Bay Area Home Prices by Transit Stop • Hacker News Board

Re: Bay Area Home Prices by Transit Stop

#71

Post by xjlin0 » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 3:55 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #23

evmar wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This article[1] claims that the "national average commute time is 24.4 minutes" and that "the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont region is also No. 1 for commute distance" in the country. [1] http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/03/05/san-francisco-bay-area-n...

30 minutes doesn't seem that bad. If you commute to Manhattan, you're looking at least 45 minutes door to door from most directions. Not to worry, within another 30 years technology will solve the problem and mass transit will achieve great speeds, like 100 mph. The average commuter train/subway now has to be less than 50 mph. Get on a train in Mountain View and arrive in San Francisco in 15 minutes.

It is the frequent/nearby stops that make the mass transit slow today. Nowadays all trains/bus engines can drive cars to 80mph already.

Re: Bay Area Home Prices by Transit Stop

#72

Post by quantisan » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 4:02 PM UTC

EarthIsHome wrote: post #12

Related somewhat: Atlanta median income down MARTA's Red line (travels North to South) http://news.wabe.org/post/atlanta-biggest-gap-between-rich-a...

One for Greater Boston http://www.wbur.org/2013/01/30/boston-apartments-heat-map

Re: Bay Area Home Prices by Transit Stop

#73

Post by dasil003 » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 4:17 PM UTC

bencoder wrote: post #61

zumatic wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And here's one for London: https://www.thrillist.com/lifestyle/london/london-undergroun... Direct link to large-scale map: http://assets3.thrillist.com/v1/image/1560005 Note we tend to think of flats in terms of number of bedrooms. Hatton Cross is right next to Heathrow airport, if you're wondering why it is so cheap.

http://www.findproperly.co.uk/price-per-square-foot.php#.Vv-... This map has areas of london by square foot for a closer comparison, but isn't by tube stops. Looks like we are more expensive than the bay area, if you go by area - We live in much smaller houses than in America, I believe

I've lived in both recently, and London definitely wins for more the more decrepit Victorian stock, but SF is no stranger to the flat conversion phenomenon and I'd say the average living space in the city is not much bigger than London.

However what tips the scales for London being more affordable IMHO is the fact that there is not 500 square miles of water smack in the middle spreading everything out. For instance in London I lived 9 tube stops from the center and it was < 5 miles by bicycle. In the Bay Area I also live 9 BART stops from downtown SF but it is 15 miles, I can't cycle (because no bike path over the bay bridge), and I get less for my money relative to London. Throw on the anemic transit here, and London is much more doable on a budget.

Re: Bay Area Home Prices by Transit Stop

#74

Post by thesimon » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 4:34 PM UTC

dasil003 wrote: post #73

bencoder wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.findproperly.co.uk/price-per-square-foot.php#.Vv-... This map has areas of london by square foot for a closer comparison, but isn't by tube stops. Looks like we are more expensive than the bay area, if you go by area - We live in much smaller houses than in America, I believe

I've lived in both recently, and London definitely wins for more the more decrepit Victorian stock, but SF is no stranger to the flat conversion phenomenon and I'd say the average living space in the city is not much bigger than London. However what tips the scales for London being more affordable IMHO is the fact that there is not 500 square miles of water smack in the middle spreading everything out. For instance i…

>London is much more doable on a budget.

Agree, even though the story is probably a bit different for developers due to the difference in salary.

Re: Bay Area Home Prices by Transit Stop

#75

Post by rflrob » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 4:38 PM UTC

govspy wrote: post #70

I would have thought living near the airport would be the cheapest square footage on that map. In Toronto they can barely give away apartments located near Pearson Airport due to the incessant noise (and some crime, probably associated with the low purchase price of the apartments). The prices are ~50% of what they are everywhere else in the city.

That is largely true for the east bay—the Coliseum Bart station is the transfer point to the Oakland airport. And the neighborhoods around SFO are not nearly as gentrified as many others nearby on the peninsula.

Re: Bay Area Home Prices by Transit Stop

#76

Post by bonniemuffin » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 4:42 PM UTC

dclowd9901 wrote: post #67

I can't understand why DC and Colma remain so cheap (comparably). Sure, the area doesn't have as much walking distance locales but a quick Bart ride will get you anywhere you want to go. Are people really that sensitive to small inconvenience?

I wonder if Colma has a stigma due to being full of graveyards? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colma,_California

I've actually thought about moving out of SF proper into Colma someday because it seems underpriced for its location and amenities. Daly City is quite nice too -- agreed that that part of the map looks like the best deals around.

Re: Bay Area Home Prices by Transit Stop

#77

Post by badusername » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 5:11 PM UTC

dclowd9901 wrote: post #67

I can't understand why DC and Colma remain so cheap (comparably). Sure, the area doesn't have as much walking distance locales but a quick Bart ride will get you anywhere you want to go. Are people really that sensitive to small inconvenience?

DC and Colma also suffer from some of the worst fog cover through out the year around the area.

Re: Bay Area Home Prices by Transit Stop

#78

Post by melling » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 5:12 PM UTC

xjlin0 wrote: post #71

melling wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30 minutes doesn't seem that bad. If you commute to Manhattan, you're looking at least 45 minutes door to door from most directions. Not to worry, within another 30 years technology will solve the problem and mass transit will achieve great speeds, like 100 mph. The average commuter train/subway now has to be less than 50 mph. Get on a train in Mountain View and arrive in San Francisco in 15 minutes.

It is the frequent/nearby stops that make the mass transit slow today. Nowadays all trains/bus engines can drive cars to 80mph already.

No, do the math. The express trains and subways aren't that fast either. Some are much slower because of frequent stops but that's not the only problem.

Re: Bay Area Home Prices by Transit Stop

#79

Post by mrbabbage » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 5:19 PM UTC

chipsy wrote: post #43

omegaworks wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>BART's deployment there is effectively transit as a "handout" policy Is that really how it's framed?

It's coded. You see "handout" named as such more often when it's low-quality, inefficient service. With a system like BART, the whole thing was motivated by pressure to relieve middle-class downtown commuters specifically, and everyone else by chance(hence a design without redundancy that requires a midnight service shutdown). Geometry forces it to pass through many types of communities, but during construction, the…

I highly recommend that you check out the book Mass transit and the politics of technology: a study of BART and the San Francisco Bay Area. It's a different, if similarly unflattering, take on the forces that shaped BART's eventual geometry.

https://www.worldcat.org/title/mass-transit-and-the-politics...

Re: Bay Area Home Prices by Transit Stop

#80

Post by dasil003 » Sat, Apr 02, 2016, 5:57 PM UTC

thesimon wrote: post #74

dasil003 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lived in both recently, and London definitely wins for more the more decrepit Victorian stock, but SF is no stranger to the flat conversion phenomenon and I'd say the average living space in the city is not much bigger than London. However what tips the scales for London being more affordable IMHO is the fact that there is not 500 square miles of water smack in the middle spreading everything out. For instance i…

>London is much more doable on a budget. Agree, even though the story is probably a bit different for developers due to the difference in salary.

True although that's changing. London salaries outside The City used to seem to top out around £60k, but in recent years that ceiling has been broken. Meanwhile, Google and Facebook still pay ridiculous salaries, but smaller companies can't afford that, and with funding slowing down it's going to lead to even more belt tightening. You might be surprised how many people in tech are working for $50k, $60k, $70k in SF these days.