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San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

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Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#331

Post by kenster07 »

1) Leaving sf in any part, due to your perception of the reaction of random women at bars, to your profession, blows me away. There are plenty of people in the city who also admire your profession, including many single women. And quite frankly, there are more important things in life anyway.

2) People who feel 'guilty' about getting decent salaries are missing the big picture. You are now an allocator of wealth. You can help that mom and pop shop pay its rent, if you are so inclined. Abandoning that privelege and responsibility is also a baffling reaction.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#332

Post by rhc2104 »

rayiner wrote: post #276
rhc2104 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're willing to tolerate a 30-35 minute commute, Millbrae/Burlingame is a lot cheaper than Palo Alto, and that allows for job opportunities in both SF and Silicon Valley. But yeah, Bay Area prices are really high.

I wouldn't mind a 30-35 minute commute if I didn't have to get in a car at any point. My commute from Westchester to Manhattan was amazing: a block and a half to the train, and a block and a half to my office. Almost never late, came every 15 minutes during rush hour, etc. The problem with Cal Train seems to be that you have a mini-commute at the beginning and end of every trip. My Westchester town had several reside…

There are bunch of apartment complexes near the train station. They're just not that tall.

The nice thing about Millbrae is that the station has both Caltrain and BART, so you would be able to commute to most SF tech companies without driving.

But the train ride is 30 minutes, (BART doesn't do express), so it would be more like 40-45 minutes with walking and waiting.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#333

Post by geebee »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #183
enraged_camel wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the conclusion that home ownership is unthinkable to anyone who hasn't had a cash-out event. I've never understood this crazy, if not outright insane obsession with home ownership. Why does everyone want to tie significant amounts of their lifetime earnings into physical property that historically has had very low appreciation in value? It's like pe…

>There are many stable renter neighborhoods with great schools. You forgot "...in other parts of the country." The "great" schools in the Bay Area are pretty much exclusively in places with $1m+ house prices, and with few places to rent for a reasonable amount. Also consider that the bubble primarily affected the distant 'burbs. House prices in San Francisco, and close in to the city, didn't really drop appreciably a…

Schools actually aren't bad in SF, they're uneven. Take a look at greatschools.net and filter by public school. SF has an unusually large number of schools rated "10" - keep in mind, anything over 7 is good by California standards (not exactly a great standard, but that is the basis for comparison to the wealthy burbs). This is based on adjusted API (test) scores, which don't tell the whole story about a school, of course.

In SF, school assignment is by lottery rather than by residence, which drives wealthy people nuts. I get it, if you live in a nice neighborhood across the street from a good school, and the city tells you you have to drive somewhere else, that'll piss you off - and if you can convert a high mortgage payment into access to a public school that the poor don't get in the suburbs, you may very well up and leave. Of course, if you live in a crappy neighborhood across the street from a failing school, you might not mind the lottery so much.

SFUSD is moving to a more district residence model, though it won't be the overwhelming factor.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#335

Post by muzz »

EternalFury wrote: post #324
muzz wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were plenty of foreclosures and short sales in 2010-11, indicating overbuilding (be it because of over-buying / over-lending, regardlesss) in the previous few years (2006-2008). The article is from 2012. There are 140 projects under construction RIGHT NOW.

These don't indicate overbuilding. It just means you are off the cliff as soon as your cash flow turns negative. Buying a house in this area is like condemning yourself to walk around with a huge sword hanging above your head.

If declining prices-- as what happened from 2007-2010-- don't indicate overbuilding, what does? Anything?

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#336

Post by fibbery »

rhizome wrote: post #236
api wrote: post #30

I've got a possibly great job offer on the table from SF/SV, but may turn it down. I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the conclusion that home ownership is unthinkable to anyone who hasn't had a cash-out event. The real estate market is certifiably, utterly bat-dookie insane. NYC is often considered more expensive, and Manhattan is certainly... well... Manhattan. But taken collectively…

It's a city built on young entrepreneurs coming there and doing new stuff Not true. There was a huge housing crash 20 years ago, and large swaths of the city were extremely affordable until about the mid/late-90s. It's only in the last 10 or so years that the city has acquired the perceptions you describe, and certainly post-9/11. You may be talking about, what, gold miners and prostitutes? I don't think that relates…

"There was a huge housing crash 20 years ago, and large swaths of the city were extremely affordable"

IIRC that was caused by the 1989 earthquake - all the transplants got scared and moved and rent got affordable as a result.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#338

Post by ahoyhere »

enraged_camel wrote: post #164
api wrote: post #30

I've got a possibly great job offer on the table from SF/SV, but may turn it down. I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the conclusion that home ownership is unthinkable to anyone who hasn't had a cash-out event. The real estate market is certifiably, utterly bat-dookie insane. NYC is often considered more expensive, and Manhattan is certainly... well... Manhattan. But taken collectively…

>>I'd love the city I'm sure, but after glancing around I've come to the conclusion that home ownership is unthinkable to anyone who hasn't had a cash-out event. I've never understood this crazy, if not outright insane obsession with home ownership. Why does everyone want to tie significant amounts of their lifetime earnings into physical property that historically has had very low appreciation in value? It's like pe…

Some of us value permanence. I own my house, and I have zero intention of ever selling it. It's mine, mine, mine, mine.

There is an incredible feeling in owning a home that you love and plan to spend your life in. We get to plan the changes we'll make over the next decade. We can plant a tree and watch it grow. We can truly unpack our stuff AND our lives… which it's hard to ever do when you rent; most people I know move every 1 to 3 years. At that rate, a lot of things feel like they're never worth it. You don't hang curtains because you think "I won't be here that long" then you wake up and it's been 4 years and you never had curtains and you wasted all that time. (Actual curtains… and metaphorical curtains, too.)

Granted, you don't get that feeling if you just buy whatever's available. (And probably nigh impossible to manage in a place like SF.)

Our house is a special place. It's historic; we feel obliged to take good care of it, because it will outlast us. It's an indescribable source of joy. And yes, there's angst, too -- that always comes with loving anything, be they people, animals, organizations, or things. It's worth it.

The money is the absolutely last concern.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#339

Post by textminer »

liveinoakland wrote: post #149
greghinch wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean this to play into stereotypes etc, but just as a matter of experience, every single person I know who's lived in Oakland for any significant amount of time (say 1 year or more), over the past 5 years, has been robbed at gunpoint at least once, usually while walking within a few blocks of their home. It's not a huge sample, I probably know half a dozen people/couples who live/have lived there. But the fac…

where did they live? probably some sketchy part of west oakland where out-of-towners like to move because it's so grungy. you won't get robbed in piedmont, rockridge, montclair, temescal, grand lake usually, or JLS ever. but please keep upvoting this to the top! our rents are already going up because of SF spillover, feel free to avoid it and those of us in the know will keep enjoying our lives in the east bay with n…

Live in "NOBE" now (or Longfellow, or Gaskill, or Golden Gate, whatever it's really called), but I regularly see car windows smashed in when I head over to Temescal's 50th/Telegraph area for dinners out. Loving my own apartment, but wishing more and more I had searched harder for a place near the walkable parts of Grand Ave or Piedmont Ave.

Re: San Francisco, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down

#340

Post by ryguytilidie »

enraged_camel wrote: post #131
ryguytilidie wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I just bought a house in El Cerrito last week and while we paid above asking, it was 1/3 the price of what my friends on the peninsula are paying for a great place. The fact that people seem completely unwilling to commute 30 minutes for a life changing job is pretty bizarre to me.

No matter how life-changing a job is, the fact of the matter is that long commutes are almost always soul-sucking time-sinks that have a significant negative impact on the psychological well-being of those who do them. Besides, the longer the commute, the less free time you have, which takes away from your personal projects and massively decreases your chances of innovating or inventing something new.

As someone who commuted from Santa Cruz to Mountain View and San Francisco to Palo Alto, I certainly understand this. However, walking to Bart, being one of the first on, sitting down and reading/working is vastly different than driving. Depends just as much on HOW you commute.
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