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

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

#101

Post by maclaren »

benmccann wrote: post #75
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.

That sounds like a great way to get murdered ( http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/oakland/crime/ ). What are some of the places that are better or should be avoided?

That sounds like an ignorant viewpoint.

Crime of that sort in Oakland generally involves only those who consider it an "occupational hazard".

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

#102

Post by jes5199 »

georgieporgie wrote: post #10

SF just isn't worth it anymore. The fog (I know there are fog-free areas, but much of SF is foggy-to-super-foggy), the filth, the homeless, and the insane landlords and rents are out of hand. Also, I'm of the opinion that SF culture peaked in the 90s.

I agree about the filth. I've recently been in NYC and Seattle and both times I was shocked by how clean everything seemed compared to SOMA.

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

#103

Post by mlinksva »

georgieporgie wrote: post #71
jsprinkles wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

As a former Oaklander, I take offense at your statement. :-) Oakland exists as an industrial hub. Emeryville, on the other hand, exists as a suburb of San Francisco (though I think that with recent business expansion, it's becoming its own city). As far as I know, this is still the case, and more people live and work in Oakland than live in Oakland and commute into SF.

Emeryville is a small employment hub, per http://www.census.gov/hhes/commuting/data/daytimepop.html

Employment/residence ratios

Emeryville 4.36 San Francisco 1.40 Oakland 1.06

and a few others FWIW

Berkeley 1.30 Dublin 1.05 Mountain View 1.47 Palo Alto 2.54 San Jose 0.88 (qualifying it as largest suburb in the US, IMO)

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

#104

Post by wpietri »

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.

I'm not getting it. I lived abroad a lot before moving to SF, and so I picked the Mission because it had a lot of immigrants. I think it makes a place more interesting.

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

#105

Post by WildUtah »

encoderer wrote: post #62
WildUtah wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>No credit is way better than bad credit. When you are trying to rent an apartment, yes. If you are trying to buy a cell phone or get a Mastercard or buy a car or a house, it's just the opposite: there's nothing worse than no credit.

Respectfully, I disagree. If you have no credit, you can get a secured credit card and have a 650-700 fico in a few months. You'll have a thin file so don't expect a mortgage or anything, but in a year or two even that will be no problem. Bad credit? You can do a lot to clean it up before the 7 years are up, but ive seen this in my own family and it's really a waiting game for bad entries to age off your report. And…

I have no credit report, in spite of living 35 years in the USA. My friends with bad credit and bankruptcies can buy cell phones, rent expensive things, get apartments, get mortgages, and deal with other life activities much more easily than I can.

So there's your answer: you'd rather lend money to the known deadbeat than someone with no credit history.

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

#106

Post by jsprinkles »

joejohnson wrote: post #61
jsprinkles wrote: post #56

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…

I want to work in SoMa and not spend 10 hours a week commuting. I can empty my inbox at work, where I'm paid to do it.

So you'd rather spend 10 hours a week commuting inside SF?

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

#107

Post by jsprinkles »

mmagin wrote: post #85
jsprinkles wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Newer? Are you aware of the 50-year history of semiconductor and defense companies in the area between Palo Alto and San Jose?

Yes, and I'd contend that there are far more "new" tech companies in the peninsula now than there ever were semiconductor and defense companies. There are certainly far more people here now than there were fifty years ago, and the big names in the peninsula are probably a bigger employer than the "old" tech.

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

#108

Post by jsprinkles »

benmccann wrote: post #75
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.

That sounds like a great way to get murdered ( http://www.neighborhoodscout.com/ca/oakland/crime/ ). What are some of the places that are better or should be avoided?

You're just as likely to be murdered in San Francisco, and statistics really don't mean shit except scaring people like you. The number of people being murdered in drug violence and other crimes has a very negligible impact on the probability of a mid-twenties software developer getting murdered.

It's extremely amusing how much people worry about being killed by thugs in places they've never been, when they're far more likely to be killed by a dumbass texting on 580.

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

#109

Post by encoderer »

WildUtah wrote: post #105
encoderer wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Respectfully, I disagree. If you have no credit, you can get a secured credit card and have a 650-700 fico in a few months. You'll have a thin file so don't expect a mortgage or anything, but in a year or two even that will be no problem. Bad credit? You can do a lot to clean it up before the 7 years are up, but ive seen this in my own family and it's really a waiting game for bad entries to age off your report. And…

I have no credit report, in spite of living 35 years in the USA. My friends with bad credit and bankruptcies can buy cell phones, rent expensive things, get apartments, get mortgages, and deal with other life activities much more easily than I can. So there's your answer: you'd rather lend money to the known deadbeat than someone with no credit history.

I think you should consider that probably the largest reason you have so much trouble is that they cannot use your credit profile to verify your identity.

You can fix that very easily. You don't have to have a line of credit to get into their database. All you have to do is apply for one. That inquiry will be reported, you will have a credit file, and from then-on to whomever is pulling your credit it won't look as though you just made-up a 9 digit number in place of a real social security number.

The best way to do this will be to apply for credit some place in-person, like a bank.

So I'll reiterate: Having no credit is a much better position than having bad credit.

Having no identity? That is a problem I'm sure.

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

#110

Post by gtani »

kenko wrote: post #97
earl wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friends don't let friends ride muni. I've ridden public transport all over the world and never been in physical danger on public transport before. Riding muni it happened multiple times in 16 months. Not to mention it's slow, untimely, and crap.

I've ridden public transport all over the world as well, including in San Francisco and Oakland, and the only place I've ever felt even moderately uncomfortable was in Chicago. Muni does suck, but I've only got anecdotal reports that it's unsafe .

Well i rode MUNI a few days a week for 15 years becuase otherwise I'd get $300/week in parking tickets, but read last month's anecdotal stories in the Chron and Examiner

https://www.google.com/search?q=sf+muni+bus+robbery&ie=u...

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