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Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

economist.com

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Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#71

Post by alephnerd »

ylee wrote: post #67
alephnerd wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love the lack of sympathy for tech workers across North America or perhaps even globally, when tech hub salaries still don’t allow tech workers to even have a middle class lifestyle Do you have empathy for IBs, PEs, and other members of High Finance? The difference in TC between High Finance and the equivalent roles in Tech are not that significant. Goldman Sach's IB Analysts starting salaries at the SF office we…

>Goldman Sach's IB Analysts starting salaries at the SF office were $90k with minimal bonuses in 2020. These same people could have worked at Google or Microsoft (and most of them legitimately had that option) When I graduated from Columbia in 1999, I interviewed and got offers at various tech startups, but entry-level jobs on the "PM track" for those without a CS/engineering degree didn't formally exist at the likes…

> the 2001 bonus was, well, much smaller

Exactly!

The bonus plays a massive role in Analyst compensation, and during 2020-present, the bonus was slashed severely due to a lack of late stage dealflow.

The work hours at GS and JPM were still as crappy as before, but the bonuses were trash when factoring stock and bonus compensation their peers were getting.

A bunch of my mentees made the switch to PM, SWE, VC analyst, or Founding explicitly because of that.

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#72

Post by tzs »

xyzelement wrote: post #26

As of this moment 100% of comments have to do with “I guess other people have a lot of money”. Very weird thing to be concerned about. Personally I didn’t care about the eclipse until recently. Then I realized then when the next one happens in North America, my son will be in his 20s and I will be in my 60s. I got the idea that it will be cool to (G-d willing) see that one together and remember how we saw this one to…

A couple of other things the people commenting about people having a lot of money might be overlooking:

1. My guess is that a lot of the people are treating this as a vacation and the money for it comes from foregoing some other vacation trip that they would have taken this year.

2. It doesn't have to be expensive to see an eclipse. My trip to see the 2017 US eclipse had these costs:

• $50 for a place to stay for the day of the eclipse and the day before.

It was at a farm where the farmer had converted one big field into an overnight parking area for people who were going to sleep in their cars, an adjacent big field into a place for people who wanted to park and set up tents to sleep in, and another adjacent field into a place for food and souvenir vendors and entertainers. They had set up a ton of portable toilets in all three of those areas, and had shuttle buses running a loop through all three areas.

The $50 was for a spot in the "sleep in your car" field.

• Whatever it cost to operate my car for the ~600 mile round trip.

• Maybe $10 for a small PC case fan, which I connected to a small solar panel I already had. I could then put the solar panel on the car roof, open a car window just enough to wedge the fan in, and have a nice breeze in the car. (The 2017 eclipse was in August and temperatures were expected to be in the mid-80℉ to 90℉ range where I saw it).

• A car windshield shade. Maybe $20?

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#73

Post by Domenic_S »

art-not wrote: post #69
Domenic_S wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get paid more than my non tech peers yet still functionally have less spending power than a 25 year old from 30 years ago This seems like some non-generic case specific to your situation and not representative of the average experience. The median income in 1994 for over-25-year-olds (men only!) was $25,465 [0], women was less than half of that. Let's go with the figure for men for the sake of discussion. $25,465…

I'm Canadian for what it's worth. My mother who had a GED was able to purchase a house by my age. I can't purchase a house anywhere in southern Ontario at the moment. This fact is echoed across the majority of the country. My brother had to move to northern Alberta to be able to afford a house that had enough capacity for his family. And that naturally also changed the availability of social and job options

I dunno what qualifies as south ON, but I see 144 houses for sale from $50-300 CAD south of Huntsville.

Your point however is (less charitably) put as "I can't purchase a house where I want the house to be, with the specs that I want", which is different than not being able to afford any house anywhere.

My parents also purchased a house with modest income when I was young. But it had fraying electrical (knob & tube!), peeling paint, 1 bathroom, no A/C, a wood-burning fireplace for heat, and was 45 minutes from where they had rented/liked to live. The place had its charms, they put sweat equity into it for many years, and I think of it fondly - but it was still a huge compromise, and by today's strict lending standards was probably not even able to be financed based on hazards alone. I am sure they would have preferred to purchase a house with bay windows overlooking the ocean like they had been renting, but they could afford something that was inland and needed a lot of work. I do not think they were unique in this way - I wager a lot of 'my parents bought a house in the 80s, dad was an artisanal pencil sharpener and mom was a ferret breeder' stories are actually more like this one.

My point is, I am by default unconvinced when an otherwise seemingly successful person says they can't afford to buy, even in an expensive place like Toronto or SF. As far as I can tell it just means they haven't lowered their standards enough yet. I have compromised on every home I've bought; in fact I entered the market a lot later than I should have because as a first-timer I wasn't ready to compromise enough. That probably cost me half a mill in appreciation over the years.

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#74

Post by hesviiggvv »

spencerflem wrote: post #70
art-not wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have empathy for anyone who is trying to make ends meet, whatever that means. Why wouldn't I have empathy for those people?

Absolutely, all for working class solidarity. With that said, I think most people recognize that there are some jobs where the goal is to make maximal money first, morals second. Like, oil executives for example I think most people would agree don't have the benefit of the doubt that they were just trying to make an honest living. Its a sliding scale, and for some people I think 'tech bros' end up on the greedy / imm…

In my short lifetime computer nerds have gone from losers worth making fun of, to rockstars making gobs of cash, to villains ruining whatever place they live or hobby they take up. Pretty wild.

I just like programming computers.

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#75

Post by spencerflem »

hesviiggvv wrote: post #74
spencerflem wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, all for working class solidarity. With that said, I think most people recognize that there are some jobs where the goal is to make maximal money first, morals second. Like, oil executives for example I think most people would agree don't have the benefit of the doubt that they were just trying to make an honest living. Its a sliding scale, and for some people I think 'tech bros' end up on the greedy / imm…

In my short lifetime computer nerds have gone from losers worth making fun of, to rockstars making gobs of cash, to villains ruining whatever place they live or hobby they take up. Pretty wild. I just like programming computers.

me too

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#76

Post by switch007 »

voisin wrote: post #66
switch007 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. Larger properties round here are going for £50-150k above last sale price (last sales being 4-6 years). It's madness.

In areas of Canada (Toronto and Vancouver vicinities), housing prices were increasing at $80k per MONTH . To only have your house increase by 50-150k over 4-6 years would be better than even the podunk unincorporated villages hours from any economic centre.

Appreciate the context. But the figures I quoted are huge sums for the average working person round here (we're closer to a "podunk village" than e.g. Toronto + Vancouver metro areas), as I'm sure $80k/month is to Canadians. They represent real problems for most people who live here. They can't be dismissed because a large metro area in Canada has seen even higher inflated prices

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#77

Post by art-not »

Domenic_S wrote: post #73
art-not wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Canadian for what it's worth. My mother who had a GED was able to purchase a house by my age. I can't purchase a house anywhere in southern Ontario at the moment. This fact is echoed across the majority of the country. My brother had to move to northern Alberta to be able to afford a house that had enough capacity for his family. And that naturally also changed the availability of social and job options

I dunno what qualifies as south ON, but I see 144 houses for sale from $50-300 CAD south of Huntsville. Your point however is (less charitably) put as "I can't purchase a house where I want the house to be, with the specs that I want ", which is different than not being able to afford any house anywhere. My parents also purchased a house with modest income when I was young. But it had fraying electrical (knob & tube!…

Huntsville is a 2 and a half hour commute to my in person job, limiting me to only remote work(there’s not exactly a booming tech economy in Huntsville). I would have to commute 5 hours a day to live in Huntsville.

I had family members who bought in “mixed income” neighborhoods in Toronto where you’d have broken piping, excessive mold in the attic, and meth heads ringing your doorbell at 2am to see if anyone’s home so they could break in. That 2 bedroom bungalow is selling for around 850k.

On top of all this houses even in Huntsville regularly close for between 50-200k over asking depending on location and the insanity of the buyer

No offense but based on this conversation I get the impression that you don’t really have enough context to comment on at the very least cost of housing in Canada.

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#78

Post by Cyphase »

refulgentis wrote: post #28

I don't understand the efforts I'm seeing people in Boston go to. We'll see it 94% obscured, meanwhile people are taking days off work and spending $$ to get to 99.9%. Then again I've never been a vacation person.

Are you sure people did that to get to 99.9%? I hope anyone who was willing to get to 99.9% from Boston would go the extra mile (or ~10 miles, in fact).

FWIW, I flew into Boston from California and drove north to the center line of the path of totality.

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#79

Post by Cyphase »

paxys wrote: post #34
refulgentis wrote: post #28

I don't understand the efforts I'm seeing people in Boston go to. We'll see it 94% obscured, meanwhile people are taking days off work and spending $$ to get to 99.9%. Then again I've never been a vacation person.

Here's an explanation for it – https://xkcd.com/2914/ . If you are not in the path of totality you aren't really seeing "the eclipse". The difference between 20% or 50% or even 90% covered is very minor.

(hover text) "A partial eclipse is like a cool sunset. A total eclipse is like someone broke the sky."

Re: Airbnb bookings for the solar eclipse reach astronomical levels

#80

Post by Domenic_S »

art-not wrote: post #77
Domenic_S wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno what qualifies as south ON, but I see 144 houses for sale from $50-300 CAD south of Huntsville. Your point however is (less charitably) put as "I can't purchase a house where I want the house to be, with the specs that I want ", which is different than not being able to afford any house anywhere. My parents also purchased a house with modest income when I was young. But it had fraying electrical (knob & tube!…

Huntsville is a 2 and a half hour commute to my in person job, limiting me to only remote work(there’s not exactly a booming tech economy in Huntsville). I would have to commute 5 hours a day to live in Huntsville. I had family members who bought in “mixed income” neighborhoods in Toronto where you’d have broken piping, excessive mold in the attic, and meth heads ringing your doorbell at 2am to see if anyone’s home s…

I literally meant south of huntsville as in, draw an E-W line on the map at huntsville, and look everywhere south that's still within ontario.

2.5 hour commute sucks and wouldn't be long-term sustainable, but if it's what you'd have to do to get into housing it's something to consider. I know; that was my commute when I bought my first place in the bay area. I did it long enough to build equity & sweat equity, then used the profit to buy closer to work.

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