Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#321

Post by 8note » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:36 AM UTC

danhak wrote: post #218

xvector wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's such a terrible state. Infested with ultrawide roads and zero walkability. Women don't have bodily autonomy - imagine trying to raise a daughter in such an environment. I'd hope that alone would deter engineers with families from the state. Not to mention the a worthless human being of a governor. Backwards politics and ideals. It's a joke of a state, everything wrong with America hyper-concentrated on steroids.…

There are many millions of people in the country that don't share your politics. Some of them are even engineers with families.

I don't know which people like sitting in traffic. Wide roads is a sign of sitting in traffic.

Family wise though, moving to Texas is bad for half the members of your family. Half the people in your family, aren't going to agree with the Texas government's views, whether you want to force them to or not.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#322

Post by bdowling » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:37 AM UTC

thebradbain wrote: post #284

bdowling wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If California somehow repealed Prop 13... In November 2020, California scaled back on some of the benefits of Prop 13 for families. Prior to Prop 19, properties could pass from parents to children and the property tax basis would not increase. Now, the benefit is limited to the parents' primary residence, the inheriting child or children need to reside in the property for one year as their primary residence, and th…

Well, considering most of those heirs who are not using it as their primary home would just end up using those homes to rent out at market rate anyways, it makes sense to tax it. If they don't want to deal with that, they can just sell it. Commercial properties over $3 million were also affected. Those moving into the inherited home as their primary residence a̶r̶e̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶a̶f̶f̶e̶c̶t̶e̶d̶ EDIT (see comment below):…

> Those moving into the inherited home as their primary residence are not affected.

Not true. Only $1m of assessed value is excluded for heirs moving into an inherited property as a primary residence. Inheriting property worth more than $1m is not a bad problem to have, but in places like Los Angeles it means that a lot of people not be able to afford to live in the property and will be faced with either fixing it up for use as a rental or selling the home they grew up in.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#323

Post by falcolas » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:38 AM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #56

The official reason is because of housing: "To be clear we will be continuing to expand our activities in California," Musk said. "Our intention is to increase output from Fremont and Giga Nevada by 50%. If you go to our Fremont factory it's jammed." But, he added, "It's tough for people to afford houses, and people have to come in from far away....There's a limit to how big you can scale in the Bay Area." https://ww…

Will Tesla's employee salaries remain the same, or will they go down commensurately like every other re-located SV employee?

Because $300k houses are still pretty darned expensive when you're not making SV salaries.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#324

Post by muzz » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:38 AM UTC

scoofy wrote: post #265

seabrookmx wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even just the bay area but the whole coast. Look at prices in Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, or out east. They all easily top Austin. I think it's a good thing. Austin has a budding tech scene. Hopefully the political shitstorm there blows over so people actually want to live there.

>budding Literally Dell Computers is from Austin.

Yeah it's been about a 30-year drought for the Austin area since Dell

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#325

Post by ab_testing » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:38 AM UTC

I think that people living in these high tax and spend states are starting to ask that what are they getting for paying these high taxes. For example New York spends 9000 per person as part of their budget whereas Texas spends around $3700 per resident. Are the services rendered in NY really 3x better than those in TX.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#326

Post by mullingitover » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:38 AM UTC

boringg wrote: post #296

throw0101a wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean are you seriously comparing affordability of Austin to the bay area? How is the sprawl in Austin compared to the Bay Area? A lot of times land/housing is cheap/er, but you 'pay' for that will long/er commutes in bad traffic. And often with few/no options for public transit.

I feel for everyone as the prices are getting stupid everywhere.... BUTTTT I just looked on Redfin - I could buy a 3300 square foot house in Austin for under $900k with a huge pool and that was a 5 second search. No offense all you Austin folk, but you literally have no clue.

I'd be careful about directly comparing prices, real estate taxes (by rate) in Texas are significantly higher than in California. They might be overall lower given that the real estate prices are cheaper, but Texas is #6 in the country for real estate taxes while California is #34[1].

[1] https://taxfoundation.org/high-state-property-taxes-2021/

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#327

Post by thebradbain » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:38 AM UTC

boringg wrote: post #296

throw0101a wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mean are you seriously comparing affordability of Austin to the bay area? How is the sprawl in Austin compared to the Bay Area? A lot of times land/housing is cheap/er, but you 'pay' for that will long/er commutes in bad traffic. And often with few/no options for public transit.

I feel for everyone as the prices are getting stupid everywhere.... BUTTTT I just looked on Redfin - I could buy a 3300 square foot house in Austin for under $900k with a huge pool and that was a 5 second search. No offense all you Austin folk, but you literally have no clue.

Taxes for that home in TX would be equivalent to a $1.8M+ home in CA, though (and raise every year with the market), so it's not as simple as comparison. The monthly mortgage payment for a $900k in Austin is probably comparable to a $1.2-1.3M home in CA.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#328

Post by muzz » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:39 AM UTC

pvarangot wrote: post #158

etchalon wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who just bought a house in Austin this year, if the reason is "affordable housing", they're in for a world of hurt.

I talked to several Tesla and former Tesla folks that will probably relocate because of this, and the say is that since Austin in less NIMBY than the Bay Area new housing will get built and prices will go down. It's a more complex bet than just "we move there because houses are affordable now".

Everyone I've talked to is staying put. Friends, families, social roots, etc are deep I guess.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#329

Post by gopi » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

somethoughts wrote: post #164

danhak wrote: post #34

California's tax regime is really backward. I suspect Tesla's departure is just the tip of the iceberg and that the repeal of the SALT deduction in 2017 really hastened this trend. High earners pay an effective tax rate of > 50%. They are partially picking up the slack from Prop 13, which artificially distorts the housing market by allowing longtime homeowners to pay property taxes based on decades-old assessed value…

Resource driven economies like Texas can maintain a low income tax by deriving most of their tax revenue from property taxes and taxing oil and gas revenues. IMHO the high income tax regime found in California is actually a function of high density, high income, knowledge based earners moving in. If enough of them arrive, demands for services (schools, fire, police) and infrastructure (i.e. light rail, etc.) will inc…

California actually spends less per student on education than even many poor states. For all their virtue signaling about public transport, CA don't even have universal school bus service (which is table-stake in most states). Most parents drive individually and drop kids!

Just compare the building/facilities of any top bay area public school with that of Texas. The former look like shack while the latter look like mini universities. Bay area schools still rank higher because of students and parents, its nothing to do with the state.

Re: Tesla’s headquarters will move to Austin

#330

Post by the_svd_doctor » Fri, Oct 08, 2021, 1:40 AM UTC

CalChris wrote: post #230

gfitz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think housing would be the “official” reason as Elon is keenly aware of how hard it is to buy a house in central Texas right now. Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-austin-texas-housi...

Compared to the Peninsula, Austin is basically free. Median home price in Austin is $575,000. Median home price in Palo Alto, where the current Tesla HQ is, is $3,488,610.

To be fair, no one really looks at Palo Alto when buying a first home…