Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds

mercurynews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 328 posts

Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds

#151

Post by davidw »

muzz wrote: post #136
ericd wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, repealing Prop 13, so that property taxes rise with the value. Or increasing property taxes as you get more homes. Both of these would decrease housing prices significantly.

Given that the supply of land cannot be increased (the huge omission in GP's argument), repealing Prop 13 is indeed a large part of the solution.

Thanks to technology, the supply of land is not really the constraint on housing supply in most of San Francisco, and especially not in most of the Bay Area.

Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds

#152

Post by jsonne »

AndrewUnmuted wrote: post #137
jsonne wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to clarify that I'm not picking on you, but I loathe this attitude. I see it in Denver constantly. I moved here, but now we're full up. Ironically, it mostly comes from people that are transplants themselves. It's rather elitist to tell people where they can and can't live especially with the "forget you, I got mine" dynamic going on from the transplants themselves.

I think that the OP's intent at humor just wooshed right by you. The OP author was poking fun at the situation, by making up things about Austin so that people don't rush there like they did San Francisco.

>by making up things about Austin so that people don't rush there like they did San Francisco.

No this is exactly what I thought OP meant and is just a softer way of telling people to not move somewhere.

Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds

#153

Post by shimon »

oxryly1 wrote: post #31
jseliger wrote: post #8

Makes sense. I wrote a piece called "Do millennials have a future in Seattle? Do millennials have a future in any superstar cities?" ( http://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a-futu... ) that focuses on Seattle, but the problems in SF are even worse. We're seeing decades of parochial land use policies turn into affordability crises in SF and similar cities. Which is why so many people are moving to Texa…

You can have good mass transit or affordable housing, but not both. This sucks.

This is a very insightful comment.

It's also important to understand the reason you can't have both, in the US, is political. Infrastructure spending in the US is currently below depreciation (http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2015/03/10/spending-on-our-cru...) so we aren't building mass transit at a rate that meets growing demand. Rich, mobile people buy up property in cities and along transit lines. If we invested in transit we could make a lot of underused housing useful.

Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds

#154

Post by freyr »

Xcelerate wrote: post #26

Is the Bay Area no longer a good place to start a career? I'm close to finishing up my PhD, and my original plan was to apply to work at the tech companies that I find most interesting. For the most part, these are located in the Bay Area — although some are in New York, Austin, Boston, Seattle, Raleigh, and Atlanta. I figured I would stay there 2-4 years tops though, since my family and girlfriend live in the southe…

There's still opportunity here (in terms of good experience and good salary) but it's not guaranteed. There are also plenty of startups will try to convince you work for $100k/year plus a lottery ticket (equivalent to $54k in Austin, $57k in Georgia). That would give me pause.

While a lot of companies will try to lowball you, others will pay well if you apply some pressure. There was recently a post here by a guy who learned to programming at a coding bootcamp and soon after got an offer for $210k+ total compensation. At that level (depending on how liquid that offer is) you won't really be suffering nor living lavishly.

Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds

#155

Post by davidw »

_delirium wrote: post #148
ericd wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternatively, repealing Prop 13, so that property taxes rise with the value. Or increasing property taxes as you get more homes. Both of these would decrease housing prices significantly.

Taxing vacant real estate is another tool used in some countries and cities. One way of doing it is via an imputed rental income: if a property is not owner-occupied, then the owners are deemed to be earning a rental income (either market rate, or if rent-controlled, then whatever the set rate is), regardless of whether they actually bother to rent it out or not. That increases the cost of sitting on empty housing. (…

Yeah, something like that might work too, although it can be kind of invasive in the sense that now you need to check if people are living in a place. In Italy, that meant that the police send someone around for a look inside the house where you say you recently moved to. In theory, at least - they don't always.

Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds

#156

Post by hkmurakami »

windlep wrote: post #5

I'm sure the fact that there's an increasing trend of empty Chinese investment properties isn't helping. I grew up in Cupertino, and when I visit my parents there, I'm rather shocked at how downhill the neighborhood has gone in parts. It's crazy that these old 70's tract homes go for 1.5 million. Even more insane is that they're bought and then left empty to go downhill. Literally broken windows and paint falling off…

I have to question the moral scruples of many of the real estate brokers who are selling these inflated properties to Chinese investors as if they are can't miss, can't fall, foolproof investments.

A real estate friend has actually refused to represent clients on the buy side for a couple of years now since he cannot in good conscience facilitate a transaction that he seems as questionable in judgment.

Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds

#157

Post by dpark »

tyingq wrote: post #113
tzakrajs wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to your list: the bigotry of the Texan people seeps into Austin, the job market is tiny compared to the Bay, it is in a state where Republicans call the shots regarding social issues, their tech job market is dominated by contracted talent firms, and it gets hot as hell.

>> the bigotry of the Texan people A somewhat interesting counterpoint: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/04/28/the-m...

I seriously question the validity of that study. Racism has many forms and targets. You can't capture an objective measure of racism by looking purely at trends for the "n-word". You're capturing the researchers' bias as much as the subjects' racism. A foreign exchange student from Germany once remarked to me how she found it so odd that white and black students largely segregated themselves in the cafeteria (this was high school in rural Tennessee) and that she couldn't understand the racist tendencies that lead to this. Then I studied in Germany and realized that 1) there are very few black people there [1], and 2) plenty of Germans are racist against other populations, especially Muslims.

I wonder what this study would find if it expanded the "racist term" set. Maybe Texans are very racist against Mexicans. Maybe Washingtonians are especially racist against Asians. [2]

[1] It's not hard to overlook racism directed at a tiny fraction of the population because you just don't see it much. I didn't think there were really people in the US racist against Jews until I was an adult and encountered people who grew up around sizeable Jewish populations.

[2] I'm not asserting either of these as fact.

Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds

#158

Post by swang »

blackhaz wrote: post #100
jonny_eh wrote: post #13

What's the number of people that want to move to the Bay Area though?

I'm thinking about moving to either Bay Area or Los Angeles with a family, from Prague. I have a 7 years old kid. I am not sure if that's the right thing. We're doing it for the climate. It's really difficult to find a warm English-speaking country where you won't be culturally isolated from the rest of the world. I can work pretty much from anywhere, however I am not a magnate. Things definitely to be missed: - Prag…

everyone wants to be in california because the climate is never brutal on either ends. although it has gotten hotter and hotter in most recent years.

but if you are considering living anywhere in california, and want nice warm weather, you should also consider orange county (~30-40 minute drive from LA depending), san diego (~3 hours south of LA) and santa barbara (~2 hours? west of LA, nice but maybe a little more expensive and also prob fewer tech jobs). the sf bay area gets colder than southern california but nothing extreme, it doesn't really snow and rain is infrequent (both a good/bad thing for california).

Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds

#159

Post by davidw »

oxryly1 wrote: post #31
jseliger wrote: post #8

Makes sense. I wrote a piece called "Do millennials have a future in Seattle? Do millennials have a future in any superstar cities?" ( http://jakeseliger.com/2015/09/24/do-millennials-have-a-futu... ) that focuses on Seattle, but the problems in SF are even worse. We're seeing decades of parochial land use policies turn into affordability crises in SF and similar cities. Which is why so many people are moving to Texa…

You can have good mass transit or affordable housing, but not both. This sucks.

Where I lived in Italy had pretty good mass transit (although not up to northern European levels, most likely) and reasonable house prices.

Because it's dense.

Re: One-third of SF Bay Area residents hope to leave soon, poll finds

#160

Post by [deleted] »

jonstokes wrote: post #4

Please don't come to Austin. I moved from SF to Austin a little over two years ago, and I want to make it clear that it's terrible. The food is bad, the people are lame, and all the musicians are out of tune. I hear Chicago is where it's at, so please go there. Or New York. Or anywhere else, really. Just don't come to Austin.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN