I can't read the article, but this appears to be hitting us hard here in Bend, Oregon. House prices were already high and only appear to be going higher. I think more people could be a great thing if we get them involved locally, and if we add enough housing to accommodate them, which is tricky right now. As someone involved with a local YIMBY group, it's tough to see the prices - it felt like we were making some progress in several fronts and then BOOM.
Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them
31–40 of 294 posts
Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
>(this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live)? Price is the intersection of supply and demand. A buyer will ask a seller to accept a lower price if they think the seller is willing to accept a lower price. A seller might accept a lower price if they don't think they can get a higher price. You are paid $X because the buyer couldn't find someone willing to accep…
Yes, that's correct. But the question being asked is why the location changes the $X's there. I don't know that restatement of economic generalities helps unless you're going to apply them to the dynamic being asked about.
Clearly the buyer (employer) thinks the seller (employee) will have no choice but to accept lower pay due to the seller having a lack of buyers willing to pay more.
If the buyer's prediction is true, then the seller will accept (maybe not in individual cases, but averaged over entire workforce). If the buyer's prediction is false, then sellers will opt to sell to other buyers offering more.
Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them
#33I think the migration out of the bay will make it a more reasonable place to live. We do have some of the best weather in the world. I'm going to gamble on staying. Hopefully this isn't like detroit.
San Diego and LA have SFBA easily beat in terms of weather.
Unless you don't like summer heat and heat waves. SF is more consistently around 70F. Depends if you like 55F - 75F versus 70F - 90F
Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them
#34The prices of bay area homes aren't dropping still. Looks like this migration is still temporary.
That does seem surprising given the massive drop in rental prices there since May. Perhaps the low interest rates are keeping the prices up?
Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
>(this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live)? Price is the intersection of supply and demand. A buyer will ask a seller to accept a lower price if they think the seller is willing to accept a lower price. A seller might accept a lower price if they don't think they can get a higher price. You are paid $X because the buyer couldn't find someone willing to accep…
Yes, that's correct. But the question being asked is why the location changes the $X's there. I don't know that restatement of economic generalities helps unless you're going to apply them to the dynamic being asked about.
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Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
>(this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live)? Price is the intersection of supply and demand. A buyer will ask a seller to accept a lower price if they think the seller is willing to accept a lower price. A seller might accept a lower price if they don't think they can get a higher price. You are paid $X because the buyer couldn't find someone willing to accep…
Yes, that's correct. But the question being asked is why the location changes the $X's there. I don't know that restatement of economic generalities helps unless you're going to apply them to the dynamic being asked about.
Because in a world where many jobs are not remote, especially over the longer-term, on average local job options will tend to influence the salaries of people working remotely from that location.
Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them
#37Are companies going to start adjusting salaries for people who move (this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live)? That’s where this gets weird... people move to these better-to-live places and then all the employers decides to pay them less because of location. Then you just push up housing prices with salaries that slowly reset over time to be cost of living a…
This is exactly correct. If you pay for a product you are not entitled to force a price reduction if the efficiencies of the producer improve. In most cases purchasers are not even entitled to know about production costs. It's just that with in person labor purchasers have gotten used to having access to this privileged information and abuse it.
No, the real economic force at work for here is the halo effect. If you're in SV you must be good! You went to Stanford and worked at Google? You must be good! Then competition for that group takes over driving up prices. Housing costs are just an excuse people give themselves / investors.
Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
>(this makes zero sense to me, the value you add most likely doesn’t change because of where you live)? Price is the intersection of supply and demand. A buyer will ask a seller to accept a lower price if they think the seller is willing to accept a lower price. A seller might accept a lower price if they don't think they can get a higher price. You are paid $X because the buyer couldn't find someone willing to accep…
> and you accepted $X because you couldn't find someone to give you $X+1. My buddy accepted $X -($X *.8) = $Y because the company offering $Y was doing something ethical. Point being there's far more variables at stake here to over simplify.
Of course, but I didn't think it was necessary to state "all else being equal". In a conversation about why the same employer pays less to people if they move, it's strictly because they can and the employee doesn't have a choice to defect. Whereas in SF, the employee can walk around the corner and start working for someone else. Which is an illustration of the intersection of supply and demand.
Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them
#39People have been talking about this on HN for a few months now, and I never took it seriously since these threads are always filled with people quoting numbers saying it's not happening.
That was until last month, when two tech workers from San Francisco moved into the neighborhood.
Both have the same story: Their company went work-from-home when the pandemic started, then made it permanent, so the company employees are fanning out all over the country to make better lives for themselves.
Now I look at all of the new California license plates I see around town and wonder.
I never thought of my little corner of nowhere as a better place to live. I only moved here because it's cheap and as far away from as many other human beings as I can get while still being near an international airport. But maybe it will work out for them.
Good luck to the new generation of digital nomads.
Re: Tech Workers Take to the Mountains, Bringing Silicon Valley with Them
#40Ay, I followed the wave. Heading back home to Portland for a bit and then to the Utah desert and beyond.