The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership • Hacker News Board

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#151

Post by bradlys » Sun, Dec 26, 2021, 1:49 PM UTC

VRay wrote: post #84

People are fighting the wrong fight when they attack this guy (or attack the people attacking this guy, for that matter) It isn't SF Bay Bros'/foreigners'/companies' fault that houses are too expensive. It's because of strict zoning laws and a lack of building enough housing to match supply with demand[1]. Demand keeps going up way faster than supply, nationwide, and we're all feeling the squeeze [1]: A great example…

Main thing I see people attacking this guy over is the “I did it and so can you” mentality more than anything. It’s survivorship bias at its strongest. No different than the FIRE post trending here as well. Dude literally saw his NW double in a year and income go up 50% cause of stock appreciation. Along with incredible starting salary and overall close to top tier comp the entire way - and no kids or what not.

I think people just really hate these “stories” because it’s not realistically repeatable. Someone will make it happen but it’ll be based off luck and nothing else. Even the dude in the fire thing wishes he did startups for 6 years. Mindlessly ignoring he’d get paid way less but oh wait - of course his story would only be posted if he joined a company that IPO’d and he got 8 figures out of it.

It’s just so annoying to see this shit on HN all the time. It’s some weird capitalism fetishism porn.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#152

Post by rahimnathwani » Sun, Dec 26, 2021, 1:52 PM UTC

bosie wrote: post #150

rahimnathwani wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in SF. The resources you mention are not currently a limiting factor. Medical: is provided by private companies like Kaiser, who have proven their ability to grow as their customer base grows. Kindergarten: the school district has excess capacity, as # students has shrunk from 70k+ to fewer than 50k. They will probably need to close some schools to increase utilization. Streets: the streets in San Francisco ar…

I can't comment on Kaiser or SF, not familiar with either. But great if Kaiser can just create GPs and consultants localised in newly built areas like that. well done them. To be honest, I forgot the private aspect of health care in the US. I wonder how city planners are planning around that. > Public transport: the last few times I've taken the bus, it's been easy to find a seat. The last time I took the BART it was…

"I can't comment on Kaiser or SF"

The comment to which you replied was specifically talking about SF so I assumed (reasonably I think) that you were commenting about SF, too.

"if that is the case, SF has either the most amazing public transportation already or the most under-used public transportation. or you are simply cheery-picking."

Those are not the only explanations. And, given I said live in SF, maybe it's reasonable to assume I'm reporting actual observations, unless I've previously demonstrated some pattern of exaggeration.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#153

Post by astura » Sun, Dec 26, 2021, 1:57 PM UTC

diordiderot wrote: post #115

hackerfromthefu wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There can be massive opportunity cost lost to dealing with the various interpersonal interaction (ie work) thats required to rent a room in a house you are personally living in. If you're making a good salary, thats probably not worth it.

This is a lie told by landlords. Just get a handyman, or a tenant agent. That's what landlords do and they always come out on top.

It's not as simple as become landlord -> laugh all the way to the bank.

My parents were landlords for nearly two decades. Their property was not a good investment even though they kept cost down by doing all the work themselves.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#154

Post by rguillebert » Sun, Dec 26, 2021, 1:58 PM UTC

bosie wrote: post #122

VRay wrote: post #84

People are fighting the wrong fight when they attack this guy (or attack the people attacking this guy, for that matter) It isn't SF Bay Bros'/foreigners'/companies' fault that houses are too expensive. It's because of strict zoning laws and a lack of building enough housing to match supply with demand[1]. Demand keeps going up way faster than supply, nationwide, and we're all feeling the squeeze [1]: A great example…

Increasing housing increases demand on alot of other resources (medical, kindergarten, streets, public transport, schools,...). how do you orchestrate such a rise in demand in a densely populated city like san francisco quickly (dense in the sense of non-used land, not by population)?

A lot of these things can scale vertically rather than horizontally. If you allow denser housing by building higher, schools and hospitals can also build higher.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#155

Post by mdorazio » Sun, Dec 26, 2021, 2:00 PM UTC

jonwinstanley wrote: post #87

angarg12 wrote: post #86

Just read Taleb's Fooled by Randomness chapter on The Millionaire Next Door to understand why this article is, at best, useless.

Why is it useless?

The author got incredibly lucky multiple times in ways that are flat out impossible today. This is a shining example of survivorship bias touted as “I did it and so can you!”. Good for the author - he’s clearly industrious and made smart decisions, but treating this as a guide for anything other than “increase your luck surface and take calculated risks” is not going to help many people.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#156

Post by rahimnathwani » Sun, Dec 26, 2021, 2:05 PM UTC

8organicbits wrote: post #141

rahimnathwani wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in SF. The resources you mention are not currently a limiting factor. Medical: is provided by private companies like Kaiser, who have proven their ability to grow as their customer base grows. Kindergarten: the school district has excess capacity, as # students has shrunk from 70k+ to fewer than 50k. They will probably need to close some schools to increase utilization. Streets: the streets in San Francisco ar…

How much of those stats are pandemic related? (i.e. were true in 2019). I'm ex-bay area since 2016, but I recall standing room only BART and shoulder-to-shoulder CALTRAIN can't add another body when heading to south bay. Although I didn't take SF bus, or send kids to Kindergarten.

The stats I quoted (drop from 70k to 50k) are not pandemic related. The drop has been gradual, as SF has become less hospitable to people with kids (costs, safety, school quality).

The enrollment dropped from 2019 to now, but by something like 5k (on my phone and don't have the exact stats handy).

My anecdotes about the last few journeys I took are recent, not from 2019. But, even in 2019, my experience of public transport in San Francisco was that it was far less crowded than that in London, New York or Beijing.

SF's roads are not congested. If buses were to become crowded due to increased population, we could just buy more buses and increase the frequency. This would keep crowding at current levels, whilst reducing wait times, thus making buses far more convenient than they are today.

Regarding Caltrain: if SF had more housing, fewer people who work in SF would need to live outside and take Caltrain in.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#157

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Sun, Dec 26, 2021, 2:06 PM UTC

strken wrote: post #79

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like it's kinda missing the point of the article to say that you "need" 500sqft for canning. That is a want, plain and simple. Wants can be expensive. Indulging wants like this is something that rich people can afford to do, and if you are rich that is good for you! But indulging this want is far from economically efficient, especially in a high cost of living real estate market. It's basically the exact oppos…

You don't strictly speaking need indoor plumbing, a private bedroom, windows, or paint that doesn't have lead in it. If you're rich enough to afford windows, a bedroom you don't share with another family, and to not have your kids die from heavy metal poisoning, then good for you! But indulging many of these wants is hardly economically efficient.

Technically we can adapt to a lot and contemporaries with our same biology still routinely make do without much in the way of permanent shelter. However, a summer kitchen is on a different tier of requirement from food safety. If it doesn't seem so to you then we just have a different notion of what is a reasonable baseline to expect from life in this country.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#158

Post by rahimnathwani » Sun, Dec 26, 2021, 2:13 PM UTC

bosie wrote: post #143

walkhour wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> kindergartens, schools and medical offices. Where exactly do you think schooling and medical practices happen or children are taken care of? >Public transport How hard is to coordinate to double the number of trains or buses? > Streets I don't know what you mean by the demand of streets increases. Most times solving the housing problem is a lack of will or coordination, and the solution is muddled/deleted/delayed i…

> Where exactly do you think schooling and medical practices happen or children are taken care of? in close vicinity of the housing. not sure i understand the question. > How hard is to coordinate to double the number of trains or buses? running a bus during peak hours at twice your current rate (unless the rate is completely ridicilous) does not sound easy. why do you assume it is? at that rate, for SF at least, you…

"running a bus during peak hours at twice your current rate (unless the rate is completely ridicilous) does not sound easy"

The 14R (the fastest bus from my home to downtown SF) is scheduled to run every 10 mins (on average) during the morning peak.

Running that bus every 5 mins (which presents no special difficulty) would double the capacity, and reduce average wait time by 5 mins.

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#159

Post by ravel-bar-foo » Sun, Dec 26, 2021, 2:15 PM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #145

nemo44x wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some people find it frustrating to see that the system does in fact work; that the narrative they’ve chosen to believe is just cynical and wrong. That a person on a house cleaners income can find a way to own property in SF as well as around the country. And be good about it by finding properties that need some love and investing in them. I thought it was a great story about a person that saw the vast opportu…

lol - did you not look at the prices they were dealing with? They bought an apartment building with friends and their share of the mortgage was only $900/month - half of which was shared with their partner. $900/month is a joke - even for back then. They bought land with cash that was even remotely near SF as well - unfathomable now. This person bought before prices in SF were so above and beyond what anyone near tha…

This person was able to buy cheap in 2008 because they had cash instead of debt. Imagine if they had all their cash in stocks in 2008...

Re: The carpetbagger’s guide to home ownership

#160

Post by stevehawk » Sun, Dec 26, 2021, 2:17 PM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #145

nemo44x wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think some people find it frustrating to see that the system does in fact work; that the narrative they’ve chosen to believe is just cynical and wrong. That a person on a house cleaners income can find a way to own property in SF as well as around the country. And be good about it by finding properties that need some love and investing in them. I thought it was a great story about a person that saw the vast opportu…

lol - did you not look at the prices they were dealing with? They bought an apartment building with friends and their share of the mortgage was only $900/month - half of which was shared with their partner. $900/month is a joke - even for back then. They bought land with cash that was even remotely near SF as well - unfathomable now. This person bought before prices in SF were so above and beyond what anyone near tha…

You're not wrong that they did it during a better time. But the move to get a bunch of friends to essentially move in and take over an apartment building and then buy it (in a non-forced manner) was pretty clever.