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What Happens to Home Prices When Technologists Come to Town

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Re: What Happens to Home Prices When Technologists Come to Town

#61

Post by WalterBright »

superuser2 wrote: post #51
xux wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It embarrasses me that less physical effort grants me a more valuable reward Why? Just because you work hard doesn't mean you deserve more

"If you work harder you will be more successful" is the fundamental axiom of American conservatism. Of course I can't speak for everyone, but the primary reason to oppose a social safety net is "those people are poor because they aren't working hard enough." This requires a belief that hard(er) work is and should be rewarded better. I'd say your claim is nonobvious. That the world is fundamentally fair, and that hard…

I would. For example, no matter how hard you work lifting a rock and setting it back down again, it produces no value and so nobody is going to pay you for it.

(Ironically, people pay to lift weights at the gym, they don't get paid to! It's pretty darned hard work, too.)

Re: What Happens to Home Prices When Technologists Come to Town

#62

Post by WalterBright »

eonw wrote: post #18
mentat wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The product of your work does more than 3x what you could do by yourself though, that's why it's valued more / differently. A similar argument would be made for effective organizers and the force multiplication of coordinated work.

likewise, almost anyone can chop wood or swing a hammer to break rocks.... no just anyone can write high quality code.

A power saw can do the work of a thousand men chopping wood - making the designer/builder of such a machine worth more compensation than the chopper.

Re: What Happens to Home Prices When Technologists Come to Town

#63

Post by timcederman »

serve_yay wrote: post #38
eclipxe wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the market like there?

Insanity. When I was out looking a few weeks back, my realtor got a call from another realtor who had just closed on a house for $402k, which had been listed at $365k. Lots of people getting blown out by all-cash offers. Every house you look at, the sale history shows it was bought in 2014 for $172k and it's on the market for $300k, a lot of that sort of thing. I looked at basically a dilapidated shack that was $300k…

And in the future this will look totally reasonable. The full house prices you quote are what houses in the Bay Area routinely sell for OVER list price. When I started looking in 2012, the average sale price in my area was $900k, and now it's $1.7m.

Re: What Happens to Home Prices When Technologists Come to Town

#64

Post by superuser2 »

WalterBright wrote: post #61
superuser2 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If you work harder you will be more successful" is the fundamental axiom of American conservatism. Of course I can't speak for everyone, but the primary reason to oppose a social safety net is "those people are poor because they aren't working hard enough." This requires a belief that hard(er) work is and should be rewarded better. I'd say your claim is nonobvious. That the world is fundamentally fair, and that hard…

I would. For example, no matter how hard you work lifting a rock and setting it back down again, it produces no value and so nobody is going to pay you for it. (Ironically, people pay to lift weights at the gym, they don't get paid to! It's pretty darned hard work, too.)

"Work" in this context would be your job, not things you do on your own initiative.

Re: What Happens to Home Prices When Technologists Come to Town

#65

Post by Aloha »

eclipxe wrote: post #24
stephengillie wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interstate-5, a fully-featured modern interstate highway, is a modern marvel. In the middle of the afternoon, we can travel an entire 13 miles in the span of just 60 minutes!

As someone that couldn't go further than 7 miles on 101 in SV in less than an hour...I have no pity.

It took me an hour to go four miles a week ago, between renton, and tukwila, please don't move here.

Re: What Happens to Home Prices When Technologists Come to Town

#66

Post by Aloha »

I work in a high tech industry, I make mobile networks go.. and I'm slowly being priced out of Seattle (I live in Renton), my rent has gone up 20% in 2 years, and everywhere else I look is higher yet - this combined with the rather chilly local culture, is driving me to look at moving elsewhere, probably to a non-tech hub, like Dallas, I'd like to own a home at some point - but I don't make that 100k a year salary, and likely never will, as the best paid in my industry are making in the high 70's, beyond all that, I'm stuck as a contractor, on my second 18 month term with no headcount opening in sight.

I'm a pretty decent UNIX and networks guy - but not a software developer sort of person, its just not the way my brain is wired, so at the rate we're going, I'm not gonna be able to afford to live here in 2 years.

Re: What Happens to Home Prices When Technologists Come to Town

#67

Post by shostack »

saryant wrote: post #46
kansface wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's still an open question as to whether this will cause San Francisco level problems SF's (SV's) problem is that it refuses to build houses commensurate to the number of people who move there. Any number of well paid jobs from any industry would have caused the same problem. High paying (middle class) jobs (outside of manufacturing) are not a problem. > If this just means that tech is finally spreading out a bit…

Compare the population growth in the Houston MSA against San Francisco's: the Houston area grew by 9.6% between between 2010 and 2014 while the SFBA grew by 5.9%. Compare that to the two regions' 5-year housing price index (a measure of the movement of housing prices). The Bay Area sits at 36 yet Houston at 25. Despite faster population growth, Houston's housing prices have not risen nearly as dramatically. I have to…

Let's be honest....there are many other reasons why homes in the Bay Area are more desirable to many compared to Texas.

It also attracts much more foreign investment due to its location.

Re: What Happens to Home Prices When Technologists Come to Town

#68

Post by saryant »

shostack wrote: post #67
saryant wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare the population growth in the Houston MSA against San Francisco's: the Houston area grew by 9.6% between between 2010 and 2014 while the SFBA grew by 5.9%. Compare that to the two regions' 5-year housing price index (a measure of the movement of housing prices). The Bay Area sits at 36 yet Houston at 25. Despite faster population growth, Houston's housing prices have not risen nearly as dramatically. I have to…

Let's be honest....there are many other reasons why homes in the Bay Area are more desirable to many compared to Texas. It also attracts much more foreign investment due to its location.

According to the National Association of Realtors, that's actually not the case. California attracts only slightly more international buyers than Texas.

Texas has stronger ties to Latin America and the Middle East while still attracting a not-insignificant number of Asian buyers (Houston in particular has very strong ties to Asia). California obviously does get the bulk of investment from Asia.

http://www.realtor.org/sites/default/files/2014%20Profile%20...

Re: What Happens to Home Prices When Technologists Come to Town

#69

Post by saryant »

narrowrail wrote: post #54
hughdbrown wrote: post #53

Does anyone from Denver also find that the relationship is overstated? I don't know of any Denver offices for Apple, Facebook, or Amazon. The only Twitter or Google offices I am aware of are in Boulder. Boulder and Denver are connected by a single highway and the commute is bad enough to effectively separate the two tech hubs. I don't see how anyone can claim that the 1200 employees attributed to Google, Apple, Amazo…

While I don't live on the Front Range anymore, I did for 20 years. Denver to Boulder is ~25 miles, and I use to make the commute in 25 minutes (not during rush hour). It was quite common to refer to the Denver/Boulder metro area. I know things have changed, but ~1hr commutes don't seem to me to be significant enough to be called separate.

36 is REALLY bad these days, especially with the current construction. I live in Boulder and when I was recently looking at jobs I made that drive to see if I could deal with the commute.

Nope!

Re: What Happens to Home Prices When Technologists Come to Town

#70

Post by nmbr »

beatpanda wrote: post #50
pnathan wrote: post #44

As someone who moved to Seattle for a tech job, it's very exciting seeing the boom. Jobs are spraying everywhere; hope and life are flowing. It is frustrating to see the house prices go up, but the sense of change in the air is often almost palpable. Very thrilling.

That's funny, because everyone I know from or in Seattle who doesn't work in tech is talking about how it feels like their city is under attack and being destroyed, sort of like how it feels for everyone not in tech in the Bay Area.

Hope and life are indeed flowing here in Seattle. For some into bank accounts, for others into dump trucks. Thrilling isn't the word I'd pick, but how could newcomers know what's been lost? Expecting empathy from them is unreasonable. As absurd as expecting someone to see around corners.
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