San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash • Hacker News Board

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#131

Post by silicon2401 » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

whartung wrote: post #113

silicon2401 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe X should relax the legal requirements of Y That's a slippery slope. Lots of legal requirements exist to protect someone. Legal requirements for windows are pretty reasonable to ensure people have at least some bare minimum of access to natural light in their home, rather than just living in a box.

I can't say for certain, but I think most regulations about windows are about having an escape in case of disaster. Specifically, there was house we were looking at, and one of the previous owners covered up the back porch. However, one of the bedrooms used to overlook that back porch, and had a window on that wall. They were not allowed to remove that window because "bedrooms have windows", even though the window wa…

I completely forgot about the fire thing, and that only strengthens my argument/stance. The Triangle fire was a terrible tragedy in American history during which a lot of women died not even because of lack of windows, but because doors and windows were barred. Now imagine how many people would be at risk if they didn't even have windows in the first place.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#132

Post by silicon2401 » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #129

silicon2401 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe X should relax the legal requirements of Y That's a slippery slope. Lots of legal requirements exist to protect someone. Legal requirements for windows are pretty reasonable to ensure people have at least some bare minimum of access to natural light in their home, rather than just living in a box.

> Lots of legal requirements exist to protect someone That someone is often the homeowners [1]. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/05/19/upshot/forty-...

Paywall, can't read that

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#133

Post by jcadam » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

lghh wrote: post #92

silicon2401 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe X should relax the legal requirements of Y That's a slippery slope. Lots of legal requirements exist to protect someone. Legal requirements for windows are pretty reasonable to ensure people have at least some bare minimum of access to natural light in their home, rather than just living in a box.

Seems to me like lots of people in SF would rather live in an indoor box than an outdoor box. Why not let those without homes choose if they are willing to take the risks associated with ignoring those rules over l king on the streets?

An open floor plan office has plenty of space for rows of bunks. Better than sleeping outside.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#134

Post by lokar » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #121

lokar wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't. But if you want only detached single family homes you don't get to complain about prices.

Those with the homes are not the ones complaining.

But they are! It's truly bizarre. Somehow the accepted narrative is that prices are high because greedy developers focus only on luxury condos.

I often see new buildings criticized because they will raise the average rent in the area. And people accept that argument. Think about that for a moment.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#135

Post by x0x0 » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

dopeboy wrote: post #119

x0x0 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kind of depends. Opening a restaurant is an absolutely hostile experience -- there are numerous articles discussing people's experiences. Opening a tech company in SF is very smooth sailing in the small (interaction with the government, registering, paying taxes, etc). Source: did it. Where SF fucks tech companies extraordinarily hard is housing costs (insane), commute times / options (even more insane, shockingly…

Given this experience, would you start a company in SF again? If not, where?

I'd definitely do it in sf again. I'd have a 4 person + one large conference room office for sales and meetings. Everybody else would be remote, with individual teams roughly colocated, and hence capable of 3-5 days/month in person.

The problem with sf is good fucking luck convincing anybody to move there if they're over, say, 25; or are married; or have kids; etc. One glance at the housing prices and they're gone. If they can work through the housing prices they glance at the school situation, price in $30k/year of private education, and then they're really gone.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#136

Post by throwaway0a5e » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

silicon2401 wrote: post #80

ethbr0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe SF should relax the legal requirements of residential space, then? If they choose not to build sufficient housing... they can at least choose to use what they have. A windowless room with a community bathroom doesn't sound appealing, but at a certain price point it's better than nothing.

> Maybe X should relax the legal requirements of Y That's a slippery slope. Lots of legal requirements exist to protect someone. Legal requirements for windows are pretty reasonable to ensure people have at least some bare minimum of access to natural light in their home, rather than just living in a box.

>Lots of legal requirements exist to protect someone.

SF is the poster child for what happens when a bunch of people incapable or unmotivated to engage in planning more than 5min into the future write a law about everyone's pet issue.

Clearly there's a balance to be struck and it's to be struck somewhere on the less regulatory side than it is now.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#137

Post by JumpCrisscross » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 6:18 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #127

The city officials are asleep at the wheel. Blame it on remote work and pandemic as much as you want, but the reality is that the city was in decline even before that. It is too expensive to live in the city. It is too expensive to commute to the city. It is too expensive to feed yourself in the city. Crime is rampant. Drug use and filth is everywhere. Most importantly city has been hostile to tech and business owner…

> city officials are asleep at the wheel

Eh, San Francisco's voters have been drinking crazy water for some time. New developments blocked by renters. Stringent building codes and environmental reviews defended by those who think they're being compassionate to the poor. Scolding tech companies for hiring in the city and then panicking when they stop hiring in the city. This obviously isn't all of them. But it's not like this wasn't predictable over the past decade.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#138

Post by inamberclad » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 6:19 PM UTC

darth_avocado wrote: post #127

The city officials are asleep at the wheel. Blame it on remote work and pandemic as much as you want, but the reality is that the city was in decline even before that. It is too expensive to live in the city. It is too expensive to commute to the city. It is too expensive to feed yourself in the city. Crime is rampant. Drug use and filth is everywhere. Most importantly city has been hostile to tech and business owner…

Drug use isn't associated with crime and filth until we make it so via harsh city policies. I would, however, like someone to clean the 4 different instances of poop I saw on my 3 block walk this morning.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#139

Post by dogman144 » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 6:19 PM UTC

ptmcc wrote: post #8

bragr wrote: post #2

Give the corresponding housing crisis in the Bay Area, one wonders if the solution is to "simply" start converting office space to living space until the corresponding demand for office space recovers from a combination of increased demand and decreased supply. Now I'm sure there are all kinds of challenges to doing that, engineering, zoning, other practicalities, but it seems overall reasonable to me, though perhaps…

Most offices have physical layouts that make conversion to residential difficult to impossible. Big things like lots of interior square footage without windows and plumbing only to a few central locations. And while some or even most of this is fixable, major renovations are a ton of cost and effort to convert them to something that will still be expensive and weird, if even possible to meet the legal requirements of…

I think it is more difficult to impossible to make office to residential units conversions that fit a $/sqft that’s meets the market for normal housing (avoid huge square footage for cheap).

All of these buildings have a hub, bathrooms, and open ceilings for laying more pipes/wiring next to all the fiber cables.

Re: San Francisco braces for commercial real estate crash

#140

Post by woodruffw » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 6:19 PM UTC

ceeplusplus wrote: post #67

CTmystery wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but the government ... is absolutely malevolent towards businesses. How so?

Gross receipts tax of 0.69% plus 1.5% payroll tax [1]. $20,000 trash cans [2] and arcane permitting processes for brick and mortar businesses. The city's leadership has their head so far up their ass about going after rich techies that they proposed a tax which was intended to target Amazon, but was so poorly written that they asked to retract it off the ballot because Amazon wasn't subject to the tax but small busin…

I'm not a SF resident, but a 1.5% payroll tax doesn't seem that bad? NYC's is over double that.

$20,000 for a pilot trash can is pretty ridiculous, however.