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Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

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Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#101

Post by WalterSear »

EC1 wrote: post #91
WalterSear wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of those things that is a great idea until it isn't. When your employer goes belly up, in SF, you have to fight off job offers. That's not going to be the case elsewhere. It's also much harder on the employers: if you think finding one good job is hard, try hiring an entire team of decent employees at once. Ultimately, it's worth the extra cost of staying where the tech is, prefixing your city name ala 'S…

So I should keep losing money for the possibility to find another job similar to my last one so I can keep losing money?

If you are losing money, you aren't doing it right.

Sure, maybe you would be better off somewhere where the competition isn't as hard, and the living costs aren't as high.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#102

Post by aianus »

aaronbrethorst wrote: post #4

That's ok. When Airbnb, Square, and Stripe IPO in 12-36 months, all of the people currently flooding into SF to work for them will surely be able to sell their pre-IPO shares to ... Well, I don't know, honestly. I doubt that employee #1000 at Square would even be able to pay the down payment on a SF condo with their earnings. Also, just FYI: Seattle isn't that much cheaper than SF, the people are way meaner, traffic…

Seattle is the worst place I've ever lived in including multiple third world countries. The weather really, really, really sucks to the point where it ruins your whole life.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#103

Post by mason55 »

suryon wrote: post #14
nullrouted wrote: post #2

Which is silly....honestly companies need to start opening offices in more affordable areas. Colorado (Blouder, Denver, The Springs), Texas (Austin, San Antonio), Missouri (Kansas City, Saint Louis)....there are so many places you can put your employees that saves them money as well as your company a lot of money not only in Salaries because you'll be able to employees less but your rent/power/etc.

The problem is they explicitly had to create something like Bay Area. They needed the engineers to be @ place. And the same can happen anywhere if you recreate the Bay Area. Solution: remote work Honestly...160k salaries for some sw roles are silly. But there is need for them because the costs of living are so high. That's plain bs.

> Honestly...160k salaries for some sw roles are silly

When you think about the value that a single SWE can create it's not that crazy

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#104

Post by shlant »

cdnsteve wrote: post #13

Seriously, the number of companies still not hiring remotes is ridiculous. We work in the most flexible industry out there yet most companies still want you sitting in a chair in some downtown office of a giant and expensive city. No thank you. No you don't need to make your entire team remote but you can easily augment a large portion with talented remotes. Keep your high living costs and horrendous commutes, been t…

try moving to SF short term, put in the hours in the office of a flexible, reasonable company and then ask to move to remote after they are more comfortable with you. It worked for me :)

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#105

Post by lukethomas »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #5
nullrouted wrote: post #2

Which is silly....honestly companies need to start opening offices in more affordable areas. Colorado (Blouder, Denver, The Springs), Texas (Austin, San Antonio), Missouri (Kansas City, Saint Louis)....there are so many places you can put your employees that saves them money as well as your company a lot of money not only in Salaries because you'll be able to employees less but your rent/power/etc.

Lyft is moving its customer service team to Nashville due to the cost of SF rent. SFBA companies! Get it together! Learn to be remote teams. It makes you a better company in the end. EDIT: And you're not slaving your employees by forcing them to spend so much of their income on the unnecessary expense of SFBA housing.

Where I work (www.crystalknows.com) is based out of Nashville. I'm remote in Portland, ME (tons of good beer & restaurants) and I pay $1200/mo for a mortgage on a 2bedroom condo on the ocean. Just moved from Boston, and I'm saving a ton on living expenses. SF is the last place on earth I would move to.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#106

Post by acconsta »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #68
shkkmo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Solution: Concentrate your tech workers in a area that isn't hostile to expanding the housing supply when needed.

Which narrows it down to Las Vegas, and Las Vegas is hell on Earth.

New York manages

http://www.wsj.com/articles/construction-in-new-york-city-go...

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#107

Post by geogra4 »

I live in Detroit, own a 4bed/2bath and bike to work everyday for a mortgage that's less than 1/4 of the rent median SF 1br.

SF is a cartoon world. Yes salaries are less here, but I feel so much more at ease owning my place and can live a pretty comfortable life.

If worst comes to worst, there is always remote work.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#108

Post by Nicholas_C »

nullrouted wrote: post #2

Which is silly....honestly companies need to start opening offices in more affordable areas. Colorado (Blouder, Denver, The Springs), Texas (Austin, San Antonio), Missouri (Kansas City, Saint Louis)....there are so many places you can put your employees that saves them money as well as your company a lot of money not only in Salaries because you'll be able to employees less but your rent/power/etc.

There's a PE firm based out of Austin called Vista Equity Partners that does this. Recently they purchased a tech company and moved their headquarters from San Diego to downtown Dallas. This is probably a great way (for the PE firm) to get high salary employees to quit and hire employees at the lower Dallas salary rates. Also probably a stealthy way for them to shed headcount without layoffs and without running the risk of ruining the culture and having the black mark of layoffs.

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#109

Post by santaclaus »

vessenes wrote: post #24
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ssh! You're not supposed to tell!

Time honored trope for PNW residents: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keep_the_Bastards_Out Every few years these Californians muck everything up with their SF equity turned into bidding wars, and their fancy cars and stuff.

Reminds of the anti-California stickers that went up around Portland: http://www.oregonlive.com/front-porch/index.ssf/2015/09/no_c...

Stickers, that'll keep 'em out!

Re: Employees at Airbnb, Square and Stripe Are Spending 50%+ of Income on SF Rent

#110

Post by bri3d »

jimmyhmiller wrote: post #85
nullrouted wrote: post #2

Which is silly....honestly companies need to start opening offices in more affordable areas. Colorado (Blouder, Denver, The Springs), Texas (Austin, San Antonio), Missouri (Kansas City, Saint Louis)....there are so many places you can put your employees that saves them money as well as your company a lot of money not only in Salaries because you'll be able to employees less but your rent/power/etc.

Boulder is one of the places I was looking to move. But looking at houses there it seemed far from affordable. Is that not the case?

In Boulder itself houses are far from affordable (but also still far below Bay-area prices) due to growth restriction, but since Boulder is very small in terms of land area the surrounding towns are an easy commute compared to anywhere in the Bay area. And while the locals like to complain about getting scammed out of commuter rail, the existing bus mass transit to and from Denver and the suburbs along Highway 36 is really pretty decent (albeit expensive unless your company or company's tax district subsidizes the pass).
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