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

Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 187 posts

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#151

Post by deanCommie »

war1025 wrote: post #134
davidw wrote: post #105

I am really curious about this trend myself. I live in a town - Bend, Oregon - that already had a lot of remote workers. It also has a housing affordability problem that is getting rapidly worse. I'm also curious about the "non-zoom" towns and what the dynamics might look like there. Bend was already fairly well-known, but there are tons of former mining/logging/ranch towns throughout the west that have access to a l…

> A town of 100K people I know it doesn't really mean anything, but it always just seems peculiar to me when people refer to places with tens or hundreds of thousands of residents as "towns" I guess mainly because the general consensus is that a "town" is smaller than a "city". The "town" I grew up in had about 3k residents. To us, the place a half hour away with the big box stores where we'd do our shopping was the…

It all depends on what you're used to.

I was born in a City of 6 million people.

I then moved to a City of 2 million people. It feels small by comparison.

To me a "city" is a place with an opera house, multiple museums, multiple options for every type of good international cuisines, shops open in the evening, and a transit system beyond bus (tram, or metro/subway).

I lived for a couple of years in a place that was the capital of a European nation, but was only about 600,000 people, and had "only" 3 Ramen restaurants. It felt like a town to me, not a city.

So yeah, I basically feel like every place below 1MM is a town.

In a city, I should to be able to (though I never have, and never will) streak naked down the street during rush hour, and for it to be a non-event. The European capital I lived in that thinks it's a city once had a frontpage story in the daily newspaper with the headline "Man on gets on all fours and barks like a dog at passerbys". That's not a city to me.

3k residents I would call a village.

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#152

Post by dmode »

vmception wrote: post #22
ultimoo wrote: post #7

Right now, being a landlord in SF is looking pretty grim given that tech workers who used to rent are fleeing in droves and those that are not are negotiating their rents. I wonder whether this trend will reverse in the next 1-3 years or this is the new permanent dynamic of the SF rental market.

The midatlantic region is filled with cities that are carcasses of an industrial era that doesn't exist anymore. It's not "doom and gloom" to say that when there are examples of it happening before. San Francisco's tax base is leaving. What do you think is going to happen? Rent wise, San Francisco will just be Anytown, USA with a little bit of scarcity due to plethora of rent control and old tenants with grandfathere…

I moved to SF in 2009 and there were very few tech companies in town and it was in the middle of recession. Even then good places had a bidding war. If you read this Bay Area housing market report[1], you will see that it still showing strength in SFH market. My guess is SF will continue to do fine

[1] https://www.bayareamarketreports.com/trend/san-francisco-hom...

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#153

Post by alexbanks »

wtracy wrote: post #140
shajznnckfke wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re used to receiving BigCo pay and bought a mansion in a remote vacation hotspot, you could be in for a rude awakening if you find other remote jobs pay half as much and your employer knows that and stops giving you refreshes.

This. The FAANG crowd is used to pulling down $100k-$150k. Developer jobs that are advertised as remote from day one tend to be closer to $50k-$70k. (These numbers are based on a combination of rumors and job board postings, so no, I don't have a source to cite.)

This comment is all kinds of wrong. FAANG is "used to" pulling down anywhere from 150-400k.

On the flipside, many many remote jobs pay significantly more than you're describing, more in line with every other non-FAANG developer jobs. If you're just looking at those poorly managed "Remote Job Board" sites, of course you'll think that, because most of those jobs are just subcontracts and gig-type roles.

Yes, there'll be a COL difference, but it's not like you're describing. Gitlab, as an example, pays a Data Engineer in nowhere Indiana 90-120k for remote work.

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#154

Post by dmode »

chrisseaton wrote: post #14

I think a lot of people living in cities think there's only two options - living in an apartment downtown in a megacity, and living in a car-bound wasteland suburb. But there's a third option - towns. I know you have them in the US! I've been to a few of them. Walkable towns with coffee shops, restaurants, bars, culture, dating. You can even find a few in the Bay Area if you don't want to look too far. Isn't the smal…

Totally agreed. I live in a fairly rural town with forested backyards, trees, canyons and creeks and it is only 7 miles from Oakland and 15 miles from SF. Even within Oakland and Berkeley you will find enclaves which feel very rural and quiet

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#155

Post by dmode »

ghaff wrote: post #32
ssequeira wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some examples of Bay Area towns? It seems like everyone in my friend circle in tech lives in San Francisco and puts up (or used to) with the long commute.

Quite a few of the towns in the South Bay have walkable cores: Mountain View, Palo Alto, San Mateo... You also have smaller cities all over the country. Now, you get into truly small towns in places like New England and there really isn't a lot in the town center and it's unlikely you'll be living walking distance from it.

I responded above, but look into Orinda, Lafayette, Moraga, Kensington, Albany. You can also north to Novato, San Rafael, Petaluma. Also, along the coast Pacifica, Moss Bay, Montarra, Half Moon Bay, Pescadero. I would also explore Oakland and Berkeley hills

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#156

Post by vmception »

dmode wrote: post #152
vmception wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The midatlantic region is filled with cities that are carcasses of an industrial era that doesn't exist anymore. It's not "doom and gloom" to say that when there are examples of it happening before. San Francisco's tax base is leaving. What do you think is going to happen? Rent wise, San Francisco will just be Anytown, USA with a little bit of scarcity due to plethora of rent control and old tenants with grandfathere…

I moved to SF in 2009 and there were very few tech companies in town and it was in the middle of recession. Even then good places had a bidding war. If you read this Bay Area housing market report[1], you will see that it still showing strength in SFH market. My guess is SF will continue to do fine [1] https://www.bayareamarketreports.com/trend/san-francisco-hom...

I can't believe you are still trusting real estate agents and mortgage underwriters when half of the market signals are completely missing.....

yes, to them it seems like a lot of business

evictions and foreclosures have barely started in San Francisco and will be completely backlogged

nationwide: a few hundred thousand people playing around with low interests rates, millions of people pending default

like I said, scarcity and views will continue to help San Francisco prices as it has for the last 170 years, but it can also become like those midatlantic satires of civilization.

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#157

Post by Gibbon1 »

epistasis wrote: post #144
pbourke wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need to be building massive amounts of housing in city centers to let as many people live in them that would like to. All else being equal, Americans will choose to live in a detached house on a 1/2 acre lot with an SUV or pickup in the driveway.

This is simply untrue. Some people will, but this sort of “everybody who doesn’t want what I want is lying to themselves” is elitism that destroys people’s chances to live th way they prefer. The higher cost of living in cities is pretty strong evidence that city living is under supplied compared to suburban living.

You can argue back and forth whether people in flyover country hate the idea of living in dense housing or not. But if you peruse city and county planning documents you find that most places it's completely illegal to build greenfield projects with urban density. Instead of being able to build 25-35 units an acre you're allowed 3-4. And no mixed use allowed.

Seems to me the answer is people don't get a choice a most places. Would people outside of old dense cities want to live in a walkable mixed use development? We have no idea because those have been banned since before WWII.

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#158

Post by lotsofpulp »

jpindar wrote: post #42
mjayhn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They almost never have decent internet if you're someone trying to wfh. Most of them are POTS lines only. The ones that have muni fiber would be a possible option but you're making definite trade offs elsewhere. Pubtrans, bike lanes, food options, travel optins, etc.

That's not true. Except for rural areas, most of the US has broadband internet, typically from their cable company.

I don't consider internet via coaxial cable with 300mbps download and 5mbps upload to be broadband. It's probably split between too many houses, and they boost your bandwidth to 300mbps for a minute or two to make it seem like it's fast, but they won't sustain it.

I also don't trust the economic incentives of a company that makes more money selling media than it does proper broadband service.

Dealing with fiber to the home providers is much nicer, with symmetric 1Gbps down and up connections. You can feel the connection is much snappier, have multiple FacetimeHD and HD video streams going, and you don't even notice. And I can stream from my devices at home when I'm away because there is actually available upload bandwidth.

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#159

Post by lotsofpulp »

almost_usual wrote: post #5
alex_g wrote: post #4

"Many Americans — especially 30-somethings who remain employed — are ditching their tiny rental apartments in hip districts of expensive cities and moving to buy houses in more affordable cities or the burbs for a life of shopping at Home Depot and spending their Friday nights eating mozzarella sticks at Applebee's." oof, that's a savage take for NPR.

Who cares about NPR elitism. Why shame people for doing what they want. Hell, the Buffalo Wild Wings in Daly City has a more diverse crowd than any bar or restaurant in SF.

Buffalo Wild Wings followed the same pattern as any other rapidly expanding chain - start with an okay product, get name recognition, expand quickly with excessive financing, and then cut costs (and hence quality) while milking the brand's original reputation.

I'm sure a few people cashed out along the way.

Re: Zoom towns and the new housing market for the two Americas

#160

Post by dmode »

vmception wrote: post #156
dmode wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved to SF in 2009 and there were very few tech companies in town and it was in the middle of recession. Even then good places had a bidding war. If you read this Bay Area housing market report[1], you will see that it still showing strength in SFH market. My guess is SF will continue to do fine [1] https://www.bayareamarketreports.com/trend/san-francisco-hom...

I can't believe you are still trusting real estate agents and mortgage underwriters when half of the market signals are completely missing..... yes, to them it seems like a lot of business evictions and foreclosures have barely started in San Francisco and will be completely backlogged nationwide: a few hundred thousand people playing around with low interests rates, millions of people pending default like I said, sc…

I don't know what are data sources to look for real estate demand other than real estate transactions. Anyways, that's not the broader point I am making. The broader point I am making is that it was a thriving City with or without tech and continue to be one. The Golden Gate bridge, GG park, the ocean, the bay, the museums, the charming hills, and train cars is not going to vanish when all tech workers leave. I fell in love with SF even before I started working in SF.
Post reply on HN