Kalium wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped trying that after it was turned into a series of direct and personal accusations of how I am the evil techie gentrifier. My experience has been the opposite of yours - showing awareness comes with the expectation that you accept blame . Your mileage may vary.

Tech worker majority in SVBA have a choice to live 2 hours outside of the metro. Everyone else typically does not. The expectation is apt.

Personally, I'm not big on accepting personal blame for fifty years of bad urban planning decisions made by other people, almost entirely before I could vote. But I understand that that's not a helpful, satisfactory, or emotionally resonant response to someone looking for an enemy to accuse of wrecking everything they hold dear. Certainly not when they have someone who represents all those evils right before them.

I've learned to cut such people off immediately. Nothing good can come of attempting to offer sympathy, solidarity, or compassion to someone who views you as a mustache-twirling cartoon villain.

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

#456

Post by asdff »

cft wrote: post #59
baskire wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saw friends of friends leave sf and together rent a mansion in Hawaii. If the bars, clubs, gyms, and even beaches shut down why stay if you are renting at market rate. It’s literally cheaper to move your belongings into storage and move into a vacation home with friends. Also most sf apartments don’t have office space for all the tenants.

If there was no rent control, prices would drop even more. Firstly landlords are afraid to permanently lock down at a lower price, offering free months of rent instead. Secondly rent controlled tenants are afraid to lose their apartments, that are still below the market rates.

Rent control has a miniscule impact on housing prices according to the latest economic research (1). You won't hear that from people still reading 60 year old neoconservative economic theory, though.

https://dornsife.usc.edu/pere/rent-matters

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

#457

Post by FartyMcFarter »

adjkant wrote: post #446
burlesona wrote: post #51

I would say the city being “closed” is the major driver. Among my group of ~40 coworkers, about 30 (including me) have left the city. As far as I know all but one were renting. Everyone who left gave the following rationale: - we can work remotely so move wherever or nomad now - SF is not very fun during the pandemic - WFH in my tiny apartment is much less enjoyable than when I was working in the office and didn’t sp…

What is curious to me is that NYC rents haven't seen the same crater at all (link says 15% but anecdotally most of the desirable top of market neighborhoods aren't budging). I don't buy the "SF is not very fun during the pandemic" rationale as more special than any other notable city, and NYC tends to have less space than SF. To me, that says the SF case has more complexity. IMO, the key factor here is that there app…

The article says NYC rents dropped by 15% which is still significant.

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

#458

Post by e9 »

asdff wrote: post #453
adjkant wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is curious to me is that NYC rents haven't seen the same crater at all (link says 15% but anecdotally most of the desirable top of market neighborhoods aren't budging). I don't buy the "SF is not very fun during the pandemic" rationale as more special than any other notable city, and NYC tends to have less space than SF. To me, that says the SF case has more complexity. IMO, the key factor here is that there app…

I haven't seen rents really drop in LA either. Commercial landlords would rather let the building go half vacant and try offering 1-2 months of free rent before they drop the base rent.

Yeah it’s weird. I haven’t seen for rent signs before but now I see them on every single building but rents are same. It probably means landlords are basically charging too much and making too much money and not paying enough in taxes(1-2% tax increase per year is probably nothing compared to increases in rent prices)

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

#459

Post by asdff »

almost_usual wrote: post #268
gfxgirl wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Most of the interesting bars and restaurants in SF are closing as we speak. As the pandemic drags on expect it will continue. Who do you think will have the money to replace these places?

Investors, like always. Do you think its mom and pop opening a bar with smoke infused cocktails in SF, or anywhere else for that matter where commercial rent has been astoundingly high for decades now? Investors will buy back in once it makes sense economically. Restaurant turnover is typical.

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

#460

Post by adjkant »

FartyMcFarter wrote: post #457
adjkant wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is curious to me is that NYC rents haven't seen the same crater at all (link says 15% but anecdotally most of the desirable top of market neighborhoods aren't budging). I don't buy the "SF is not very fun during the pandemic" rationale as more special than any other notable city, and NYC tends to have less space than SF. To me, that says the SF case has more complexity. IMO, the key factor here is that there app…

The article says NYC rents dropped by 15% which is still significant.

I just added a caveat about that, but many of the top of market neighborhoods people tend to go for here haven't dropped nearly that much (e.g West Village area, Chelsea, UES/UWS). NYC is huge and that drop is not spread equally. Guessing it isn't in SF either, but it seems 31% is going to hit every neighborhood at least a good deal.

Edited to add to this, see the spread in June:

https://www.renthop.com/studies/nyc/renthop-2020-subway-rent...

West 4th = West Village, up 7% YOY mid pandemic, even as other neighborhoods saw more drops.

Also see the trend here as editorialized around NYC on pace to overtake SF as the most expensive rent market: https://www.zumper.com/blog/rental-price-data/

A better graph near the bottom of this article to show how small the dip is for rentals: https://streeteasy.com/blog/august-2020-market-reports/

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