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San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

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Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#81

Post by maxsilver »

dionidium wrote: post #47
blhack wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's 2016, and people still think that if someone moves into your neighborhood, someone else has to move out. How does this work in your head? When the new homes are being built, where do the people who were living on the land they're being built on go?

They go into higher-density buildings, just like everybody else. That, or nothing changes and they get priced out. Those are the options.

Except higher-density buildings still equally price people out. There's no such thing as new urban apartments/condos that are cheaper than the houses they replaced.

A 500k house never gets torn down to become 3 400k condos. It becomes 3 600-800+k condos.

We should build more, because we need it. But "build more" can't be the only tool to lower prices, because simple observation shows us that it doesn't work.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#82

Post by dkopi »

maxsilver wrote: post #81
dionidium wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They go into higher-density buildings, just like everybody else. That, or nothing changes and they get priced out. Those are the options.

Except higher-density buildings still equally price people out. There's no such thing as new urban apartments/condos that are cheaper than the houses they replaced. A 500k house never gets torn down to become 3 400k condos. It becomes 3 600-800+k condos. We should build more, because we need it. But "build more" can't be the only tool to lower prices, because simple observation shows us that it doesn't work.

You can't judge pricing in a market that's very restrictive. Sprinkling a few higher density buildings in area with rapidly growing demand isn't going to be enough to lower prices.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#83

Post by maxsilver »

Apocryphon wrote: post #46

So are there any tech hubs right now that aren't dealing with issues of rent increases, gentrifications, and growing pains?

No. At least, none that I'm aware of.

There are a number of cities that have significantly less of these problems. But that's primarily because they have other, different major problems that they are struggling with instead. (High violent crime, financial crisis, lack of employment or far-lower-than-average incomes, etc)

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#84

Post by Qworg »

sov wrote: post #29
Apocryphon wrote: post #9

"They’ve increased 38 percent in Seattle, 12 percent in Austin and 6 percent in Phoenix." The article names the usual suspects for engineer emigrants (Austin, Portland, strangely no mention of NYC or Raleigh RTP), but why are people moving to Phoenix? Isn't living in the less sexy areas of South Bay (Sunnyvale, Milpitas, South San Jose) pretty much on par with urban life in Phoenix?

It's interesting that Seattle's rent has raised 38 percent, but I am left wondering if some of that is related to their ~37% minimum wage increase in the last year.

Unlikely. Someone earning minimum wage couldn't live there anyways. The more likely culprit are the hordes of tech people moving into every nook and cranny.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#85

Post by mcguire »

guyzero wrote: post #16
mcguire wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did San Francisco become the hot property? I know that the last time I was out there, about 2005, tech was still in the valley and SF proper was relatively low rent, bad neighborhoods, and no tech presence. Does this industry (to the extent that you can call AirBNB, Uber, and Twitter the same industry) really act like a flock of grackles or starlings, descending on a place, eating everything, and moving on?

Seriously that was 11 years ago. Yes, a lot of things changed in 11 years.

That's my point. 11 years may seem like a long time to you, but it's really not.

I've seen quite a few people here wanting high-rise residential buildings in San Francisco to alleviate the high rents there. A skyscraper is at least 40 floors, according to wikipedia and one rule of thumb I've seen puts the construction time for them at 1 month per floor, from ground breaking to completion. That's about 4 years in construction, plus design and planning time, plus site acquisition. That's five, six years (more?), total, even in the most positive political atmosphere.

Someone who wanted to alleviate SF's high rents today, assuming you could do that by building high-rise apartment buildings, would had to have started at the height of the construction bust. That would be, I think, before San Francisco proper's tech boom, i.e. before there was a problem evident.

And if you started building one today,... Once upon a time, Intel planned to build a 10 story office building in downtown Austin. They stopped, with nothing but the structure of the building up, in 2001. The incomplete building was demolished in 2007.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#87

Post by yolesaber »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #72
ethanbond wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

... What? Cost of living index compared to San Francisco according to WolframAlpha: Seattle -20% Phoenix -42% Austin -43%

I have to say I was impressed to see that Manhattan is +29.6% to San Francisco. SF was certainly the most expensive place I've ever lived.

Possibly skewed because there's so much luxury housing in Manhattan? Anecdotally NYC has always been much cheaper for me than SF. You can still get one bedrooms for under 2k in the East Village and LES

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#88

Post by jgmmo »

davidw wrote: post #37
jgmmo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dear folks interested in Oregon, come to Eugene!

Grew up there. Still seems like it's struggling to put together much of a tech industry. More seems to be happening here in Bend in some ways, despite being a significantly smaller town. And the weather is way better over here too!

Fortunately the future is remote work. Local jobs don't matter nearly as much once you can work for anyone remotely.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#89

Post by bogomipz »

Gratsby wrote: post #54

I pay about that for rent - it's the most I've ever paid for housing by a long shot, and it regularly freaks me out. I just can't get used to it. The thing that gets me is that I'm barely paying the property taxes on the place I rent. The landlord isn't gouging me. It's just the way it is here. Housing is so expensive because everyone wants to be here, and for good reason. This is the most thriving technical communit…

Really - "This is the most thriving technical community in the entire world"? I'm calling BS. Have you been to New York City recently? Rents for a 1 bedroom are nowhere near that. Lets talk about that community - there are meetups? Wow. You can go to a meetup on any night of the week in New York or Austin. Besides that explain "the community"? Oh you go out and drink craft beers after work? You can do that anywhere.

Whats this different lifestyle of which you speak? Dodging panhandlers on Market Street? Stepping over human excrement? Using Uber b/c the city in which you have chosen to piss away your money doesn't provide decent mass transit for most?

People like you perpetuate some myth that you have to pay $4500 a month if you want to work in tech. Nonsense.

Re: San Francisco Tech Firms See Workers Flee from $4,500 Rents

#90

Post by ghaff »

Apocryphon wrote: post #46

So are there any tech hubs right now that aren't dealing with issues of rent increases, gentrifications, and growing pains?

That's something of tautology in that pretty much everywhere that's a tech hub is booming almost by definition. (In some cases like the Bay area, largely driven by software tech. In other areas, driven by a combination of computer tech and other things such as finance and pharma.) And any area that's booming that I'm aware of is experiencing quite a bit of real estate appreciation even if it's often still modest by Bay area standards.
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