271–280 of 465 posts
If you compare rent trends of SF vs NYC or LA https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-francisco-ca https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/new-york-ny https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/los-angeles-ca You'll notice a huge difference between in SF and the other cities. Rent prices still hasn't gone back to pre pandemic level.
The prices in NYC are just insane!
So many houses in my SF neighborhood are currently empty. They're single family homes so I'm not sure of the impact on the overall population, but it's been weird around here. - For sale and empty. - Full renovations. Guessing more than half are flipping them, given the speed which construction started after sale. - Investors buying homes and keeping them empty.
The trends as I see them are:
1) An increasing number of increasingly wealthy people with connections to SF that choose to domicile elsewhere while keeping a home in the city that is used a few months a year (to your point of empty homes being kept empty).
2) The temporary shut-off of a massive pipeline of recent college grads who fill the offices of not only start-ups, but also accounting firms, consulting firms, banks, etc.
3) A reduction in appetite for '3 guys in a 2 bedroom where someone sleeps in the dining room' and an increase in appetite for '1 guy in a 2 bedroom/home office set up,' which supports price growth but not population growth.
4) The fact that for the past century, SF has been a city that grows beyond its means and then crashes, only to pick back up again on the next cycle (SF only surpassed its peak 1950 population in 1990)
There are certainly more that I miss, but from a street-level perspective, SF isn't in noticeably worse shape than it was in 2000. Question is "Is post-pandemic lifestyle change similar to the car (which caused that 40 year lull) or is it more temporary?"
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Here's another more bleak option. Just like in 2008 when corporations bought up huge swaths of the housing market for cash while no one could get a loan. (which is part of the current issue with not enough homes to buy) They aren't betting the market will come roaring back, they are betting that they can corner the market and housing will be a subscription just like everything else they sell. Rent seekers aren't goin…
That assumes they'll get takers on the areas though. With remote work becoming more of the norm, what if the labor market doesn't move back? They'll have a monopoly that few ever pay rent on, and they'll go broke (while the houses rot).
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Even if you like San Francisco on balance, it's hard not to ask yourself if you like it so much that you're OK with paying for some of the most expensive housing in the country when you don't have a reason you have to be there.
It sounds like you are saying that if you move from SF to another city cost of living expenses will drop dramatically.
I think remote work is often understated in reasons people move away. When you go into the office every day, it's pretty obvious that you have to live in whatever city you live in. But with remote work, the question becomes "if I don't have to live here, do I want to keep living here". For many (including myself), the answer was a definitive NO. Sure many headlines and news segments make it seem that it's the crime,…
I agree but I think this also understates the importance of just how messed up SF has become. I don't want to come into contact with human feces as part of my daily commute. I'm going to leave no matter what once that is the case. Especially when the equity in my two bedroom apartement is enough to buy the nicest house ever built in some other smaller city.
Nobody complains about the homeless people who live under the Las Vegas Strip because they are unseen, but per capita, some studies imply Las Vegas has a much worse problem than SF.
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He doesn't live in San Francisco but is claiming that if he commuted to work he would always see human feces on the ground. He provides no evidence, not even a personal experience
What do you want? Pictures? This is commonly known to be an issue there. If I was there right now, I'd say give me 5 minutes and I'll post a picture. Was in SF last week. If you do a lot of walking there, you WILL see not only a shit, but someone actively shitting. Edit: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b6fab72091...
I think remote work is often understated in reasons people move away. When you go into the office every day, it's pretty obvious that you have to live in whatever city you live in. But with remote work, the question becomes "if I don't have to live here, do I want to keep living here". For many (including myself), the answer was a definitive NO. Sure many headlines and news segments make it seem that it's the crime,…
I don't know why it isn't being mentioned. I am not in the Bay Area myself, but about half of my friends there have relocated in the last couple years. A bunch to Washington or Oregon, some to Texas, one to Nashville, and a few others to places mostly in the northeast. All of them cited cost of living as the primary reason ... but all also mentioned full time remote work is what finally made it possible to move. When…
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Like I said, I can't comment on how SF is doing because I don't live there. But I do live in LA, and the apartments in my neighborhood have never been this full before. For point of comparison: at two of the apartment buildings on my block, a 1 BR 540 sq ft studio will rent for about $2800. This is up 16% from pre-COVID rates of approximately $2400 for those same units ($2200 during COVID, which is where the >20% inc…
Rents are up across the country and you are right it's 20% in LA according to rent.com. However equating rental prices going up 12% in the past 12 months with "people coming roaring back" isn't really correct. I mean inflation is up >7% in the last 12 months. I wouldn't say NYC has had a huge roaring back of people...but rent is up 39% in the last year...triple what SF saw. You can have rental prices increase and tha…
As I've pointed out many times, the apartment buildings in my neighborhood have waitlists for potential renters, and that's despite 20% YoY rent increases (or 16% rent increases, comparing pre- and post-COVID). Average vacancy is less than 1%, and that is true of all of the desirable neighborhoods in LA (of which there are too many to mention). Your own citation supports the rent increase.
These rent increases are not due to supply shrinking (there are thousands more rental units on the market now than before COVID), adjustments for lost rent in the pandemic (that's not how rental pricing works, landlords always charge market rate), and inflation (rent in these neighborhoods increased more than twice as much as inflation).
At this point, having been confronted by data showing that your understanding is wrong, you need to point to actual concrete evidence that your understanding is reasonable and not just vague insinuations.
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I actually know several people who used this as an opportunity to move into the Bay Area. The sudden drop in rents made it more attractive and they jumped. They both work in industries where face to face communication is a competitive advantage. It’s easy to forget that not every job is naturally compatible with remote work like it is for those of us who type on computers all day.
> sudden drop in rents Curious, Why aren't properly prices droping to reflect the loss in population.