The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up
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The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up
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Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up
#2“It’s a block away from all the tech shuttles,”
Sounds like the secret to making any area an attractive place to live is by making it covienent to mass transit. So, add more [fast] mass transit so people can live in more places.
Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up
#3“It’s a block away from all the tech shuttles,” Sounds like the secret to making any area an attractive place to live is by making it covienent to mass transit. So, add more [fast] mass transit so people can live in more places.
Egads. The capital expenditures.
Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up
#4At the end of the day, the solution is straightforward and clear: build more houses.
The only problem is that humans in SF don't want more houses, especially high rise housing.
Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up
#5“It’s a block away from all the tech shuttles,” Sounds like the secret to making any area an attractive place to live is by making it covienent to mass transit. So, add more [fast] mass transit so people can live in more places.
Egads. The capital expenditures.
And don't forget the infamous SF NIMBYs.
Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up
#6I could write yet another boring comment about how hypocritical and stupid longtime SF residents are because they complain about rising housing costs or being priced out while simultaneously voting to prevent more housing from being built, but I'd rather ask a serious question:
Why do all these Bay-area startups and tech juggernaughts insist that all of their employees squeeze into housing on the peninsula? Of course many of their employees are going to have to work in SF but why is it so impossible to conceive of having a distributed, remote employee base? There are many successful tech companies (and YC startups) that have done this. It would ease the pressure on housing supply/demand, and also make salaries more attractive since engineers would be paid an SF salary but have more earning power by living outside the bubble.
Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up
#7I'm hoping some people start to wake up and realize they don't have to be in SF or Silicon Valley to be successful entrepreneurs or technologists.
Between the harsh northeastern winter, and whats happening in San Francisco, we're making a big push to attract folks with low cost of living and high quality of life in Myrtle Beach, SC through http://WhyNotTheBeach.com.
With so many companies becoming more and more open to remote workers, remote teams, remote offices, I think more cities will have the opportunity to attract highly paid, highly talented individuals for more quality of life reasons instead of congregating in tech hubs.
It just comes down to demonstrating that the resources are available locally, or have advanced enough online so that you're not at a disadvantage. One argument to being in SF is everyone is competing for talent, funding, etc. from the same sources. There are investors and talent elsewhere who would love to get in on opportunities, and I think that can start to turn the tide.
As a transplant from Boston, MA to Myrtle Beach - I was overwhelmed after being in the Boston startup scene and involved with TechStars for 4 years. Boston certainly isn't at the SF level, but I still believe there are compelling arguments for those in Boston, NYC, Philly, SF and elsewhere to consider alternative cities with low cost of living and high quality of life. Time will tell!
Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up
#8I'm hoping some people start to wake up and realize they don't have to be in SF or Silicon Valley to be successful entrepreneurs or technologists. Between the harsh northeastern winter, and whats happening in San Francisco, we're making a big push to attract folks with low cost of living and high quality of life in Myrtle Beach, SC through http://WhyNotTheBeach.com . With so many companies becoming more and more open…
Way easier to recruit employees 50-500 in the valley. - Chris Dixon, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGjGu9gFfO4#t=2119
Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up
#9My wife and I are technically 1%-ers, and we could not oompete enough to buy a house in SF. We gave up and moved to the peninsula. As the article described, one house we bid for had 20 bidders. We bid over $200k above asking, and we were 10th out of 20 bidders. The winning bid was $400k over asking.
But am I resentful? No. It's the reality of the situation. For those that are bitching and moaning about not being able to live in SF, you just have to deal with it.
And I'm quite confident at some point, the prices will abate. The best cure for high housing prices are high housing prices.
And if they don't, then the problems that the article describes still won't come to fruition. Price inflation will creep through to all aspects of life in SF. It's not going to be a complete vacuum where only house prices increase and nothing else. As house prices increase so will the price for everything in SF, including wages.
For example, housing prices are too expensive for teachers to live in SF? Teachers from the East Bay, etc will commute to SF, because salaries will increase, especially salaries for private school teachers. If you're not aware, SF is amongst the worst in terms of schools and even worse at placement of children in schools. A co-worker had a list of approx 15 schools he wanted to send his child, and none of them were selected for him. He was forced to send his child to private school, and as demand increases, so will salaries. Restaurant prices will increase, and so will the salaries of waiters, etc.
Re: The Housing Market With Nowhere to Go but Up
#10I wonder what the impact of a marginal $150-250k/yr single person who lives in a high-rise and rides a company shuttle to work (or wfh) is, on city services.
Roads would be a big one, but if someone uses a company shuttle and/or drives at off-peak hours, it's not that big a deal. Mass transit and roads are sized for peak-time use.
Water (although SF residents use about 10% as much water per person as people with lawns in the Central Valley), electricity (although at PG&E tiered rates, this is probably a profit center), garbage disposal (charged at cost-plus). Unlikely to depend on the "safety net" services in any way, and the marginal impact on police/fire is low as well (private security for the building, compliant with fire codes). Without children, there's no impact on schools, and I don't know of many 150k+/yr income friends who would send their kids to SF public schools.
Indirect expenditure via the private sector seems like the greatest impact -- eating in restaurants, buying in stores, etc. -- but sales tax revenue should account for most of that impact, as well as increased profits for businesses, employment, etc.