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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

#271

Post by tdylan »

doyoulikeworms wrote: post #264

I don't know if this kind of comment is appreciated on HN, so I apologize in advance. Why is rent so high in SF and the Bay Area in general? Can anyone recommend good reading material on this topic?

Any econ101 book will do. I'd suggest Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell.

Short version: Supply (housing) is being artificially restrained from being built out (through regulation). While demand (those moving to the area) keeps increasing. Low supply and high demand = higher prices.

Solution: Build more housing.

It's a simple problem, navigating the bureaucracy is the hard part.

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

#273

Post by wsterling »

WalterSear wrote: post #187
mooreds wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had multiple clients (I'm a developer and a contractor) who had job reqs open for months at a good pay scale and had a heck of a time finding people in the Boulder Denver area. I think that the tech frenzy is great enough that people are fighting over tech folks in other areas--maybe not as violently as in SF, but still fighting.

What is considered a 'good' pay scale outside the bay area?

In Denver and Boudler I'm seeing SWE postings with salary 100K - 160K. Not really much different then SF and a lot cheaper housing. You are really much better off in Colorado then Norhter California. Don't tell anyone!

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

#274

Post by gricardo99 »

s73v3r wrote: post #266
gricardo99 wrote: post #152

I recently turned-down a great job offer for a Bay area tech company. Their office was just too far outside my commute range. I even offered to remote-work part-time and be in the office some days a week (I had already been a 100% remote worker for 3+ years, so I had a proven track record as a remote worker). But the founder insisted everyone be on-site, daily, even though many aspects of the company were quite comfo…

"This "must be colocated" mind-set is lose-lose no matter which way you cut it." Is it? Are they that starved for talent? You turned it down, but was it that hard for them to find another?

Sure, they'll find someone more local, eventually. recruiting is a cost and challenge. Self-imposing an additional barrier, one that technology melted away over a decade ago, just baffles.

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

#275

Post by aianus »

sawthat wrote: post #222
roymurdock wrote: post #61

I always see articles like this and I wonder...who is winning here? I'm waiting for an article to break out the stats on who owns which property in these types of areas. What % of housing is owned by the government, foreign investors, domestic investors, institutional investors, real-estate holding companies, and the actual inhabitants of the property? For all we know, the whole story could just be that tech companie…

Long story short: people that own single family homes in SF are winning the most because of the massive gains in value and we don't have to pay increased property taxes because of proposition 13. Basically anyone who currently owns property in SF is a "winner" and that includes the many small time property owners that own the 2-6 unit buildings that dominate the city. The rent money is flowing to those people. Who pr…

> proposition 13

Wow, had to look this up. That is one insane law.

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

#276

Post by philsnow »

Redoubts wrote: post #238
jusben1369 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody is running with your Seattle humor but your comment on IPO'ing is worth discussing. 1) The reason a startup is appealing is because you're supposed to make a great low 6 or even 7 figure sum once your company goes public. 2) To achieve success you're supposed to work intensely hard and smart (@pmarca) for a short period of time (3 - 7 years) and then if you've picked successfully you'll create a really nice…

>while you're peers who graduated will only be up to around $50K in their contributing 401K's I'm saving quite a bit with my $bigcorp job, and at the current rate, I'd be way over that in 3 to 7 years.

Contribution limit has been 17500 or 18000 last few years, it's only expected to go up, and lots of bigcorps have good 401k matching.

Also, the 17.5k (plus possible match) that you put in 3-7 years ago has been compounding for 3-7 years. Sure, the stock market may have taken a tumble in the interim and you might say that that means you end up with less in your 401k, which is true, but broad market movements affect startups' prospects as well, so you are still likely to come out ahead with the safe bigcorp option.

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

#277

Post by philsnow »

ryandrake wrote: post #232
sawthat wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Long story short: people that own single family homes in SF are winning the most because of the massive gains in value and we don't have to pay increased property taxes because of proposition 13. Basically anyone who currently owns property in SF is a "winner" and that includes the many small time property owners that own the 2-6 unit buildings that dominate the city. The rent money is flowing to those people. Who pr…

Local and elderly. Prop 13 is basically wealth transfer from the young/newcomers to the old-timers.

the new new california gold rush already happened; it ended when all the bay area real estate was bought up

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

#278

Post by dkns »

ecdavis wrote: post #186
azakai wrote: post #136

The reasoning here seems wrong. Yes, > "the rule of thumb is that you shouldn't spend more than 30% of your monthly take home on rent", as they say, but that's just a rule of thumb. What actually matters is how much money you end up with. For example, assuming taxes remove 30% of income (probably close enough; would need to look up federal and state tax codes to be precise), 1. A Zynga employee makes 147,000, loses 3…

The 33/33/33 rule aims to provide you with enough savings to cover your current cost of living in retirement. It's based on the assumption that your cost of living won't drastically change in the meantime. That assumption breaks down when you're living in a very high cost of living area where you don't intend to retire. I doubt that very many people who live in 1BR apartments in downtown SF will maintain that lifesty…

For those who don't know 33/33/33 rule is it rent/expenses/savings?

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

#280

Post by ecdavis »

dkns wrote: post #278
ecdavis wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 33/33/33 rule aims to provide you with enough savings to cover your current cost of living in retirement. It's based on the assumption that your cost of living won't drastically change in the meantime. That assumption breaks down when you're living in a very high cost of living area where you don't intend to retire. I doubt that very many people who live in 1BR apartments in downtown SF will maintain that lifesty…

For those who don't know 33/33/33 rule is it rent/expenses/savings?

I think it started as expenses/spending/saving but has now become rent/other expenses+spending/savings.

Recently I've seen other "rules" emerge which are far heavier on the expenses. Fidelity, for instance, suggests a 50/15/5 split between expenses/retirement savings/short term savings. I think having such high expenses is pretty risky, myself.

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