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

Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

881–890 of 1001 posts

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#881

Post by rsynnott »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #768
rsynnott wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was wondering about that too. In Dublin, which has vaguely similar dynamics (inadequate housing supply, very large presence of tech and other industries which have gone all in on remote-for-now if not remote-forever) rental inventory is up by 60%. Which sounds like a lot, until you look at how tiny it is normally, and how much of what’s showing up to rent is very clearly hastily decommissioned Airbnb stock.

And house prices still haven't started coming down...

They may not for a while. Except for new-builds outside Dublin (or marginally in county Dublin but far from the city) they didn't drop much throughout 2008; sales just slowed down. 2009-2011 was where there was really a big drop.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#882

Post by fragmede »

Camillo wrote: post #718
CardenB wrote: post #717

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a single guy? New York. DC.

New York for sure before the pandemic, but now?

If you want to safely live in a city, now more than ever. The nation watched in horror as the pandemic hit NYC, hard, early on, so while other parts of the country still can't get their act together and wear a mask, NYC's experienced the shock and horror first hand and is likely to open back up sooner, even without a vaccine, simply due to more people believing in the guidelines. Conversely with only 69 deaths in San Francisco county attributed to COVID-19, SF's simply tired of being inside.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#883

Post by fragmede »

osdiab wrote: post #494
darkwizard42 wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't really true... it only applies to units that were built before a certain year (1979). If you are in any kind of modern unit / luxury unit as noted by GP, then this won't hold. However, most landlords in non-managed buildings are fairly reasonable about only raising rent 2-5% a year. Your mileage may vary.

Then great news, SF has built almost nothing since 1979, so you’re more likely than not to be covered! Maybe I was being a cheapskate for keeping my rent under $2k per month when I lived there, but I never lived in an apartment that wasn’t rent controlled.

For better or worse, landlords have figured out they can renovate the unit (at considerable expense) in order to need get a new certificate of occupancy, which has the upside of considering it to be a 'new' unit for rent-control reasons.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#884

Post by shadowtree »

Unpopular opinion - if you can simply move or work while traveling as an IC - you are not an essential worker for your company.

The big productivity culling is coming, overhiring was so easy, all seemed justified.

Careful of marking yourself as replaceable with remote labor. You might not like just how remote management will go :)

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#885

Post by lcc »

ghaff wrote: post #852
fragmede wrote: post #848

Earlier quoted context omitted.

San Francisco is a very small city, but it is a city nonetheless which puts it on the list of places in the US where you can live (and I mean truly live ) without a car, even before the age of Uber/Lyft. (Unsurprisingly, the other places on that list are also cities.) Due to tech money and location, it occupies a weird place in the various lists of world's cities. It is just tiny a small city compared to other cities…

>where you can live (and I mean truly live) without a car Maybe. I do know a couple who live in SF who don't own a car but they sure use a lot of Ubers and do rentals. More generally, and I'm probably just showing personal bias, but for me living in SF without the ability to just hop in a car and go to mountains etc. seems like it would be cutting myself off from much of what makes SF more interesting than comparably…

I agree. I live in SF and hate driving in the city. 95% of my in-city transportation is walking and biking.

But my quality of life went way up once I bit the bullet and got a car. Skiing, surfing, and hiking all became way easier. I was already occasionally renting cars to do those things, but the friction of picking up/returning the cars and the marginal cost of each trip were big drags. Now I don't think twice about a 1-2 week long backpacking trip, where previously I would have been dissuaded by that expensive rental car sitting unused in the parking lot.

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#886

Post by tanatocenose »

almost_usual wrote: post #596
koolba wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore. Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled). People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. Whether something is too expensive is not just a function of…

Probably a good time to buy in 6-8 months

I’ve read this elsewhere. Why do you think so?

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#887

Post by dajohnson89 »

abakker wrote: post #870
cactus2093 wrote: post #861

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am going to go out on a limb and guess - are you in your early to mid twenties? Just guessing based on some of your examples. I'm not at all trying to dismiss the perspective of young people, but I think these behaviors are very strongly correlated with age and/or life stage. I'm a bit older than that in my thirties, and I haven't really observed this effect yet among my peer group. A lot of people are leaving temp…

In my early 30s here. All my friends have left, and now we are doing so, too. You are right, IMO. Most of those friends are in tech and plan to move back eventually, but are hoping to score better deals on rent then. For now they live in the mountains and can do some fun solo activities for the next year. For us, we have wanted to leave for several years, but the ability to WFH for my wife actually makes it possible…

How are you able to make more local friends in a less dense location?

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#888

Post by [deleted] »

shadowtree wrote: post #884

Unpopular opinion - if you can simply move or work while traveling as an IC - you are not an essential worker for your company. The big productivity culling is coming, overhiring was so easy, all seemed justified. Careful of marking yourself as replaceable with remote labor. You might not like just how remote management will go :)

[deleted]

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#889

Post by lcc »

mjmj wrote: post #685
ulfw wrote: post #677

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beaches???

Chrissy field beach was amazing on Friday, whole family got sunburned and didn’t want to leave. Ocean beach is massive and awesome, great for bonfires. Both those are 10 min drives for us. Or head to one of multiple nudist beach just south of Pacifica or north Baker beach near the GG. I totally relate to SF being associated with beaches and ive been here 15 years now. We used to have to drive in over 1hr of LA traffi…

Sure there are plenty of beaches, but most of the time they're cold and windy. On a typical day I wouldn't want to lie around in a bathing suit or swim.

Friday's weather was an exception and I'm glad you were able to enjoy it!

Re: Remote work is reshaping San Francisco, as tech workers flee and rents fall

#890

Post by galfarragem »

galfarragem wrote: post #825
Talanes wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People brazenly come into my Starbucks all the time and openly announce they are shoplifting, because they know that the police won't show up to take a report for at least an hour. Once we do have the report, even if they do get caught, nothing happens. Many months of reports and multiple trips to the courthouse and we can MAYBE get a stay away order. Usually before that point, the store management has shuffled aroun…

And then people get astonished when the righteous party doesn't get elected.

This economical view on Justice - ignore petty stuff because it is too expensive for the system to deal with it - destroys the goodwill on people and on State.
Post reply on HN