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Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

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Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#321

Post by abritinthebay »

5706906c06c wrote: post #49

38, two kids and a wife. Have been living in a 900SQ/FT apt, I don't know how much longer I can take this before rage quitting and relocating somewhere else (don't know where). The sad part, as a ethnic-minority, I have just found our community for my kids, etc. It would be really tragic if I have to tear my kids away from that. Don't get me wrong, my daily 30 minute commute on BART isn't the worst. The worst part is…

If you are paying that much in rent you can afford a mortgage on a larger place that’s a reasonable commute to the city.

Now it'll likely be a condo, not a single-family home (that'll be more, or further way, or not as nice) but it's doable for sure. Not in SF, but just outside (Oakland, Fremont, Daly City, etc)

What you can get will depend on what you can wrangle as a deposit but there are plenty of options if you can get 10% down.

Source: it’s what I did recently and I pay less than that for a 1300sq ft place in Oakland

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#322

Post by wyldfire »

rsynnott wrote: post #291
dboreham wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well...the guy in question is fairly widely disliked in the state (I've met him a few times -- seemed ok but he believes the earth is 4k years old which is .... just weird). He was elected I think because a) many people vote Republican regardless (see Trump) and b) mail in votes had already been counted at the time and this is a state with a high proportion of mail in ballots. I really wouldn't take his actions as an…

4k? The usual fundie lunatic number is 6k. Oh, well, Sumer don't real, I suppose.

Probably just a reference mismatch: instead of the age of the universe, they might've meant its birth/inception around ~4k B.C. (E.).

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#323

Post by dv_dt »

davidw wrote: post #240
lisper wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> California's housing crisis has repercussions all up and down the west coast. You're looking at it the wrong way. It's not that the situation in California has wider repercussions, it's that there is a wider problem whose symptoms happen to manifest themselves earliest in California because it's one of the nicer places to live: there are simply too many people and not enough space for them all to live in the nice p…

> there are simply too many people and not enough space for them all to live in the nice places. Tokyo added more housing than the entire state of California: https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-... And as someone who lived in Europe for a while, I think we've had the technology to house a fair number of people in desirable area for several hundred years. It's the political will that's lacking…

Japan also has somewhat adverse housing regulations that waste a lot of construction. They are likely kept in place to stimulate economic activity - but it's not a particularly friendly environment for home ownership or environmental concerns.

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/disposable-...

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#324

Post by tmh79 »

marcell wrote: post #293

Whenever these threads come up, the NIMBY pitch forks come out. I 100% agree that we should build more housing in the Bay Area, but some perspective is helpful. The Bay Area is already one of the most densely populated regions in America: http://ecpmlangues.u-strasbg.fr/civilization/geography/maps/... And San Francisco is the 3rd most densely populated city in America, if you look at cities with over 100k people: htt…

there is a lot you're leaving out here or misunderstand. The reason that there is a housing crises int he SFBA is that all of the cities in the SFBA have produced an order of magnitude more office space than housing in the past 10 or so years. Look at communities like Cupertino, building the apple space ship for 14k people, but adding virtually no housing to the city. Lather/rinse/repeat for Palo Alto, MPK, MTV, etc and you have a terrible region-wide housing crises.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#325

Post by pc86 »

projectramo wrote: post #294
latencyloser wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle is quickly becoming 'bay area'-ish from what I can tell. Housing is certainly becoming difficult at incredible rates. Here in Bellevue, a colleague of mine bought a house for ~400k, it's now worth well over ~500k only a year later. Many houses in that area also sell for at least 700k+ assuming you can even get an offer in before a cash buyer grabs it. Don't even get me started on the traffic. I run as many of…

This is actually hopeful since there are so many secondary and tertiary tech cities. This means: we should all buy houses in the secondary tech hubs that are still affordable so our kids can afford to have families at tech firms when housing becomes unaffordable.

Or perhaps actually trying to fix the root issue rather than scrambling for the "F you, I got mine" route and buying property you don't need now on the speculation that its value will increase over the next decades.

Companies should be incentivized (by us, software developers) to hire remote workers for jobs that don't need to be physically in an office.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#326

Post by shmerl »

cobookman wrote: post #109
robbrit wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fourth category: people who have lived here for a long time, and were able to buy property back before it became unaffordable. These are typically the managers or senior employees. It makes me wonder that as the young rockstars and H1B recipients age, where will they go? They certainly can't afford to buy a house. I imagine as time goes on, companies in the Bay Area will be awash with young junior talent but will s…

I'm fairly early in my career at a company ( 80-10-10 mortgage on a 1mil home is only 100k down. And the monthly payments split by 2 people (aka a couple) is ~2k / person / month. That's 4k/month all in once you include the tax rebates.

That is a lot. Not everyone has that kind of income per family.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#327

Post by s0rce »

city41 wrote: post #241
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Forced to leave" is a bit strong, evoking images of someone thrust into debtors prison. What would actually happen is they'd sell their house for 5x the price of the same house in a more reasonable housing market, and 10x what they paid for it, and move to a different location with a nicely multiplied bank account. I'll acknowledge that some stability is good. But it has a cost, and that cost is currently much highe…

But what if they don't want to leave? Many of these people have lived here their whole lives. If they must leave due to the market, I'd argue that's being forced out. Even if they do make a tidy profit. Anecdotal, but I've heard this is happening in Hawaii now with vacation home prices skyrocketing, causing natives to get stuck with property taxes they can no longer afford.

So random contrived example based on appriasals I've seen around here (east bay). House paid off a while ago, paid $250k who knows when, property taxes $4k/yr (prop 13), house currently could sell for $1.7M. Person is 65, kids have long moved out. Without prop 13 lets say they would pay $17000 property taxes, maybe less since it would be equitably distributed. So that's $13000 they need to find to not get kicked out.

You say they don't want to move out, can't they simply refinance? Take out $1M against the house. Then draw down on that money to cover the excess taxes you owe and pay the mortgage, this should get you 20 more years in the house, maybe more depending on how the market plays out, could be less if there is a recession but then you the alternatives are you lost the house already since you couldn't afford the higher taxes or the current system where all the new comers/people who relocate are covering for you.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#328

Post by 0x445442 »

beatpanda wrote: post #303
seangrogg wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anecdotally, as one of the "brown people" that is okay with Arizona, I've never been hit by "your papers, please". Ironically, I feel that California offers much less in terms of "open minds" - I am strongly liberal on social matters and advocated for homosexual marriage rights in AZ. Here I feel legitimately scared to mention that I have conservative views on business affairs without fear of potentially losing a job…

Can you name one person who was fired for "conservative views on business affairs", please?

James Damore

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#329

Post by latencyloser »

unohoo wrote: post #302
latencyloser wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seattle is quickly becoming 'bay area'-ish from what I can tell. Housing is certainly becoming difficult at incredible rates. Here in Bellevue, a colleague of mine bought a house for ~400k, it's now worth well over ~500k only a year later. Many houses in that area also sell for at least 700k+ assuming you can even get an offer in before a cash buyer grabs it. Don't even get me started on the traffic. I run as many of…

best thing you can do -- buy a town home or home -- try to manage the minimum 10% down payment (if you can manage 20%, thats great) and then rent out the bedrooms to other single folks. I wish i had done that when i was a entry level software engr.

I'm just above entry level, but by no means a recent grad. Not all of us were lucky enough to land a big software gig right out of college ;)

My family probably wouldn't be too happy to suddenly have roommates. Hah. But yes, if you're young and single, that's a solid option I would think.

Re: Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring

#330

Post by 5706906c06c »

abritinthebay wrote: post #321
5706906c06c wrote: post #49

38, two kids and a wife. Have been living in a 900SQ/FT apt, I don't know how much longer I can take this before rage quitting and relocating somewhere else (don't know where). The sad part, as a ethnic-minority, I have just found our community for my kids, etc. It would be really tragic if I have to tear my kids away from that. Don't get me wrong, my daily 30 minute commute on BART isn't the worst. The worst part is…

If you are paying that much in rent you can afford a mortgage on a larger place that’s a reasonable commute to the city. Now it'll likely be a condo, not a single-family home (that'll be more, or further way, or not as nice) but it's doable for sure. Not in SF, but just outside (Oakland, Fremont, Daly City, etc) What you can get will depend on what you can wrangle as a deposit but there are plenty of options if you c…

I looked over 35th ave, which is fairly decent. Are there other pockets I should be looking at?
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