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Landlords are trying not to rent to startups in San Francisco

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Re: Landlords are trying not to rent to startups in San Francisco

#291

Post by scarmig »

sib wrote: post #227
scarmig wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle, couldn't the issue be too few fiscal transfers? I.e. San Francisco should be paying even more into the federal coffers, to be redistributed even more to Alabama and New Mexico? Or, thinking about the other direction, even restricting ourselves to within California San Francisco and the Bay Area single-handedly pay for a massively disproportionate part of state government services and redistribution. Per…

See Tim Draper's proposal for splitting California into 6 separate states: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Californias

It doesn't make sense to separate Marin from San Francisco. And while we're at it, I'll take Sonoma and Napa. Maybe Davis too, because, you know, YOLO.

Re: Landlords are trying not to rent to startups in San Francisco

#292

Post by belenos46 »

s73v3r wrote: post #150
bbcbasic wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just start in a garage I'd say. It's cheap and the darkness, the damp and the oil fumes are a motivator to success.

You know, even though you're busy being a startup and all, it honestly does not take that long to clean up a garage.

But then how will you get motivated? Passion? That sounds like it takes time and effort to develop, when I need to be startup-ing!

Re: Landlords are trying not to rent to startups in San Francisco

#293

Post by mooreds »

justinator wrote: post #255
mooreds wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be hard to get hired writing perl in Boulder (I checked out your profile) but if you're interested in other languages, I can do some intros for you. Or you could always move to Amsterdam: http://blog.booking.com/

Having visited Amsterdam, I'd be curious to live there on a permanent basis, although I am also in love with mountains (which the entire country lacks...) - as I think a lot of people who end up in Boulder can relate to. Booking does have a somewhat strange reputation when it comes to their coding style, I'm not sure if I could really come on board fully with their workflow. Ha. I haven't gotten a Perl job in Boulder…

> What am I referring to is the scenario where you can apply for a job, and rarely even expect to hear back from a potential employer, as the total number of people also applying makes that impossible. This, I don't think, is very different from other areas of the country.

Right, I think that is a function of resume spraying, to be honest. I agree that it is pretty common.

Note to employers! You can stand out by treating applicants as human being and simply replying 'no, it doesn't seem like a good fit' when someone applies for a job. I love what Zapier does, for example--they respond to everyone.

Re: Landlords are trying not to rent to startups in San Francisco

#294

Post by beatpanda »

jtfairbank wrote: post #105
dataker wrote: post #39

While in SV, I couldn't understand the hate towards East Bay: it's fairly priced, close to the 'hub' and not as violent as otherwise portrayed. Could anyone elaborate?

I live in West Oakland and the favorite game is still "fireworks or gunshots". Its a great place to live if you're in your 20s, but I wouldn't want to move my family here. Maybe up by Berkeley is better?

Huh, that's funny, because West Oakland is mostly families and they are fighting for their lives to stay in their neighborhood due to pressure from people like you.

P.S. if you're scared, move.

Re: Landlords are trying not to rent to startups in San Francisco

#295

Post by Domenic_S »

pd1 wrote: post #232
Domenic_S wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the East Bay is way bigger than Oakland/Berkeley. Walnut Creek, Pleasant Hill, the Lamorinda area, Danville, Pleasanton -- all very nice, safe towns with good bart access. No startups there though.

Those places are pretty far from SF though. Not unbearable, but you're probably looking at >1hr door to door.

That's the point - you don't have to live in SF or rent office space in SF, you can avoid SF altogether while still having the benefits of the startup scene an hour away.

Re: Landlords are trying not to rent to startups in San Francisco

#296

Post by s73v3r »

SpaceManNabs wrote: post #192
s73v3r wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge tech community, almost perfect weather (it's not San Diego, but it's close), fairly liberal politics, diverse culture (means tons of interesting and fun cultural activities, and lots of interesting places to eat that you don't get somewhere that isn't a larger city). You may not agree with or value those things, but a lot of tech people do.

You don't think similar proportions of people in other fields would also like diverse culture?

I'm sure they might; I don't know. I'm talking about tech people.

Re: Landlords are trying not to rent to startups in San Francisco

#297

Post by Johnny555 »

alextgordon wrote: post #249
s73v3r wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"overhearing office chatter " I honestly do not believe for one second that this is a thing, or that it's a significant thing.

Nothing like a noisy office space to boost productivity!

It's actually not that noisy normally, just the clatter of keyboards.... until there are problems with something, then it can become pretty active. Most people stick with Hipchat or email for routine communications like getting stuck on debugging a piece of code or where to eat lunch -- unless they are talking in one of the break rooms, or they duck into one of the conference rooms. People tend to be pretty cognizant of the open office so if you hear people talking, it's generally something worth listening to.

Re: Landlords are trying not to rent to startups in San Francisco

#298

Post by _delirium »

buro9 wrote: post #21
astazangasta wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually we might consider that rent is just outright theft, we're not actually paying for value, landlords are parasites who suck surplus value from the economy, etc.

> we're not actually paying for value The value you are receiving is location. If you do not care for location, then rent office space in Tennessee where you can pay less than 1/4 of SF prices.

The location is hardly value created by the landlord, though. (The improvements to the land, like buildings, may well be.) Unlike people who earn income by producing something, people who extract ground rent are not adding value. What you're paying for then, is essentially bad luck: due to some complex set of historical reasons, this particular person owns that land and you don't, so you have to pay them a fee to use it. Why do they own it and you don't, when both of you did just as much work to create that land (i.e., none)? Usually you don't want to see how that particular sausage was made; the history of land distribution and acquisition in the U.S. is quite "dirty".

Re: Landlords are trying not to rent to startups in San Francisco

#299

Post by fredkbloggs »

brandnewlow wrote: post #203
arielweisberg wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have they been saying that longer than 24 months?

I did YC back in S11 and people were telling us "Winter is coming" even then. Markets are cyclical but it doesn't make so much sense to stress out about it.

It makes a great deal of sense to stress about it when you have a lot of long-term debt used to purchase your real estate assets, and have some control over the lease terms you offer. If you think the end of the boom part of the cycle is 6 months away, you want to lock people into the longest-term leases possible, so that they expire when the market is again, if not strong, at least not weak. If you think the end of the boom part of the cycle is 4 years away, you want to offer the shortest-term leases the tenant will accept, because they will then be forced to renew at a higher rate.

This is very similar to the dry-bulk market. It should be instructive to look at how companies like DryShips and Diana Shipping handled the enormous spike in the Baltic Dry Index several years ago, how they've fared since, and how they've managed their businesses afterward. The cyclical nature of markets cannot necessarily be controlled, but it can be harnessed to outperform one's peers, and if you are a REIT portfolio manager or smaller property manager, your job depends on doing just that.

Re: Landlords are trying not to rent to startups in San Francisco

#300

Post by DannoHung »

dctoedt wrote: post #278
DannoHung wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The East Texas Shuffle

Austin is considered Central Texas. ( East Texas is famous, or notorious, as where patent trolls like to file their lawsuits.)

Yeah, I was riffing on the idea of finding a favorable municipality for business reasons and actually running your company where you actually want to run it.

Although given the history of this sort of thing, I guess it'd be more appropriate to call it the Maryland Shuffle.

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