How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom • Hacker News Board

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#51

Post by wyclif » Sun, May 20, 2012, 6:53 PM UTC

sentiental wrote: post #30

philp wrote: post #24

Read this post right up to the following line, "There’s also huge differences from neighborhood to neighborhood as you are unlikely to find someone interested in the Mission (hipsters, homeless and immigrants )" Pretty repulsive point of view IMHO. EDIT: I am a recent immigrant to the United States

Yes, I also found this disgusting. You know, the people he's calling immigrants are actually the people that have lived there for generations.

There's actually no negative connotation to the noun "immigrant."

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#52

Post by oblique63 » Sun, May 20, 2012, 6:57 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #43

philp wrote: post #24

Read this post right up to the following line, "There’s also huge differences from neighborhood to neighborhood as you are unlikely to find someone interested in the Mission (hipsters, homeless and immigrants )" Pretty repulsive point of view IMHO. EDIT: I am a recent immigrant to the United States

It also seems a bit off descriptively, because the Mission over the past ~20 years has been filling up with techies, to the extent that a lot of the locals have been complaining about gentrification. Especially true for anything near the 16th St. BART.

This is very true. I grew up (and still live) in the mission, and being a first generation Salvadorian, I was very much immersed in the Latin culture of the mission up until the mid 2000's. Even though the drop in crime and everything is nice, it really just doesn't even feel at home anymore...

I think it's great that techies are discovering this awesome neighborhood (having grown up a techy myself), but given my background, I still can't help feeling a bit mixed about it, especially when I see fellow techies being completely dismissive/oblivious about my culture like the author of this post here...

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#53

Post by philp » Sun, May 20, 2012, 6:59 PM UTC

wyclif wrote: post #51

sentiental wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I also found this disgusting. You know, the people he's calling immigrants are actually the people that have lived there for generations.

There's actually no negative connotation to the noun "immigrant."

You're absolutely right. But reading this article the author seems to imply a negative connotation by saying you'd be hard pressed to find somebody willing to live in the mission because of "hipsters, homeless and immigrants".

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#54

Post by potatolicious » Sun, May 20, 2012, 7:01 PM UTC

trimbo wrote: post #33

steve8918 wrote: post #17

Renting in SOMA right now is crazy, and 1 brs in the heart of SOMA near 4th and King are going for over $3000/month. If cost is an issue, places like SOMA, PacHeights, etc, are not good choices because it's super expensive. The danger with renting in SOMA is that unless you're moving into an old apartment, there is no rent control. If rent prices go up next year, you could find yourself paying $500+/month more next y…

> There are plenty of other cost-effective places on the west side of SF that can go for less than half the price of SOMA Exactly! Look at where Muni and BART end up and then look at places to rent in those locations. West Portal, Glen Park, Noe Valley, etc. There are a lot of cool choices with public transportation if you start looking.

This really isn't the secret that people claim it is. If you actually look at rents in all of the above places, they're all just as high. SOMA is generally more expensive because it's the only neighborhood where you can find new high-rises. Victorian-to-Victorian, all of the transit-connected areas as in the same ballpark.

And Noe is even more expensive than the rest, since it's developed its own reputation as a great place to raise kids.

To be certain, nothing in a transit-connected part of SF is "half the price" of SOMA, unless you're doing a dodgy comparison like an uber-luxe condo in the Millenium Tower with a basement studio. Apples to apples, everything in SF is in the same ballpark, with the Sunset and Richmond being only marginally cheaper.

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#55

Post by potatolicious » Sun, May 20, 2012, 7:07 PM UTC

azylman wrote: post #40

I'm looking to make this move in August and some of the advice here won't work for me. For instance, I can't get a reference from a past landlord or a list of past landlords - I'm just graduating college and have lived in on-campus housing my whole time. I'm hoping having a very good credit score and a very good offer letter in hand will solve this issue, but I'm not sure. Additionally, I can't move out mid-month and…

There are several ways to resolve your situation, few of which you will find palatable... which really sucks:

- Rent a less desirable place. Desirable places in SF will have easily 20 people lined up out front, with the landlord taking his/her pick of the crowd based on income, credit, and references - and as a recent grad you will lose on all 3 counts.

- Seek roommate situations. Houses are more flexible about all of the above criteria and care more about personality, this is where you might have an edge (I don't know, I don't know you at all).

- Live outside the city. This is going to be a real bummer sometimes - your friends will want to hang out in the Mission till the crack of dawn, but you'd have to hop the BART or Caltrain before midnight to get home. But places outside SF proper experience far, far, far less competition.

And here's the one that works, but really stinks:

- Offer to pay more than face value of apartment. This is just insult upon injury - but it does work. Odds are, if you have a Unreasonably Wealthy Startup Guy(tm) viewing the apartment with you, he/she will bid the apartment up. It's become more and more common, and that's incredibly depressing.

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#56

Post by jsprinkles » Sun, May 20, 2012, 7:11 PM UTC

I pay $2,000/mo for three very spacious bedrooms in Dublin, and I'm to work in SoMa in about an hour on BART (with an empty inbox!). Not to mention Dublin is an absolutely wonderful place to live for suburban types, like married couples. It's really depressing that discussions like this revolve around the city only.

There is an entire world of commuter residences all around San Francisco, and people figured out how to commute to San Francisco long before the tech boom (and most people wanting to live in the city) existed. Dublin/Pleasanton is the extreme, but there's also Castro Valley on my same line, a whole shitload of Oakland like Lake Merritt, and if you take the Pittsburg/Bay Point a whole bunch up there, too. Take off the San Francisco blinders and take advantage of the commute options that were built long before this industry.

It feels like people moving to San Francisco now treat it like New York City, where living in New Jersey and commuting in tends to suck. So most people focus on the boroughs, and landlords take advantage of them. San Francisco's out-of-town situation is far better, and I don't regret choosing a place an hour out of town at all.

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#57

Post by jsprinkles » Sun, May 20, 2012, 7:18 PM UTC

otterley wrote: post #22

You might also want to consider living in Oakland instead of San Francisco and taking BART to the city to work. My rent is 1/3 less and my commute (20 minutes door-to-door) is much shorter than that of many of my colleagues who live in the city. Oakland is a big, heterogeneous city, with really nice districts that offer great dining, bars, and the usual city trappings.

Not just Oakland. The majority of the Bay Area exists to support commuting to San Francisco. The peninsula tech companies are actually a newer phenomenon.

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#58

Post by potatolicious » Sun, May 20, 2012, 7:21 PM UTC

wyclif wrote: post #50

crcsmnky wrote: post #31

You put a lot of work into this article and wrote quite a few great tips when looking for a place to live in SF. Unfortunately you undermined the entire post with your "immigrants" comment. In fact you made yourself look like a huge bigot. That sucks because it was otherwise well written and useful. It's sad that this is going largely unnoticed by the rest of the comments on this post.

Perhaps it went "unnoticed" because there's actually no negative connotation to the word "immigrant" in and of itself.

The relevant quote:

> "There’s also huge differences from neighborhood to neighborhood as you are unlikely to find someone interested in the Mission (hipsters, homeless and immigrants)"

This does seem to be used in a derogatory way, and I did miss it the first time around. I don't think this is an innocent use of "immigrant" at all.

And hell, for a neighborhood that nobody's interested in, the Mission is one of the most expensive of them all. Go figure!

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#59

Post by encoderer » Sun, May 20, 2012, 7:29 PM UTC

base698 wrote: post #49

encoderer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To ship boxes, yes. But honestly if you're an engineer taking a job at a bay area tech company, you will be getting a relo package. If you move here on your own dime you're doing it wrong.

I sold everything at the other end and used the relo to buy new stuff. If you move your old worn out stuff you're doing it wrong. :)

That depends entirely on how expensive are your tastes. A full service mover took us 2800 miles to sf for about 12k which is about (ballpark estimate) what we paid for our living room furniture, mattress and kitchen tools.

When you're young, though, especially right out of school, you're entirely correct.

Re: How to find an apartment in San Francisco during the tech boom

#60

Post by lazerwalker » Sun, May 20, 2012, 7:32 PM UTC

base698 wrote: post #49

encoderer wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To ship boxes, yes. But honestly if you're an engineer taking a job at a bay area tech company, you will be getting a relo package. If you move here on your own dime you're doing it wrong.

I sold everything at the other end and used the relo to buy new stuff. If you move your old worn out stuff you're doing it wrong. :)

While this is a great strategy (I did just that when I moved cross-country a few months ago), it's worth recognizing that it's predicated on owning suitably cheap furniture. As you move beyond the stage in your life where your apartment is outfitted solely by Ikea, this gets less and less viable.