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

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

blog.onradpad.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 288 posts

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

#31

Post by suryon »

whalesalad wrote: post #7

This is not surprising at all. We keep complaining about it here and elsewhere but it's not going to change any time soon. The more people flock to SF the worse it will become. When I left SF my studio "jr. one-bedroom" in SOMA was $3100 a month. I'd walk or muni to work by the ballpark and usually saw at least one person smoking meth, shooting up heroin, or pissing on the street. I pay less than half of that now for…

3100 is almost double the average salary of IT worker in Central/Eastern Europe and these people are considered middle class.

Take a look at China and India there they earn even less.

How many and for how long can these companies keep hiring people for such huge salaries ? And if these people can't live comfortably off these salaries then there is something wrong.

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

#32

Post by dataker »

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…

Assuming they'll IPO is a pretty bold statement.

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

#33

Post by WalterSear »

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.

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 'Silicon xxx' not withstanding.

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

#34

Post by seanmcdirmid »

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.

Today we substitute Californians with Chinese, but same old same old. I'm a Seattlite living in Beijing, and you don't see me messing with their real estate market (I wouldn't go near it with a 10 foot pole).

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

#35

Post by aaronbrethorst »

dataker wrote: post #32
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…

Assuming they'll IPO is a pretty bold statement.

Considering that any of the above might not makes the economics for employee #1000 that much worse.

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

#36

Post by steven2012 »

Most people don't live by themselves in a 1 bedroom. They usually live 2+ people per room, so that they can afford it. For example, a 2 br apt might have 5 people living there, two couples and then one living in the living room. That's how they can afford the $5000/month rent.

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

#37

Post by 20years »

Why aren't more companies investing in building out remote teams? Have the main office with a small core team in SF but hire remote devs, customer service, sales. Seems like it would save companies a ton of money and devs would be happier too because they would actually be pocketing more.

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

#38

Post by blisterpeanuts »

I love these high salaries. My thought is to find a job in SF, live there temporarily for 3-6 months, then become remote and move back to my real home on the east coast. Is that feasible? Aren't these kinds of companies pretty comfortable these days with video conferencing, IM, screen sharing etc.?

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

#39

Post by yid »

vessenes wrote: post #12
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 way, way cheaper, the people seem nice to me, and we've had like 9 months of sun, so much so that we were declared officially in drought. Just saying. Might not be Seattle that's the problem. As to traffic, I commute via boat, which is rad, since there are dolphins and orcas sometimes. Seriously!

Not to mention the lack of state income tax...

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

#40

Post by Animats »

That's the new normal.

In the 1950s, the average New York City resident paid 10% of the income for rent. It was federal, state, and city policy to keep rents down, with new low-cost housing being built by Government agencies and insurance companies.

Post reply on HN