[HN Gopher] S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest... ___________________________________________________________________ S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010 Author : memish Score : 219 points Date : 2022-05-27 17:07 UTC (5 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.sfchronicle.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.sfchronicle.com) | RosanaAnaDana wrote: | Could this be a potential source of a housing bubble collapse? | dopeboy wrote: | Negative - this is a geography that will remain unaffected by | housing downturns. Too much money on the sidelines for it to | collapse. | adam_arthur wrote: | Given that work from office is the primary reason SF became so | expensive in the first place, yes. | | How can SF home prices be justified vs SD or LA in a remote | work world? | colinmhayes wrote: | ghaff wrote: | >How can SF home prices be justified vs SD or LA in a remote | work world? | | I don't live in SF or even in a city but, in the abstract, | I'd pick SF from that triplet. LA is complete sprawl and a | little bit of SoCal beaches goes a long way for me. And San | Diego is nice enough but sort of soulless. I like the SF | climate even when summer is the coldest winter you ever spent | --and there are great recreational options and scenery. | librish wrote: | SF is probably hit the hardest by WFH. If you lived and worked in | the city you probably had a pretty good commute, so you're not | getting the biggest benefit. And while I know it's a less common | preference on HN, a lot of people enjoy going in to a lively | office and occasionally grabbing drinks with your coworkers after | work. It's a great way to make new friends. But with WFH there's | a prisoners dilemma where no-one goes in because no-one goes in. | Hard to justify living in one of the most expensive cities in the | world at that point. | | As a side note, I've been reading a lot of comments like the one | below describing SF as a "nightmarish hellscape" and I just want | to caution people to not read into things too much. I've spent a | lot of time in both SF and Seattle, and while there's specific | streets you want to avoid, and you can (rarely) run into weird or | disturbed people in other areas (like most major cities) overall | they're lovely places if you can afford them. | acchow wrote: | On the other hand, SF has a significant tech population that | has been living in the city but taking shuttle buses for an | hour to their offices down south. I imagine flexible WFH for | 2-3 days/wk will enable a larger number of people in the future | to live in SF | iancmceachern wrote: | I'm in this boat and this is true. A hybrid wfh and partial | in the office option really opens up options living in this | area, it makes it much more doable. | acchow wrote: | I think flexible WFH will also be a boost to Apple, which | traditionally was unable to hire some people who loved city | life and refused to commute. | dahdum wrote: | It's pretty easy for the highly paid and wealthy to insulate | themselves from the problems of any city and live in a bubble | of comfort. SF is becoming more challenging to do so in, but | far from impossible. | | It's the lower and middle classes that suffer most from SF's | problems, they can't afford the rose colored glasses. Until the | wealthy are truly inconvenienced they'll continue with the | feel-good ineffective measures. | | That's not specific to SF of course, it's just becoming more | prevalent. I definitely enjoy spending time there, but I'm | lucky enough to afford to. | kevin_thibedeau wrote: | It's the people paying $3000 for a bunk bed who bailed on the | city. | blululu wrote: | Probably not. Rents dropped (supply meets demands - even in | San Francisco). Most people I know who were unhappy with | their apartment moved across town and got better deals | (myself included). If you left you probably left because you | had no strong connection with the city and you wanted to | leave. Anyone in tech who wanted to stay could fill the | vacancies. | abofh wrote: | Did rents really shift that much outside of the widest | margins? I feel like 3k for a nice one bedroom has held | more or less constant for the last few years (even pre- | pandemic), a little up, a little down, but largely been | around there. You could definitely pay more, and you could | find cheaper, but for a ~1000 sqft single, the needle | really hasn't trended far. | sushid wrote: | C'mon. Rent was/is expensive but never $3000 for a bunk bed. | If you were really splitting a room I'm pretty sure you could | have had one for <$800 pre pandemic (assuming you're | splitting 1 bedroom in a 3 bedroom setup). | [deleted] | ghaff wrote: | I think it's also the case that people whose main experience | with SF is going to conferences at the Moscone get exposed to | more than their fair share of the city's underbelly. When I was | last in SF last December, I was actually led to expect things | would be a lot worse than they were. To be honest, it seemed | "normal" which is sort of a low bar in certain areas but, as | you say, that's true of Seattle too. | ceeplusplus wrote: | > like most major cities | | I have lived in or visited Boston, Chicago, North Carolina's | RTP, and the Bay. Only in SF are there homeless camps with | blatant drug abuse and public defecation being tolerated by | authorities. Only in SF can you run into, with 100% | probability, a mentally deranged person on your daily commute. | When "specific streets" cover half the city (Financial | district, Tenderloin, SoMA, Mission...) they aren't so specific | anymore. | lotsofpulp wrote: | The other cities listed are very cold at times and/or very | humid/hot at times. It is much easier and pleasant to camp | outside in western cities. | lmeyerov wrote: | I've lived in the same spot in the mission for 10+ years (and | been around longer), and other folks in the building for 20+: | the mission hasn't regressed to the gang wars era (we have | stories there...), but between the break-ins, homeless tents, | poop & drugs, crazy people shouting at 4am, and occasional | shootings, the neighborhood has slid back 10-15 years. Luckily | I've only witnessed 1 murder, so the crime is merely 'costly | and disruptive' vs 'life threatening', but that doesn't mean | it's acceptable. | | I lived in Seattle as well & visit frequently -- around when | capital+pill hill gentrified again around MS downtown employees | (games studios?): the current Amazon-era of the city is closer | to SF 5-10 years ago vs today's slide back. It's not all good, | to be clear: I'm guessing buying a place just got steadily | harder as well, and families pushed further out. | MikeTheRocker wrote: | Curious why you continue to live there if you feel it's | gotten so much more dangerous? Perhaps rent control? There | are so many nice and safer parts of SF. | rustybelt wrote: | I spent a decade in St. Louis, MO, famously rated "Most | Dangerous City in America" multiple years running and | witnessed 0 murders. How many murders would you need to | witness before you start to worry about your own safety? | throwaway0a5e wrote: | I think it's worth noting that while it was definitely | statistically less safe in the gang wars era, it was also | less obvious. You didn't have to step over someone shooting | up on the sidewalk (or the turd they left behind). You | wouldn't see a broad daylight theft. If it wasn't your car | stereo that was stolen the problems felt a lot farther away. | fosk wrote: | > Luckily I've only witnessed 1 murder | | Stockholm syndrome is real here. | etempleton wrote: | I have visited almost every major US cities including a lot of | experience living in and near some of the "worst crime" cities. | Cities where there really are streets you do not dare go. In | San Francisco I never felt unsafe anywhere, even in the "worst" | parts of town. That said, the concentration of homeless people | when I last visited was unlike anything I had ever seen in a US | city. | ProfessorLayton wrote: | I'm a city native living in SF, but grew up all over the | SFBAY including much, _much_ rougher neighborhoods than | anything I 've experienced in SF. | | Several of my family members and myself have been | assaulted/robbed in broad daylight, had cars stolen, and some | _have been shot by stray bullets_ due to a local gang fight. | When I was in grade school someone brought a gun to class and | showed it off by pointing it at me (!!) -- all outside of SF. | | SF feels incredibly safe compared to my lived experience in | the rest of the Bay. I'm not saying there aren't any issues | here, but SF is nowhere near as bad as some of the roughest | parts of the Bay. Not by a longshot. | reducesuffering wrote: | Generally, I feel like the Mercury News homicide map is a | good representation of the roughness of the area, and it | doesn't look like SF is as different from those areas as | you propose. From the looks of it, it's one step up from | dead last, Oakland. | | https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/01/04/bay-area- | homicides-20... | ProfessorLayton wrote: | This map is proving my point. Even if SF is one step up | from dead last, if we look at a complete year (2021) | there's a HUGE difference between SF and Oakland. By | comparison SF looks relatively safe, and having lived in | both cities I can attest to that. | | The rough parts of SF are a cakewalk compared to | Oakland's. Not only that, but at least in SF the roughest | parts tend to be pretty concentrated to a small area. | | I didn't want to point out Oakland by name because I | still think it's a pretty awesome city and visit it | often. Seeing SF being singled out by the (social)media | as a hellscape makes it pretty clear they're really | unfamiliar with much of the SFBAY. | | The truth is that most culturally significant cities have | both good and bad parts to them. | dahdum wrote: | > SF is nowhere near as bad as some of the roughest parts | of the Bay. Not by a longshot. | | You're absolutely right, but compared to other global | cities SF often looks comically bad, and certainly has the | appearance of decline. No fundamental reason it can't rise | again though. | Proven wrote: | diogenescynic wrote: | San Francisco has become a really hostile place to live even if | you make $300,000+. My wife and I lived in Glen Park and it was | still a shit hole. We had a meth head constantly breaking in and | living in the parking garage of our building. Cops and landlord | didn't care. I regularly saw people shooting heroin and smoking | meth/crack on BART during rush hour. I was sick of seeing needles | on the street and smelling urine. As soon as the pandemic | happened we got the heck out of the Bay Area and relocated | somewhere cheaper and nicer. I am sure there are many others | doing the same thing. I cannot imagine trying to raise a kid in | SF. | [deleted] | ransom1538 wrote: | I with you here. Our neighbor had her apartment violently | ransacked while she was at work. This is bad. What makes it | evil, they waited for her to return - sitting in the apartment | waiting for her to walk in. After the detective interview I | had, i realized, I don't want to raise family here anymore. The | detective agreed. | ramesh31 wrote: | zumu wrote: | The city center can be gnarly for sure, but everywhere else is | quite nice. Not sure how you could describe any neighborhood on | the West side of the city as a "hellscape" for example. | pdx6 wrote: | I agree, the western side is hardly a hellscape. I guess | don't let the tourists know! | | San Francisco is really 2 different cities rather than 11 | counties. West side (where I live) has some minor problems | but otherwise offers the best mix of culture, places to eat, | parks, and transit. Downtown is rife with problems and if | someday it does get cleaned up, it will wonderful since the | right density and transit is there. | robotburrito wrote: | This is very hyperbolic. This place is legit one of the most | beautiful cities in the entire world. | scyzoryk_xyz wrote: | 20-30 years ago San Francisco was considered... a nightmarish | hellscape. Until the first dotcom boom the city was in decline, | or at least that's how the story goes. | | My understanding is that at that time it also had a booming art | scene and was going through an awesome counter culture phase | that birthed Burning Man. | | Maybe that's what's ahead now that everyone is leaving? Videos | showing the drug problem are terrifying though... | sammalloy wrote: | > 20-30 years ago San Francisco was considered... a | nightmarish hellscape. | | Not true in the slightest. There was little crime, you could | walk everywhere safely, day or night, and the food was still | incredible, and cheap. | | Major parts of the city were on a roadmap towards | revitalization before dotcom was ever a thing. Yerba Buena | Gardens was competed in 1993, for example. No disruption | required. | | > Until the first dotcom boom the city was in decline, or at | least that's how the story goes. | | It's the exact opposite. The city was undergoing major | revitalization before the dotcom era. The first dotcom boom | brought major gentrification, and with it, people who didn't | care for the values and culture of the city. | wankerrific wrote: | I agree about the major first dotcom bringing people who | didn't care for the values and culture of the city but | disagree about the roughness. The mission and the part of | soma near the old trans bay terminal were pretty rough. | People got mugged in broad daylight kinda rough | cmrdporcupine wrote: | I first visited SF at the start of the .com boom in 1996 when | I had friends living there. Rent controlled apartment, 3 | bedroom for something like $1100 USD. Beautiful city, a bit | grungy, with just a lot of neat stuff going on. Went to a few | cool underground parties, ate well, saw a lot of good art, | went to some good bookstores and other shops, and met some | really neat people. I wanted to move there. | | Within a few years almost all my friends who weren't tech | industry people -- or married to one -- couldn't afford to | live there anymore and almost all left. | | The next time I got into to SF was about 20 years later and, | yeah. Wow. Not the same city. So completely different. Many | of the physical trappings were the same, but the atmosphere | was entirely different. | scyzoryk_xyz wrote: | So my point being that supposedly around 1990 SF was in an | awful decline etc. I wish I was alive in late 1990's SF | gedy wrote: | SF had less street crime and open drug use 20-30 ago. | Definitely was more visitable for tourists at least. | mkr-hn wrote: | I wonder how many of the homeless residents tech people | complain about were part of that art scene and counterculture | but got gentrified out of their homes with nowhere else to | go. | labcomputer wrote: | Well, considering that every homeless census of SF shows[1] | that the vast majority aren't long-term residents of San | Francisco and that SF has some of the most renter-friendly | laws in the country, I'm going to say "not many". | | [1] If you understand how statistic work, and how to read | critically. The censuses seem to be written by someone who | thinks "How to Lie With Statistics" was an instruction | manual, not a warning. | | Edit: | | Here's the latest pre-pandemic census: | https://hsh.sfgov.org/wp- | content/uploads/2020/01/2019HIRDRep... | | On page 18, we learn that fully 30% of SF's homeless became | homeless _before_ moving to SF. | | Of the remaining 70%, only 55% (so 38% of all homeless in | SF) are long-time (>10 years) residents of SF. 27% of SF's | homeless lived in SF between 1 and 10 years. | | On page 19, we learn that only 30% of SF's homeless had a | home they owned or rented immediately prior to becoming | homeless. The rest were couch surfing, institutionalized, | in SROs or subsidized housing. | | We probably shouldn't assume zero correlation (but we don't | have a better prior, because the crosstabs are not | available, so...). But if we do, this suggests only around | 11% of SF's homeless population were long-term renters who | were kicked out. | | On page 22, we learn that only 13% of SF's homeless cited | "eviction" as the primary reason for currently experiencing | homelessness. In contrast, "lost job" is the the most | common reason, at 26%. Substance abuse is #2 at 18%. | | On page 21, we learn that 65% of homeless people in SF have | been homeless for more than a year. | | That's an interesting statistic because that's the same | percent homeless who became homeless while in SF and whose | total residency in SF was more than a year. Again, the | crosstabs are not made available to us, but it is | suggestive that many of the people from page 18 who | reported being long-term SF residents were not long-term SF | residents _at the time they experienced housing loss_. | | Not to sound conspiratorial, but my points above could be | easily refuted with crosstabs from the census. The silence | is deafening. | ghaff wrote: | 20-30 years ago, a lot of large US cities were net losing | population (and employers). At one point, after Teradyne | moved out, I don't think there was a single significant tech | company in Boston though I think the bio build-out in Kendall | Square had started. | themitigating wrote: | What evidence do you have that the city was better 20 to 30 | years ago? | StanislavPetrov wrote: | There is no lack of evidence. There are thousands of video | records taken in San Fran 25-30 years ago. You won't see a | city filled with vagrants and human feces. You won't see | trash filled-streets or sidewalks lined with makeshift | shelters. It certainly wasn't perfect (no city is) but it | wasn't the open sewer it is today. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0t9ogfCI3E | lovehashbrowns wrote: | SF is the closest thing to a dystopia for me. Unabashed wealth | juxtaposed with poverty, insane cost of living, shit and used | needles everywhere, the nation's mental health failure on full | display, etc. Nothing has made me as depressed as living in SF. | gsibble wrote: | Leave. It's so much better elsewhere. I'm so happy in Boston. | lovehashbrowns wrote: | Oh leave I did! I left after 11 months or so. Went out to | Portland but it's not much better there nowadays. Still a | fun city, at least. Might try Chicago now. I hadn't | realized how relatively cheap some of the areas are. Boston | might be fun, too! | ghaff wrote: | Boston/Cambridge proper is pretty pricey. Although if you | don't need/want to live in the city, you can get to | pretty reasonable housing fairly quickly. I live a bit | further out still. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | Seattle has much of the same, don't come here! We lost | 2%, we could stand to use a few more percents and I would | be pretty happy with the traffic reduction. I'm staying | put for sure, but I can see why this place isn't for | everyone. | | You might want to try Salt Lake City: has a nice vibe, | the Mormon influence myth is overblown, and you have | mountains, forest, and scrub nearby just like in | Portland. | gsibble wrote: | Be careful. I have a lot of friends leaving Chicago due | to outrageous crime rates. | thenayr wrote: | jyounker wrote: | I'd say it's the opposite. The city has a few bad spots, but | overall it's quite nice. The big problem is the lack of | housing, which is arguably driven by the way that Prop 13 warps | economic incentives. | macksd wrote: | Walking through even the financial district these days, it's | not at all unusual for people to be stepping over unconscious | bodies on the sidewalk, and to see homeless people walking | around with syringes tucked behind their ear. In fact when I | was in a higher-end office building a few weeks ago no one | was wearing a mask indoors, and they put masks on to go | outside, presumably because of the smells and things you're | exposed to there. It's like COVID isn't even the dirtiest | thing they're afraid of anymore. | zumu wrote: | The large and very visible homeless and vagrant population is | the biggest issue. There may be a relationship to the housing | shortage, but I have a hard timing believing if rents were | 50% cheaper, these people wouldn't still be on the streets. | [deleted] | carapace wrote: | I've been here almost half a century now. The city has turned | to shit. | | Prop 13 is part of the problem, but there are lots of | confounding factors. FWIW, the lack of housing is largely | artificial: there are lots of empty units, they are just | priced out of reach of the folks who really need them. I live | in Park Merced, on my block there are at least a dozen empty | homes, yet a few blocks away there are families living in | RV's parked around Lake Merced. The corporation that owns PM | won't lower the rents. I don't know why, but I suspect that | doing so would mess with things like the appraisal value of | the property? | | Last month a group of squatters moved into the townhouse | across the street from my house. We thought new tenants had | moved in, but a couple of days later the staff were there | throwing them out. (The squatters had changed the lock on the | front door!) A staff member told me that this same group has | been breaking into units all over the property. The police | were called, but they never showed up. | | Last week a van parked in the garage here was broken into and | items were stolen. We've been here a quarter of a century and | that has never happened before. There are video cameras in | the garage, but again, the police did nothing. | | That's before you get to the tent camps, the rampant and open | drug abuse (literally folks shooting up on the sidewalk), the | raw lawless anarchy that the Tenderloin has become, etc. | | Unless you have a shit-ton of money and can afford to live in | one of the nice enclaves SF is a shitty town. It breaks my | heart to admit it, I grew up here and I (used to) really love | it here, but the city that SF has become is sad and | dangerous. | xedrac wrote: | I've been to SF proper only twice (but many times to San | Jose). In my opinion, the only things going for it are the | weather, coastal locality, sycamores, and interesting | terrain. Otherwise it just felt really trashy to me. I | wouldn't move there even if I was offered an extra | $100k/yr. | vondur wrote: | I wonder how much residential property is still under Prop | 13? My guess is that it's declined quite a bit in the last 20 | years or so. | amscanne wrote: | It still applies to all residential property. On sale, the | tax rate is set to 1% of the sale price, and increases are | limited to 2% per year. This creates the incentive to not | sell, even if you have way too much house (e.g. empty | nesters) because you may significantly _increase_ your tax | burden by downsizing. | dilyevsky wrote: | You're probably thinking of rent control? Prop 13 applies | to every property including commercial. You can also | transfer reduced tax to your heirs or to another property | of yours | gsibble wrote: | Completely agree. Lots of people are blind to it for some | reason. It's worse than some 3rd world countries. Absolute | shithole. Glad I left in 2018. | Jackpillar wrote: | alaricus wrote: | Non-American here: I lived in the Bay Area for a few years and | hated it. There are no cities, just one big blob of suburbia. | mlinksva wrote: | It's a little better than that: the NE quadrant of SF is a | city. It's also worse: the big blob has many holes. | cmrdporcupine wrote: | I agree, but... I mean, it's the same awful suburban sprawl | as most North American cities just with better weather (and | higher property values.) | | To me it seems like a place whose best years have passed many | years ago now. I suspect we'll look back at 2019-2020 as | being "peak Silicon Valley" and the time after as the years | in which it began to lose its status as the centre of gravity | for our industry. | alaricus wrote: | > it's the same awful suburban sprawl as most North | American cities | | That's why I don't live there anymore. The Earth is bigger | than North America. | floren wrote: | Even worse, the blob of suburbia is spread out in a ring | around a giant body of water, and it's almost certain that | the place you want to go is on the other side. So now it's 1+ | hours on trains (assuming they even run near your | destination) or dealing with the eternal traffic jams at the | chokepoints across the bay. | 8note wrote: | Are there no water taxis? | | In Vancouver you just hop on a small boat and get a quick | trip across, I think with your bus pass | floren wrote: | There are water taxis, but I think they only go along the | SF waterline, between say Fisherman's Wharf and the | baseball stadium. | | There are ferries, but they only go from a very few | points in SF to a very few points in Alameda, Oakland, | and the north bay. | | Seems like most of the time, the places you're trying to | get to aren't close to the water anyway. | _fat_santa wrote: | I think remote work is often understated in reasons people move | away. When you go into the office every day, it's pretty obvious | that you have to live in whatever city you live in. But with | remote work, the question becomes "if I don't have to live here, | do I want to keep living here". For many (including myself), the | answer was a definitive NO. | | Sure many headlines and news segments make it seem that it's the | crime, the high rent, and all these super visible indicators and | while I'm sure that factored into the decisions of some, for many | it was that they just wanted a change and got the golden | opportunity to do so. | | EDIT: It's not even that one may even "want a change", it's when | you're presented with the opportunity to make a change, the gears | in your head start turning as to what options you have at your | disposal. I would imagine many people that moved had previously | no intention to but just got the opportunity and decided to take | it while it lasted. | anm89 wrote: | I agree but I think this also understates the importance of | just how messed up SF has become. I don't want to come into | contact with human feces as part of my daily commute. I'm going | to leave no matter what once that is the case. Especially when | the equity in my two bedroom apartement is enough to buy the | nicest house ever built in some other smaller city. | ihumanable wrote: | I see this argument constantly, that the streets run brown | with human feces. I worked in SOMA for a decade, I would | commute every day on BART and would walk from Montgomery | Street Station or Embarcadero or Civic Center or 16th Street | to wherever my office was at the time (different companies, | different offices). | | SOMA was always pretty clean, Civic Center a bit more hit or | miss, 16th Street was generally a bit dirtier and rougher. | | The number of times I encountered human feces though was very | low, like not even a monthly occurrence. Now I'm sure there's | parts of San Francisco that are worse than others, and the | walk from 16th Street BART to Potrero Hill would take me past | plenty of homeless people camped out on the sidewalks, but I | rarely if ever encountered human feces. | | But every. single. time. San Francisco comes up, it's the | same tired line, "Oh I couldn't deal with the absolute deluge | of human feces" which like cool, neither could I and it was | fine because what the heck is everyone talking about. I'm not | going to claim that every sidewalk and roadway is completely | free of poo, but as someone that managed a team of people and | would frequently go for walking meetings all around San | Francisco, it was never my experience. | Mumps wrote: | If people keep leaving, will that equity materialise as you | hope? | anm89 wrote: | Right, which is why you get out while things are still | liquid | javajosh wrote: | jeromegv wrote: | What is the conservative solution to this issue? | mediaman wrote: | If we're talking about 'reasonable' conservatives, the | typical answer is that booking people who commit a crime, | and then using the threat of prison time to force them | into rehab will ultimately be much better for them and | the community than immediately releasing them under the | guise that poverty causes addiction and crime and that | therefore they are essentially blameless. | | Some former addicts attest that, when they were addicted, | it was only the threat of prison time that could force | them into rehab, because at the time they were not fully | in control of their own decision making. They say the | 'stick' helps motivate them to choose rehab instead, and | it ultimately helped them out of a bad situation. | | Sam Quinones' book, The Least of Us, documents some of | this and is well-researched. | gotoeleven wrote: | The solution is to not tolerate drug use, petty crime, | vagrancy etc etc | | Homeless people aren't stupid. They find a way to get to | where it is most comfortable to be homeless. In SF you | can do drugs all day and night and get free needles and | poop on the streets and no one will bother you. In other | places you will not be able to do this. | | Why are people surprised that places that go to great | expense to subsidize homelessness have a lot of homeless | people? | goodpoint wrote: | > Homeless people aren't stupid. They find a way to get | to where it is most comfortable to be homeless | | By this logic if you make it even less "comfortable" | everywhere they'll disappear into thin air? Go to mars? | abofh wrote: | Being the shitter. | DonHopkins wrote: | Shitting in front of liberals' homes to convert them into | conservatives. | pcthrowaway wrote: | or at least shitting in their backyards to convert them | into NIMBYs | TedDoesntTalk wrote: | Who said homelessnesses and mental illness have | solutions? | neartheplain wrote: | Centrist candidate for Governor of California Michael | Shellenberger, who has interviewed many addicts on the | streets of SF and has a credible plan to address | homelessness and open drug abuse: | | https://www.shellenbergerforgovernor.com/issues/homelessn | ess... | sdenton4 wrote: | Blaming liberals. | havblue wrote: | The conservative solution is to move to a place where | they arrest the poopers. | javajosh wrote: | Enforcing the law. | RC_ITR wrote: | I think your argument ignores that fact that in other cities, | you _drive by_ the social problems, whereas in SF you walk | through them. | | Nobody complains about the homeless people who live _under | the Las Vegas Strip_ because they are unseen, but per capita, | some studies imply Las Vegas has a much worse problem than | SF. | anm89 wrote: | Just pointing this out. This post was quickly up +4 and then | instantly went down to -1. Someone seems to be brigading | here. | toomanyrichies wrote: | Consider the possibility that you're being downvoted for | breaking the Hacker News guidelines: | | "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It | never does any good, and it makes boring reading." | | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html | themitigating wrote: | He doesn't live in San Francisco but is claiming that if he | commuted to work he would always see human feces on the | ground. He provides no evidence, not even a personal | experience | alar44 wrote: | What do you want? Pictures? This is commonly known to be | an issue there. If I was there right now, I'd say give me | 5 minutes and I'll post a picture. Was in SF last week. | If you do a lot of walking there, you WILL see not only a | shit, but someone actively shitting. | | Edit: https://www.arcgis.com/apps/View/index.html?appid=b | 6fab72091... | themitigating wrote: | That's not an indication of frequency which is what | matters. | RC_ITR wrote: | I'm genuinely curious, where do you live and do you 'do a | lot of walking' there too? | mikebenfield wrote: | Granted I've only spent about 6 months of my life living | in SF, but I did a decent amount of walking around and | never saw human feces. | _fat_santa wrote: | I didn't mention this in my comment as it was more about the | broad trends in every city rather than SF/NYC specifically. | | Typically for a group that got tired of a city and moved out, | there would be a new group that is ready to fill their place. | Thing is no one wants to move to SF given the situation | (crime, COL, homeless, etc). Now for all the folks that will | say "it's not that bad" I say that it doesn't really matter. | If you're moving to a city, your opinion and view of the city | is largely dictated by what you see/hear from friends, | relatives, on the news, etc. Even if SF wasn't "that bad", it | still doesn't matter, because the perception is more | important for gaining residents than the actual situation | IMO. | DragonStrength wrote: | Exactly. And the problem is even if I want to stay, once my | entire social group has left during the pandemic since none | of us were old enough to have mortgages or kids, well, this | all kind of sucks right now. All the people I work with | have kids and mortgages and have enjoyed flitting up to | Tahoe for the past two years, but I'm not from the state | but was required to work within it for the past year | anyway. Well, my life here is pretty shitty right now, and | as soon as I could really start doing things, it was time | to start a hybrid model designed with people with kids and | mortgages in mind. Traditionally, these folks have a lot of | leverage over their younger counterparts, which we're | finding is not holding. | | The issue is that Gen X is small, so they don't have a lot | of leverage if the only other two generations in the market | just leave town. Unless it's their opinion that | Californians are just better, but of course, now we're back | to the shrinking schools problem. It's difficult for me to | imagine how California rebounds without losing a lot more | ground first. Probably the best thing that could happen for | people from the part of the country I grew up in, if we're | actually concerned with equity though. | BurningFrog wrote: | Also, when you pick a place to move to in this huge | country, "it's not that bad" isn't going to be chosen, even | if true. | juve1996 wrote: | I think you're right about perception to people considering | going there. But I really think it just comes down to cost. | Cities have gotten exorbitantly expensive. | | It doesn't make financial sense to stay in SF if you're | salary stays the same in Texas and your company is remote. | Unless there is some specific reason to live there - you | like the vibe, or it's where you were born, or some other | reason (weather). | | I think it's good that we have this shakeup. Change is a | good thing, and I think a lot of cities need some change. | vikingerik wrote: | > "if I don't have to live here, do I want to keep living here" | | I answered the exact same no to that question, moving out of | NYC when my job went permanently remote since the pandemic. I | moved to semi-rural Virginia where my family is, and bought a | house with far more space and a pool than I could have dreamed | of within commuting distance of NYC. | themitigating wrote: | For some house size is less important than have more to do | outside the home if city entertainment is to your liking | peckrob wrote: | I don't know why it _isn 't_ being mentioned. | | I am not in the Bay Area myself, but about half of my friends | there have relocated in the last couple years. A bunch to | Washington or Oregon, some to Texas, one to Nashville, and a | few others to places mostly in the northeast. All of them cited | cost of living as the _primary_ reason ... but all also | mentioned full time remote work is what finally made it | _possible_ to move. | | When you aren't chained to a physical location by your job, | lots of things become possible. | gwbushey wrote: | nradov wrote: | I live in the south Bay Area. The local public school | district has been steadily losing enrollment due to the high | cost of living. The district administrator I talked with said | that based on student records transfer requests, some | families have moved further east and south into the sprawling | exurbs, and many others moved to Texas. | DragonStrength wrote: | I entered 2020 thinking I'd settle in the Bay Area, but | stats like these accelerating over the past couple year | make me feel fortunate I sat it out. | PragmaticPulp wrote: | I actually know several people who used this as an | opportunity to move _into_ the Bay Area. The sudden drop in | rents made it more attractive and they jumped. | | They both work in industries where face to face communication | is a competitive advantage. It's easy to forget that not | every job is naturally compatible with remote work like it is | for those of us who type on computers all day. | iancmceachern wrote: | I'm in this boat. We moved apartments in SF during the | pandemic and we now live in an amazing neighborhood, | amazing building, for 40% less then we were paying for a | below average apartment before. | | It's not one or the other (moving in or out), it's about | getting what you (the individual) wants, and being smart | about timing and using world events to your advantage, not | disadvantage. | | Some people wanted to move away from SF, some wanted to | move in. It was an opportunity for either. | sheepybloke wrote: | Where have you been seeing the rent drop in SF? I'm in | the south bay and have been interested in moving to SF | now that I'm going remote, since I want a bit more active | nightlife. Now that I'm remote, I don't have to stay in | south bay. | tshaddox wrote: | I haven't seen these supposed rent drops in SF or the Bay | Area either. My lease in the peninsula is up next month | and the rent is increasing about 8%, and that's aligned | with the prices I'm seeing elsewhere for comparable | apartments. | arcticbull wrote: | Things are rising a bit now but if you jumped into a new | place in like 2021, the discounts were pretty absurd. | teebs wrote: | Rents are definitely down - or at least they were 1.5 | years ago when I last moved. Before the pandemic, 1 | bedrooms were usually at least $3500 and often $4000+. | When I looked last January, there were decent places | between $2500 and $3000. I emailed some landlords saying | "is there any chance you could go lower" and they offered | me free rent for 1-3 months. I ended up with a pretty | good deal on a large one bedroom in the Mission. | | Rents have gone up since then from my understanding, but | they're still below what they were several years ago. | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-francisco-ca | acchow wrote: | Largely SOMA and parts of the Mission and the Van Ness | corridor. It's mainly areas which generally feel less | like a neighborhood and more like a bustling city - | mainly areas where renters are more OK with living in | than homeowners would be willing to purchase in. A great | example is the new Chorus building which opened in 2021 | on Van Ness and Mission. It remained mostly empty | throughout 2021 despite offering 10 weeks "free rent" | with a 1 year lease. Stunningly gorgeous building, | incredible amenities, but a subpar location - a condo | here would be sold at a heavy discount because of the | location, thus this is a luxury rental apartment instead. | Across the street is the new Fifteen Fifty building, also | with heavy "free 2 months rent" discount for a 1 year | lease. | | But even in the most desirable neighborhoods, rents are | still down about 10-15% compared to pre-COVID | dominotw wrote: | > sudden drop in rents | | Curious, Why aren't properly prices droping to reflect the | loss in population. | picture_view wrote: | It's possible most of the 6.3% did not own property and | we're not in the market to buy property, so there was no | change in that market. | lazide wrote: | Speculators betting it will come roaring back afterwards, | money still getting cheaper, folks with families that | can't move, inability to 'just move' if you own, all | probably contributing. | | Housing prices have been out of whack with fundamentals | (cash flow) since at least '12-'13. | jethro_tell wrote: | Here's another more bleak option. Just like in 2008 when | corporations bought up huge swaths of the housing market | for cash while no one could get a loan. (which is part of | the current issue with not enough homes to buy) | | They aren't betting the market will come roaring back, | they are betting that they can corner the market and | housing will be a subscription just like everything else | they sell. | | Rent seekers aren't going anywhere, and the cost is | really immaterial to them for the most part. They don't | need cashflow, they need a monopoly. | marvin wrote: | This is a spooky narrative, but the rent seekers can't be | the majority. My understanding is that many Californian | real estate markets are kept artificially tight due to | various forms of NIMBYism. | | If renters become the majority, it's suddenly no longer | viable to limit new housing through regulation. Markets | are nowhere near the fundamental limits of homes per | square meter of the state that's good to live in. | jethro_tell wrote: | I don't think they are a majority and I think the main | problem is lack of housing being built. But I do think | that what housing is out there on the market faces stiff | competition from companies not people. I'd assume there | are a few people buying houses with cash but my guess is | a lot of those stories you hear about people bidding 100k | over ask and losing to a cash offer are mostly not | people. | | Theres a good number of companies that are open about | increasing their housing portfolios. Even construction | companies that built thousands of starter homes per year | converting to rentals only. | | These are long term changes, and not a quick cash grab at | the bottom of the market. | fennecfoxen wrote: | As usual, the "speculators" and "out of towners" and | others are convenient scapegoats, lest we have to face | the underlying supply and demand and barriers to | development. | | You want to have a monopoly on housing in a major city? | I'd be hard pressed to point out an industry where that | would be _harder_. You have literally millions of | competitors. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | San Francisco is already the second most densely | populated city in the USA (the first being NYC). SF is | actually already slightly more densely populated than | Tokyo, which many like to tout as a mecha for de- | regulated zoning. | lazide wrote: | That assumes they'll get takers on the areas though. | | With remote work becoming more of the norm, what if the | labor market doesn't move back? | | They'll have a monopoly that few ever pay rent on, and | they'll go broke (while the houses rot). | jethro_tell wrote: | Sure, It's not a sure thing forever and not all areas are | going to be winners, but if you have a big enough budget, | you can just buy houses everywhere for a long time and | probably make decent rent for a while. Heh, if not, or | when it ends, they can just dump it and or the company | and walk away. It's not like they are doing it with their | own money. | chrisco255 wrote: | We are still in the early stages of the bubble deflating. | teebs wrote: | Many of my friends who are tech workers who've worked at | unicorns and tech giants for 5-10 years bought their | first homes in SF during the pandemic. I would guess part | of the drop in rents is a shift in demand from former | renters to new homeowners. Also, there was a general | increase in prices across all asset classes during the | pandemic that continued to drive prices up. Finally, | property prices have actually gone up less in SF than | they have in the US as a whole, likely because of the | general effect of people moving away - compare the change | from January 2020 to today in this chart | https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS vs this chart | https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/ | RC_ITR wrote: | If everyone who left was living in a 2 bedroom with a | roommate and now that space is a one bedroom with a home | office, then why would rents fall? | sokoloff wrote: | Presumably the willingness to pay a given amount from | just one person's income is lower than that of two | people's income. Add in additional temporary uncertainty | in big parts of the tech market and I can see a lot of | currently occupied units having a tenant not willing to | renew as-was. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | The loss of population is directly caused by property | prices, so if they were reduced, the loss would reduce or | reverse and we simply would't be talking about population | loss anymore (seriously). | FollowingTheDao wrote: | This is so sad to me. The fracturing of the community because | of capitalism. All these people that are moving away from | their friends they are shortsighted. When they really need | people no one's going to be around them. Sad. | ghaff wrote: | Even if you like San Francisco on balance, it's hard not to | ask yourself if you like it _so much_ that you 're OK with | paying for some of the most expensive housing in the country | when you don't have a reason you _have_ to be there. | 0000011111 wrote: | It sounds like you are saying that if you move from SF to | another city cost of living expenses will drop | dramatically. | alanh wrote: | Yes, this is famously true, with SF's cost of living | (especially but not only housing) being some of the very | highest in the nation. Getting out of California helps | even more. | ghaff wrote: | Well they _can_. If I move to another popular place like | Manhattan they probably won 't go down much. But it's | reasonable to ask, if you don't have a work-related | reason to live in a place, whether it's good value based | on your priorities. The answer may be "Yes!" for SF for | some people. But it may also be "No." | themitigating wrote: | For cities in general there's much more to do compared to | low density areas. Restaurants, entertainment, other | people. All of this within a decent traveling distance. | DragonStrength wrote: | Sure, but most who leave SF will choose a smaller metro | area, not a rural area. What I have found in my time in | the Bay Area is a general ignorance of how many smaller | metro areas have developed more vibrant urban centers | over the past 10 years. The people from these cities who | went home for the first time in a decade are finding | surprisingly livable metros waiting for them, closer to | aging family. | inferiorhuman wrote: | I've definitely thought about finally leaving the Bay | Area, previously I'd written off a lot of places because | I want to be close to the coast and I love the relatively | mild weather. More recently I ended up talking with a | park ranger about life out here (he's from Truckee). He | was real attracted to the Oregon coast but aghast at the | white supremacy issues that are still ripe up there. | There's always a catch. | | Now? Politics and infrastructure put me off of huge | chunks of the country (especially Texas and Florida). I | don't really care if Austin is a vibrant metro area when | the state government is trying to ensure women have | subhuman status at most even if they've got to gut our | judicial system to do it. Small town Texas? Absolutely | fucking not, doubly so if I actually wanted to raise a | family. Then again the Bay Area _is_ my home. | ghaff wrote: | A lot of smaller cities have developed gentrified cores. | Mind you, these cores can be pretty small. You may have a | relative handful of restaurants and bars you like and | they may lack some of the cultural amenities of a larger | city. But I know a couple who just sold their presumably | very appreciated house in a major metro and moved | somewhere smaller. | ihumanable wrote: | I think one thing that keeps me in the Bay Area is | economic opportunity, although it remains to be seen how | larger macro-economic forces will effect this. | | For the last decade though, if you write code in the Bay | Area, there is just this massive backstop of companies | looking to hire. I've lived here since 2011 and worked | for all of 3 startups that entire time, so this isn't so | much about job hopping. Instead, because of all the | competition for talent in the area you get to enjoy a | degree of job security, high pay, and benefits that are | pretty nice. It is also a major relief to know that if | your company does have to let you go for whatever reason | or you just get sick of the work you are doing and want | to quit, there are a ton of other places hiring. | | With remote work I imagine being physically close to the | Bay Area is less of a requirement, but it seems like | there is some amount of drive to get people back into | offices, so we will see how long that remains viable. | | This is really the main reason I stay in the Bay Area, I | moved out to the Greater East Bay a few years back and | was able to find a nice house in a nice enough area for a | reasonable price. | | Having easy access to so many employers provides a peace | of mind and an implicit pile of leverage that's pretty | great. | ghaff wrote: | Sure. Cities lend themselves to different sorts of | activities and have different pros and cons than do rural | areas. Personally I get all the city stuff I want in | short visits. I can see a play in a large city that is an | hour drive away without living there. | themitigating wrote: | That's fine but the parent implied it was objectively | worse than living elsewhere | ghaff wrote: | I think the parent was me :-) I actually like SF but some | of the most expensive housing in the country is a high | bar if you don't either have enough money that it's a | non-issue or have to live there for employment or other | reasons. There are many cities with solid city activities | that aren't SF. | legerdemain wrote: | Like it or not, SF has the most vibrant tech community than | anywhere else. | | I live an hour away, and I make the painful, tedious drive | up in rush-hour traffic at least once a week to meet up | with some group or another in person. The alternative is | the dreary, sleep-inducing vendor teleconferences that | double as "meetups" on the Peninsula. | | I'm strongly considering ditching the Peninsula and moving | to SF for better networking and more diverse hangouts and | career opportunities. | xvedejas wrote: | This is not a strategy for everyone, but I definitely pay | less in SF than I would in most cities because I know | people willing to live with me long-term (and split rent) | here. Generally it's easier in SF to find a roommate who is | high-earning and willing to split an apartment or house | compared to other cities, where similar people would just | pay a little more to get their own place. | elif wrote: | in our city, my partner and I bought a house entirely for | 5.5 years of what we were paying in rent. Now just 2 of | our rent payments cover annual tax and insurance. | | any locally optimized strategy within the overall context | of renting is still a failing proposition imo. | mjmahone17 wrote: | You (and those like you) have informally recreated | boarding houses. It's a shame that Single Room Occupancy | is basically illegal to build in any major US city: most | cities require building "single family units" that must | have their own bathroom(s), kitchen and bedroom(s). | | It would be nice if people who are OK sharing common | spaces were able to have housing built specifically with | them in mind. | wctawcta wrote: | Splitting rent among roommates is not specific to San | Francisco, it's common to cities with expensive housing. | LA, Miami, NYC, San Diego, etc. all have high proportions | of adults living with roommates | (https://porch.com/advice/cities-whose-residents-likely- | live-...). | | Having roommates certainly helps save money, but it | remains true that you and your roommates are paying for | some of the most expensive housing in the country. | gamechangr wrote: | I second this | | My friends seem to be moving to Washington, Florida, and | other parts of California (away from main cities) | gwbushey wrote: | toomuchtodo wrote: | I see far more California vehicle tags in Central Florida | than I would've expected. | lotsofpulp wrote: | That is probably more a function of population. I | regularly see Florida plates in Washington. | davio wrote: | I live in Missouri and people who have lived on my street | for decades have Florida plates. They must have property | there and claim it as residency for tax purposes | legerdemain wrote: | A ton of license plates with oranges on them here in the | Bay Area, too. | jdhn wrote: | When you look in the cars, are they older people? Where I | live (western Florida), it's generally older people and | not the demographic that you'd expect to find on this | site. | tshaddox wrote: | The even more obvious thing is the lockdowns. Regardless of | whether you think the lockdowns were appropriate or not, it's | pretty clear that many of the advantages of living in a dense | cultural center like SF go away when you're mostly confined to | your home and can't participate in night life, the art/music | scene, restaurants, etc. Heck you barely even benefit from the | weather any more. | ilamont wrote: | There's another data point that supports this view of remote | work: retirement | | Many people, when given the chance to not work _at all_ , leave | their residence or make a decision to split their time between | their old home and a new home in a location with a better | lifestyle, friends, family, whatever. | ghaff wrote: | There's also a natural tendency for many people, as they get | older, to tend to gravitate away from downtowns as they care | less about the bar scene, say, and more about space for | hobbies, family, etc. So you're always going to have some | natural outflow for older demographics and it's probable it's | not being counterbalanced by new grads moving in. | | But I agree with your basic point. If you no longer have to | live in an area for work, you definitely start thinking about | where you _want_ to live. | givemeethekeys wrote: | If SF was attractive, then people would want to remotely work | from SF. But it isn't. So, they're leaving. On the other hand | San Diego seems to be blowing up. | rad88 wrote: | If fallacies worked then everyone would use them, but they | don't, so nobody uses them! | seanmcdirmid wrote: | SF is expensive. If SF was cheaper, it would be more | attractive, more people would arrive, and rents would be | pushed up again by the increased competition. This is just | supply and demand at work. | andbberger wrote: | SF is attractive it's just stupidly expensive | whakim wrote: | I don't think this is _necessarily_ true. Consider that the | reason many people were in SF in the first place was because | their job required them to be there and they didn 't have a | choice; now that they have a choice, perhaps many of them | find SF attractive and stay, while a minority don't and | leave. | deltaonefour wrote: | Around 2010 and before SF was very attractive. The southbay | were where most jobs were located but everyone wanted to | live in the city. That's what caused a huge amount of | companies and startups to move to SF. | | The influx of techies, however, changed the city. And SF | soon became what it is today. | onetokeoverthe wrote: | The ahistorical techies destroyed sf by 2000. | | Sf became techietown in 2000. | | Instead of primarily being an alt culture capital. | | It became "a place to work". | deltaonefour wrote: | No. It started in 2000 and proceeded into 2010 where | around 2010 and before it became noticeable. By the mid | 2010s it reached it's peak. | | Prior to 2010 and a little after it was more than a place | to work. It was a place where all techies wanted to live; | but not because of work. Because they loved the city. | That's why those shuttles from SF to mountain view google | exist. Too many googlers wanted to live in SF and work in | MTV. | tshaddox wrote: | > Consider that the reason many people were in SF in the | first place was because their job required them to be there | and they didn't have a choice | | I'm not sure how big of a factor that is/was though. I know | plenty of people in their 20s who worked in the peninsula | or east bay but deliberately took on the high costs (and | long commutes!) of living in SF for the usual reasons | related to SF being a cultural center. | | I think it would be fairer to apply your claim to the | reason many people live _in the entire Bay Area_ , but not | specifically in SF. | jethro_tell wrote: | I mean, to be fair, we're talking about 6 out of 100 | people moving this year. I can defiantly see 6 out of 100 | people being there just because that's where they get | paid or their job moved them. | | It's even more likely that part of that 6 percent had | family obligations, and some just realized they wouldn't | buy a house even if they loved the city, and some just | hated it. | lemonlime wrote: | If SF was unattractive, it wouldn't cost $2,500-$3,000 to | live in mediocre housing with 6 housemates. | | Even people that don't have high paying tech jobs are lining | up to pay these kinds of insane prices. They don't want to | pay the prices, but it's worth it to live in an area like SF. | | One of the only places on the planet in human history that | people put this much energy and money into just living | somewhere. | raverbashing wrote: | I guess living in SF is like buying a boat. You're happy | when moving there but much happier when moving out | twiceaday wrote: | "Nobody drives in LA. There's too much traffic!" | mikebenfield wrote: | Obviously there is some level of demand to live in SF, and | that's part of the explanation for the high cost of living. | | But the factor really driving up rent and real estate | prices is the massive resistance in SF and the Bay Area in | general to building new housing. | bcrosby95 wrote: | It's being driven up everywhere. SF just started higher. | arcticbull wrote: | In part yes, but also, SF was especially resistant to | building new houses. So much so it even has a Wikipedia | article on its obstinance. [1] | | > For example, from 2012 to 2016, the San Francisco | metropolitan area added 373,000 new jobs, but permitted | only 58,000 new housing units. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_housing_s | hortage | scelerat wrote: | It's funny, I moved to SF and landed a tech job, in that order. | I moved to the Bay Area for certain things above a job. I know | there are others like me, perhaps not a majority of the HN | crowd, but I quite like it here and it would take a lot for me | to change my mind about the place. | deltaonefour wrote: | Lots of reasons why people hate SF. The homeless problems, | the petty crime. The smell, the dirtiness, the shitty | weather, the actual danger of stepping on human feces, the | drug use. | | To each their own, but I think it's important for people to | get out of their headspace and see things from a more general | perspective as well. There are very good reasons why people | don't like SF and unless people who love the city acknowledge | those things, change is likely impossible. | [deleted] | tayo42 wrote: | Except the weather lol I lived in Bernal for years and | never experienced any of that... | deltaonefour wrote: | This is what I mean by people not getting out their | headspace. I literally find it impossible not to | experience every single thing I mentioned above on a | daily basis just by walking through the city. | nineplay wrote: | There are good reasons why people don't like SF but why | should people who do like SF care or try to convince them | otherwise? I don't like Dallas but I don't think people who | do like Dallas need to get out of their headspace and | change things for my benefit. | | Obviously SF has problems and no one loves SF who doesn't | want to improve the homeless issue. It doesn't make them | wrong to love the city. | themitigating wrote: | Do you know the excitement that surrounds stories like | this on foxnews? They want liberal Democrat cities to | fail so they can blame leadership as an example | [deleted] | cbozeman wrote: | That's because leadership _is_ failing. | | The correct response of leaders is to ignore wealthy | citizens attempting to prop up their multi-million dollar | 3bed4bath properties and let them know, "We're going to | zone more areas for residential development, sorry. 2500 | square foot homes shouldn't be $3 million in any area in | America." | | And all these rich liberals - and they _are_ liberals - | use the same bullshit line over and over, "I'm all _FOR_ | affordable housing... I 'm just afraid it'll change the | _character_ of our neighborhood. " | | Bull. Shit. You. Lying. Fuck. | | You thought you'd be able to set up your grandchildren | for life because you chose what was a relatively sleepy, | and honestly kinda shitty, city back in the 1970s. Fuck | you and fuck off. | | What they're _really_ afraid of is that some politician | who really _does_ give a shit about the city will come | along and upend their apple cart and their 50 year old | brownstone will only be worth $1 million instead of $7 | million when they die. | nineplay wrote: | > let them know, "We're going to zone more areas for | residential development, | | Why? This may seem deliberately naive but in the context | of the current discussion, why should more areas be zoned | for residential if people are leaving the Bay Area? If | there are residents who hate the Bay Area, can't afford | it, and are no longer stuck there now that they can WFH | then it sounds like they are cheerfully leaving. The | wealthy citizens keep their houses and neighborhoods and | perhaps the rest of us get a break from the ceaseless | complaining. | | It's an easier solution than massive rezoning proposals. | nobodyandproud wrote: | Anger aside (directed more at liberals or NIMBYs?), | California and San Francisco is limiting its potential. | | Wealth of the area is being strangled by a magnitude. | | As an individual owner, however, it's irrational to not | fight. | | So how would you incentivize growth? It can be done, but | I do think the lawmakers will have to be creative about | it. | nineplay wrote: | > Wealth of the area is being strangled by a magnitude | | How so? | Karrot_Kream wrote: | > To each their own, but I think it's important for people | to get out of their headspace and see things from a more | general perspective as well. | | What makes you think those of us who enjoy living in the | area haven't made the conscious choice? There are good | reasons I chose to live in the urban parts of the SFBA, | just like I presume there are good reasons several of my | friends are happily running a household in Seattle, Austin, | Chicago, Brooklyn, Columbus, or pretty much any other part | of the US. | deltaonefour wrote: | Many haven't... I've literally met people who claim they | haven't seen any human feces in San Francisco or drug | users and homeless people everywhere. | | Then there's people like you who prefer the fair and | balanced look. Like San Francisco is a city that has some | problems just like any other city. | | Are there really, truly any factually bad places to live | in the world? Or is everything just a matter of opinion? | Nothing is bad or good it's what each individual makes of | it. | | When is it that enough people believe in something that | it's no longer an opinion but a fact? Some people may | enjoy being punched in the face but enough people hate | being punched in the face that this situation is | considered to be factually just a shitty situation to be | in, completely independent of opinion. | | I'm saying enough people are talking shit about SF that | SF is pretty much in the zone of being factually | categorized as a shitty place to live. If it's not there | yet, it's close enough where people need to acknowledge | some big problems here that no other 1st world city has. | mdasen wrote: | I think the point is that many people feel forced to live in | SF because of their job. At the same time, there are so many | people that love SF that are forced out due to economics. | | It would be better if people were able to choose where they | want to live rather than being pushed into certain living | situations that aren't what they'd choose. There are plenty | of techies that feel pushed to living in SF for their job. | There are plenty of LGBT people that feel pushed out (or kept | out) of SF due to economics even though they want to be | there. It's not that any group is right or wrong. I just | think that people get resentful when they're kept away from | the things they want in life. Place is one of the biggest | parts of our lives. "I want to live in X, but I can't really | because..." is just a recipe for unhappiness. | smsm42 wrote: | Many SF tech companies would love to not allow remote work | again, but I think they can't really pull that off anymore. The | argument "the company can't function that way" has been | demolished during COVID days, so it'd be very hard for | companies to go back. And the more companies allow it, the less | leverage the ones that don't have. | | That said, a lot of people that worked in SF didn't live in SF | even back then. They may live in Oakland, Redwood City, | Mountain View, all the way from Walnut Creek to Los Gatos or | Milpitas. Now they can just avoid the multi-hour commute - and | I think that's a win. | 99_00 wrote: | Your reasoning contradicts its self. | | I agree that remote work allows more workers to live where they | want. | | You claim that workers left SF not because of any attribute of | the city, but because they wanted a change. | | You imply that SF is desirable place to live, however it's | population declined only because of a desire for change. | | However, there are more remote workers outside of SF than in | it. If SF was in-fact desirable, and remote workers simply want | 'change', then SF's population would increase. Because a | greater number of remote workers would move to desirable SF for | their change, than would leave it. | | Reality is this: Remote work allows workers choose desirable | places to live regardless of office location. | | Without the advantage of office location, SF stops being | desirable. It stops being desirable because the benefits it | supplies (culture, etc) are less than the costs it demands | (crime, rent, etc). | | One might argue that MANY cities are going to experience | similar declines and that SF isn't unique. So this can't be | seen as people voting with their feet against SF. | | That's fine. Then people are voting with their feet against | MANY cities and cities are simply not desirable. | [deleted] | 8note wrote: | The price of rent shows its desirability. Lots and lots of | people want to live there, but that doesn't mean they can, or | that it's the best fit for their other requirements. | darth_avocado wrote: | Ridiculous rent for houses/apartments in a very bad shape, rising | crime and eroding faith in the justice system (you could argue | that the data doesn't support this, but the reality is that the | data doesn't support this because a lot of crimes these days go | unreported), school district going to shit, bad city governance | (which trickles into bad transportation, more homelessness, filth | in the streets, businesses closing or not enough new ones | opening, ever increasing taxes etc.) and overall high taxes which | you question when you don't get proportional services. | [deleted] | gsibble wrote: | Pretty much all the reasons I left in 2018 after 10 years. | Expensive, filthy, and dangerous. I live in Boston now and my | quality of life has soared. Make just as much too. | jmyeet wrote: | SF is expensive and horrible. The only reason people in tech live | there is because of employers in the area and it beats living | elsewhere in the Bay Area which is expensive and dull. | | There's really no other reason people would put up with an hour | (or more) commute each way every day. | [deleted] | seaourfreed wrote: | People vote if SF has a good or bad government, by voting with | their feet. Cities across the nation can have people leave due to | remote work. This isn't remote work. | | This is a vote on if SF's government is great or bad. | jdavis703 wrote: | Rents are up 15% YoY, which is probably a leading sign that | demand is back. I know some folks might blame higher rents on | greedy landlords... But it's quite clear that at work this | year's class of new grad hires is moving to the Bay Area. | | What I think we saw is people left SF because there's no point | in doing remote work from a cramped, expensive apartment. So | yes, it was a vote on governance. But for all SF's problems | it's more nuanced than "people are fleeing a sh*t-hole city." | | (And even funnier, I live in Oakland. There was a noticeable | surge in people parking bikes with Caltrain tags in the bike | room. I'm back to being the only bike with a Caltrain tag now.) | webwielder2 wrote: | Serious question: what's another place in the US with mild year- | round weather, walkable neighborhoods (haven't driven a car in 12 | years), and easy access to an international airport? That's what | SF offers me. The "SF is an unlivable hellhole" drumbeat is so | loud that I almost feel compelled to move (my own experience be | damned), but I'm not sure where to. | dopeboy wrote: | As someone who lives there and is taking a very hard look at | other towns, the answer is none. Some small parts of LA come | close. | [deleted] | twayt wrote: | > what's another place in the US with mild year-round weather, | walkable neighborhoods (haven't driven a car in 12 years), and | easy access to an international airport? | | If you consider SF (the city) weather mild, there are a ton of | cities in the US that match what you're looking for. They just | don't have the tech orientation and cachet that you associate | with living in SF. | presentation wrote: | Too bad the USA has practically no livable cities. | AnimalMuppet wrote: | Don't feel compelled to move. If you don't know why _you_ want | out of SF, _don 't leave_. | | Everybody who is saying how horrible it is aren't going to live | your life for you. Don't try to live theirs. | vincentmarle wrote: | Have you ever been to Santa Monica or San Diego? | nineplay wrote: | Do you also want a city that borders the ocean and is also a 5 | hour drive to one of the most beautiful national parks in the | country? I think you might be out of luck. | rr808 wrote: | Agreed, California is pretty special. I think its easy to get | hung up on "mild year-round weather", it actually gets boring | and I prefer 4 proper seasons. I enjoy some snow and some hot | summers which means most of the country is available. | systemvoltage wrote: | I went to SF over last weekend and thought of stopping by | Walgreens (Pharmacy) to pick up eye drops. I had to call the | associate to unlock the cabinet doors to pick them up. Took 5-10 | mins to just get hold of someone with a key ring the size of a | coconut. Every cabinet was locked from toothpaste to tampons. | This is at the Walgreens near Union Square which is still better | than other areas. | | People are leaving because of the decline. I wish San Franciscans | would stop defending themselves and admit that things are | _actually_ worse and whatever politics they 're advocating hasn't | worked. This extends more generally to California (and other west | coast states). | | I voted for Shellenberger for Governor of CA. Felt right. | wahern wrote: | > I wish San Franciscans would stop defending themselves and | admit that things are actually worse and whatever politics | they're advocating hasn't worked. This extends more generally | to California (and other west coast states). | | > I voted for Shellenberger for Governor of CA. Felt right. | | FWIW, people like Newsom openly admit the scale of the problems | and the roadblocks which radicalized "progressivism" present to | California. Newsom has even openly admitted that some of his | own policies as mayor of San Francisco were somewhat foolhardy | and naive in retrospect, including his housing and drug | policies. (And he did so not as a sound bite to impress voters, | but buried in speeches and interviews and backed up by | substantive reasons for why they were so.) Mayor Breed has also | expressed mea culpas of her own. And both have expressed | extreme frustration with many of the (invariably) Democrats | they must work with. | | Breed's become so frustrated recently she event started | swearing--"less tolerant of all the bullshit that has destroyed | our city"--and almost seemed to lose her composure in an | interview when asked how she felt about Boudin's | policies.[1][2] | | My voting strategy is two-fold: 1) Any politician that can | admit they were wrong about substantive policy issues deserves | my vote, period, especially when such admissions come with | potential cost, are unforced, and relate to relatively recent | policies. 2) As politics is the art of the possible, I | appreciate that I need to vote for someone who knows how to | play the game. Newsom and Breed are both savvy players, and | they're career players. That turns alot of people off. But | that's politics. Being a savvy player is a sine quo non of a | good politician. (And by savvy I don't mean being good at | soundbites or playing to voter sentiment, but know how to wheel | and deal and pull triggers in smoke-filled rooms--palace | intrigue type stuff.) | | When a candidate demonstrates political savvy while also | credibly expressing some honesty and sensibility, then the | choice quickly becomes easy. Both Newsom and Breed have done | that, IMO. It's difficult for me to expect more out of them at | this point. One of my benchmarks for a virtuous politician is | Senator Russ Feingold. But Senator Feingold lost Wisconsin in | 2010. He couldn't match his virtuousness with his savviness. | Both Wisconsin and the U.S. as a whole probably would have | better off with a little less virtue and a little more savvy | from Feingold. | | Ideas are cheap. We don't need people like Shellenberger in | office. They'll be ineffective. We need people who are capable | of hearing what people like Shellenberger are proposing, and | then to the degree its possible (and often it won't be possible | _at_ _all_ ) translate that not just into effective policy or | literal legislation, but a sufficient number of actual | legislative votes. | | Regarding Newsom's privately sensibilities on energy policy, | he's personally far more conservative than you'd think. Circa | 2005 Newsom mothballed a donated gas power plant in San | Francisco, but that wasn't his first choice. He was coerced | into it--coerced by a lawyer friend of mine advocating for the | surrounding community and who defly threatend (in person, from | across the table) Newsom with a scorched-earth public relations | campaign which Newsom knew he couldn't win. Newsom, | understanding that politics is the art of the possible, | relented. It was battle he could never have won if forced out | into the open. By relenting he built capital--environmental | policy credibility--that could come in handy one day. Like, for | example, today: | https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2022-04-29/califor... | | [1] https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/mayor-breed- | orders... | | [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/opinion/sway-kara- | swisher... | systemvoltage wrote: | Many people do not know but Newsom's ex-wife used to be | Kimberly Guilfoyle: | https://www.kqed.org/arts/13885405/kimberly-guilfoyle- | used-t... | | Now, I don't vote based on character to a certain extent, but | Newsom has _both_ : Terrible policies and a terrible | character. | wahern wrote: | I would find it difficult to have any respect for Newsom if | all I knew about him was his social and business life. But | the older I get the more I realize that character traits | are distributed much more randomly than I ever believed. | People want to believe, for example, that intelligence and | compassion tend to come packaged together. But then you | realize that there are quite alot of very malicious yet | intelligent people out there. The universe doesn't have a | sense of justice, at least not to the degree we expect, and | definitely not the degree we desire. | | Last week I heard on the radio[1] a poem that resonated | very strongly me with: A man said to the | universe: "Sir, I exist!" "However," replied | the universe, "The fact has not created in me A | sense of obligation." | | It's a poem by Stephen Crane, recited by Paul Auster during | an interview. Auster describes Crane as (IIRC) a proto- | existentialist, which explains why the poem resonated so | strongly with me. | | [1] The (Mostly Forgotten) Writer Who Changed Literature | Forever, Again and Again, On the Media, May 20, 2022, | https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/segments/mostly- | for... | [deleted] | floren wrote: | > I voted for Shellenberger for Governor of CA. Felt right. | | Same, but note that this was only the primary... it's entirely | possible we'll end up with Newsom and some other random | Democrat on the actual ballot. | systemvoltage wrote: | Unfortunately, yes. People have stopped voting based on | rationale and policy, but instead based on team colors. | | For those who don't know Shellenberger, he is your classic | liberal running as an independent. Pro nuclear alone gets a | vote from me. But there are so many things he talks about | that are just common sense in majority of large cities around | the world. | | If you're fed up with CA, please look him up. | rc_mob wrote: | The only voting choices you have in America are Republican | and not Republican. The non Republican party is a | disorganized mess. Its the world we live in. | plasticchris wrote: | Not so in Cali - there it is (almost always) a choice | between democrat and democrat due to the way primaries | are structured. | floren wrote: | But surely if we just vote in the same people for another | 30 years or so, they'll get around to solving these | problems! | [deleted] | [deleted] | eins1234 wrote: | As someone who still enjoys SF and wants to keep living here, I | read this as great news since I expected rents to decrease by a | similar amount. | | But I just checked my apartment's website and it seems like if | anything the rents have slightly increased compared to the price | I renewed at last year!? Obviously this is a sample size of 1 and | doesn't reflect the overall market. | | Curious if anyone else has real data on rent price trends. Is it | just my apartment or is this a case of the market staying | irrational for longer than I'd have hoped? | | EDIT: data was provided in another thread: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31533492 | truthwhisperer wrote: | some-guy wrote: | I'm in Oakland and I'm not in SF all the time, but it does feel | like Market St. / the Financial District is the most affected | post-pandemic, but the rest of the city feels like it's as | popular as ever. Lots of SF residents I know in tech are | working from home but are still living and enjoying the city. | draw_down wrote: | aantix wrote: | Especially with the advent of Starlink, you can literally work | anywhere and still have reliable enough Internet to make a six | figure income. | alaricus wrote: | thenayr wrote: | hyperpl wrote: | Anyone know stats on NYC? I'm having trouble understanding the | current true state wrt to apartment rental pricing: many people | left during Covid but I'm not quite sure if many of those in fact | returned. | | Furthermore, it would seem as though rental inventory is quite | low or at least demand is through the roof (typically one needs | to be ready to sign on the spot) with little to no room to shop- | around. Prices are also quite high, I understand we have been in | a recent high inflation regime but I just can't help but think | the apartment rental market isn't as transparent as it was say, | 3+ years ago. | wombat-man wrote: | I think a lot of people got covid deals, and at over 12 month | leases. For example, getting a 12 month lease plus some number | of free months. Some of these people are still in their | apartments. Meanwhile, a lot of people are trying to move to | the city and there's just less space overall because of those | deals. | | My guess is that as those leases come to an end and some of | those people move, the rent situation may get less crazy. But | who knows. | pcurve wrote: | price is above pre pandemic | ipnon wrote: | There are many incentives in NYC that prevent rents from | dropping. What we saw during the pandemic was static rent | prices with increased benefits that lowered the actual price, | for example last month is free so in effect rent has been | lowered by 1/12 while still being listed as 12/12. Landlords do | this for a variety of completely [redacted] reasons, including | price controls, taxes, vacancy regulations, credit for | "improvements", advertising histories. Rents do not fall in | NYC, they merely stop rising for a time. | eezurr wrote: | The main reason they do it, IIRC, is because the banks | handing out the landlords loans require some minimum rent | prices on the leases in the loan contracts. The way they get | around this is by offering a month or three of free rent. | That way the leases signed by the tenants still me the | contractual obligations of the bank. | | In the end the tenant still gets screwed when the lease comes | up to be renewed, unless they are willing to move out over | negotiating another free month in the next cycle. | dijonman2 wrote: | gsibble wrote: | Agreed. I left in 2018 and am much happier now to not have to | play the game "Is that water or urine?" when I see a puddle on | the street. | | Trick question.....it's always urine. | [deleted] | birken wrote: | One thing to note is that the 2021 population is an _estimate_ , | and if you are a Census buff as I am, and compare the Census' | 2019 estimates to the 2020 actual populations (as calculated from | the census), there are often very large differences. | | The article also says that CA's estimate of the population | decline is much smaller, and arguably CA itself would have more | accurate data for this particular metric (residency and voter | rolls). | | So while I'm sure the gist of the argument is true, there is | probably a larger margin of error on the calculation than you'd | think at first glance. I'm not quite going to say the article is | sensationalist, but if you look at the totality of the data | (house prices, rental prices, CA's population estimates, etc), | I'm not sure the "SF is in freefall" narrative holds up. | ttymck wrote: | I appreciate the point you are making, so I ask this genuinely: | how confident are we in the census count? How confident are we | usually, and how did that change given the hurdles the pandemic | introduced? | jeffbee wrote: | Both the decennial census and the census ACS are estimates. | All population counts are estimates. | geoalchimista wrote: | All statistical inferences are estimates, and carry | standard errors with them. What is your point? | drewda wrote: | See https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press- | releases/2022/pes-2020... | karmasimida wrote: | Interestingly the inflation in SF, and Bay in general is less | than national average, and much less than hot areas like Miami. | | I guess soon it will balance off | somethoughts wrote: | I think in the two scenarios you can focus on either the | positives or the negatives. | | When population goes up: positive - the area is vibrant | economically; negative - rent is spiraling upwards out of control | | When population goes down: positive - rent is finally affordable; | negative - the area is falling apart existentially | | I think the media in general has found the negative spin sells | better. | akavi wrote: | > When population goes up: positive - the area is vibrant | economically; negative - rent is spiraling upwards out of | control | | What's endlessly infuriating is population going up in a city | _should_ be an almost unmitigated positive. It 's just our | unwillingness to allow building new housing turning it into a | zero sum game that makes it a mixed bag. | visarga wrote: | But does the transportation capacity also scale linearly with | size? | mupuff1234 wrote: | I think we have plenty of working proof that mass | transportation systems work at scale (NYC, Seoul, Tokyo, | Berlin...) | ellard wrote: | The argument I usually see is that there would be less need | for transportation as the removal of explicit zoning would | be part of the effort for increasing density and that would | put people closer to the goods and services that they | want/need. | | (I don't have an opinion on this; the closest I ever got to | city planning was playing Sim City) | 88913527 wrote: | A nuanced view of any sort of economic change will include | analysis would objectively consider all the pro's-and-con's, | and the media knows that con's sell better because of | heightened emotional response. | [deleted] | mr90210 wrote: | As a non-US citizen, sometimes I ask myself how did California | end up like the country where I am from, which is located in | the so called third world. | [deleted] | deltaonefour wrote: | This is an exaggeration. I grew up in the southbay and you | basically never see the shit you see in SF in the southbay. | SJ has a bigger population then SF. | Jackpillar wrote: | compiler-guy wrote: | The short version is that it isn't. You just hear about the | worst parts. There are still plenty of fully functional | cities and towns and the crime rate is still quite low by | historical standards. | | Definitely has its problems, but the availability heuristic | makes things seem worse than they are. | TameAntelope wrote: | Yeah, this is definitely a real problem. | | I live in semi-rural America, and I have literally never in | my life even seen a gun fire before. I used to live in DC, | for six years, and I was never robbed, accosted, or even | made to feel unsafe, and I had on multiple occasions walked | miles home from a bar after closing. It was a downright | pleasant way to get home if I didn't need to be up the next | morning. | | America the country is basically nothing like America shown | on TV. It's just too big and complex to explain in a | soundbyte. | nineplay wrote: | I love SF and I'm happy the population is going down. These | articles are posted once a week and trumpeted as some sort of | victory and I can't imagine who they think is shedding tears | over this. | | Sometime people wave their hands towards sad homeowners who are | ( maybe ) seeing their home prices go down but I own a pricy | home in a pricy neighborhood and as far as I'm concerned it's | funny money. Whatever profit I'd make from selling my home only | matters if I move to a place where home prices haven't gone up | at the same rate. There's no lower COL city that I'm interested | in living in so it's all the same to me. | olivermarks wrote: | People who own properties in SF are in a v different | situation to those who are renting, couch surfing, flying in | and out to HQ etc etc. | | I love SF too. We moved north over the bridge 8 years ago | (working from home) but are in the city all the time. It was | spectacularly deteriorating pre pandemic (when we left the | Castro area the local library had just employed an armed | guard to keep the transients out for example) and is now | arguably in crisis due to the collapse of foot traffic | retail, rampant crime and due to the city being a welcoming | destination for transients who often have serious mental | illness (SMI) and substance abuse issues. The city - and | California generally - does not have the resources to triage | their needs but it does have a huge 'non profit' homeless | industry and more worryingly some areas are crowded with | cartel drug sellers. | | Driving European visitor friends around a few weeks ago was | the first time I'd really been to all the neighborhoods in a | leisurely way since the pandemic abated. The wealthier areas | (Noe Valley etc) are relatively unchanged apart from a lot of | empty storefronts, but a lot of the city looks very beaten up | despite the gorgeous vistas, light and climate (perfect | weather during out tour). | | We are at a typical west coast boom/bust cross roads for | California cities... | nineplay wrote: | SF has its problems to be sure. California has its problems | too though whether or not those problems are better or | worse than problems in any other place is unclear - the | media treats SF and California as though they are one and | the same. | | ( I'm old enough to remember when the media treated LA and | California as one and the same and the SFers would snottily | gripe that they're not 'that' California ) | | Still I don't know of any SF problems that will be made | worse by the population going down. Seems to me that the | couch surfers, renters, etc. benefit from the lower | population. | outside1234 wrote: | It will be interesting to see how much of this is Bay Area | spread. | | We've had a huge number of people move to Santa Cruz, for | example, so I've wondered how much of this might be the Bay Area | getting broader instead of smaller. | mwattsun wrote: | The increase in rental prices in Santa Cruz reflect that. It's | good for my family since we've been there 90 years but I'm | currently in San Jose because I can get a nicer place for the | same amount. It's not bad because I throw my electric bike on | the bus that runs over the hill every hour when I want to go | visit. | peanut_worm wrote: | San Francisco is the dirtiest city I have ever seen. It doesn't | seem like a great place to spend 1 million dollars on a house | unless you work there. | [deleted] | [deleted] | twiceaday wrote: | 1 million dollars might get you a two-bedroom condo. Median | house price is 1.6 million | | https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/ | atq2119 wrote: | Have you ever traveled outside the US? | mancerayder wrote: | I thought NYC was the dirtiest place I've ever seen, sounds | like there's competition! | asdff wrote: | Neither are as dirty as New Orleans. There's trash, there's | excrement, then there is rotting catfish and shellfish on top | of the trash and excrement and it just sits stewing in | stagnant, humid, swampy and hot air. | the_only_law wrote: | I was actually going to go there last year for a show, | until nature decided to try and destroy it again (though I | hear the hurricane wasn't too bad) | selimthegrim wrote: | The few weeks afterwards when the trash wasn't getting | picked up made me hightail it to Mobile for the duration. | selimthegrim wrote: | I live in the Lower Ninth Ward and based on what I saw of | SF last fall I'd still give that award to SF (unless | comparing the few weeks after Ida) | JaceLightning wrote: | Keep going. Needs to drop another 50% or so. | [deleted] | gamblor956 wrote: | In the first year of COVID. I can't comment about how SF is | faring these days, but LA also cleared out that first year. | | But this year, people came roaring back. The average rent | increase in my neighborhood was _over 20%._ The competition for | rental units in some buildings is intense enough that potential | tenants either sign a rental agreement on the spot or lose the | unit to someone else willing to sign, and at least one of the | apartment buildings on my block has a waitlist. | | (Also interesting to note that the city of LA was not one of the | top cities in terms of population loss per the Census, but | several _suburban_ cities in LA County, like Torrance, were on | the list.) | vikingerik wrote: | > The average rent increase in my neighborhood was over 20%. | | Is that compared to the pre-pandemic value, or to an | artificially low value during a pandemic year? | | Also consider inflation: if everything is up 8% in a year, the | real increase is only 12% in real terms. | logicalmonster wrote: | > people came roaring back. The average rent increase in my | neighborhood was over 20% | | Just throwing a thought out there, but your anecdote might say | a bit more about inflation than about a returning population. | gamblor956 wrote: | No, these buildings are completely full. The average vacancy | for the apartment buildings in my neighborhood is less than | 1%. Also, you're ignoring the bit about the waitlists... | | See also LAT article on this phenomenon, but across the metro | area as a whole. https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2022- | 05-17/california... | j_walter wrote: | I haven't seen any data to support "roaring back". 6-ish months | ago they were still saying SF rents were down 20% from March | 2020. Any idea how many rentals aren't rentals anymore because | of the moratorium impact? I know up here in Portland there was | a huge net reduction of rentals and prices spiked pretty hard. | | For example: https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market- | trends/us/ca/sa... | https://therealdeal.com/sanfrancisco/2022/05/02/san-francisc... | gamblor956 wrote: | Like I said, I can't comment on how SF is doing because I | don't live there. But I do live in LA, and the apartments in | my neighborhood have never been this full before. | | For point of comparison: at two of the apartment buildings on | my block, a 1 BR 540 sq ft studio will rent for about $2800. | This is _up_ 16% from pre-COVID rates of approximately $2400 | for those same units ($2200 during COVID, which is where the | >20% increase comes from). | | EDIT: At one of those buildings, a 1BR is listed for $3600, | which is what a 2BR used to rent for at that same building | pre-COVID. I can't say what the 2BR rates are right now | because there aren't any listed. | j_walter wrote: | Rents are up across the country and you are right it's 20% | in LA according to rent.com. However equating rental prices | going up 12% in the past 12 months with "people coming | roaring back" isn't really correct. I mean inflation is up | >7% in the last 12 months. I wouldn't say NYC has had a | huge roaring back of people...but rent is up 39% in the | last year...triple what SF saw. | | You can have rental prices increase and that doesn't | necessarily mean an increase in demand...there are many | external factors (supply shrinking, adjustments to account | for lost rent in the pandemic, inflation, etc). | gamblor956 wrote: | You're just ignoring contrary data to fit your viewpoint. | | As I've pointed out many times, the apartment buildings | in my neighborhood _have waitlists_ for potential | renters, and that 's despite 20% YoY rent increases (or | 16% rent increases, comparing pre- and post-COVID). | Average vacancy is less than 1%, and that is true of all | of the desirable neighborhoods in LA (of which there are | too many to mention). _Your own citation supports the | rent increase._ | | These rent increases are not due to supply shrinking | (there are thousands more rental units on the market now | than before COVID), adjustments for lost rent in the | pandemic (that's not how rental pricing works, landlords | always charge market rate), and inflation (rent in these | neighborhoods increased more than twice as much as | inflation). | | At this point, having been confronted by data showing | that your understanding is wrong, you need to point to | actual concrete evidence that your understanding is | reasonable and not just vague insinuations. | raylad wrote: | Here's rent data for SF: | | https://www.rent.com/california/san-francisco- | apartments/ren... Avg. Rent Annual | Change Studio $2,911 +17% 1 Bed $3,520 +12% | 2 Beds $4,593 +6% 3 Beds $5,701 +8% | j_walter wrote: | So if the average is say 12% increase (which is what | rent.com says right now)...that still means SF is lower | than before COVID started. Not to mention that the most | cities are seeing off the charts numbers compared to SF | right now. | | https://www.rent.com/research/average-rent-price-report/ | | 36% increase in Portland, 112% increase in Austin, 36% in | Miami. | | But please, feel free to down vote me for using data. | [deleted] | m0llusk wrote: | This is mostly an artifact. SF proper is a very small area in a | metro area having around 8.5 million people. If you look | carefully at a similar size urban core in other metro areas then | you will see similar results. | cheeseblubber wrote: | If you compare rent trends of SF vs NYC or LA | | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-francisco-ca | | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/new-york-ny | | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/los-angeles-ca | | You'll notice a huge difference between in SF and the other | cities. Rent prices still hasn't gone back to pre pandemic level. | bushbaba wrote: | *But SF Bay surrounding communities have seen rent back up to | pre-pandemic levels. So this trend seems SF city proper | specific. | | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/palo-alto-ca | | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/los-altos-ca | | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/sunnyvale-ca | | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-jose-ca | | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/santa-clara-ca | | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/walnut-creek-ca | | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/fremont-ca | | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/dublin-ca | | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/south-san-francisco-ca | | https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-carlos-ca | eins1234 wrote: | Well, thank you for confirming my suspicions. I wish I saw this | before posting https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31533926 | yodsanklai wrote: | The prices in NYC are just insane! | colinmhayes wrote: | Apparently 3 beds are cheaper than 1 in new york. 3,695 vs | 3,600. | sethhochberg wrote: | Much like many cities - NYC included - are seeing people | leave because they are no longer tied to wherever they had | been with remote work, we're also seeing many people moving | here specifically because they can work remotely from NYC. | | Available rental inventory is almost nonexistent right now, | vacancy rates are at the floor. Much of our new development | is exactly the kind of new amenity building that folks in the | high-earning tech remote worker crowd often seek, but its | still not managing to keep pace with demand. There's a | shortage of inventory for virtually everyone except the | billionaire class (not that they occupy much of the market in | absolute terms). | | I've been in NYC about a decade an even in pre-pandemic years | that most folks agree were much more stereotypically booming | and I can't ever remember a housing market that was so | frothy. | asdff wrote: | Other cities seem like they have more diversified local | economies than SF. Probably there are more people with the | flexibility to work from home working in the bay area than in | these other places. | cheriot wrote: | Yes, SF has problems that are not related to the macro | environment. | | nitpick: Rent prices in many neighborhoods are back up. It's | specific areas in and near downtown that draw down the average. | 999900000999 wrote: | With even hybrid work models your living a better life living up | in Sac and driving down once a week. | | This is a good thing. People should vote with their feet. | jeromegv wrote: | Problem is when hybrid becomes 2, and then 3 days. That | commutes starts becoming a nightmare. | xvedejas wrote: | The capitol corridor train is pleasant enough, even if not | the most convenient of bay area transit options. | thebean11 wrote: | Isn't that like 2 hours each way..? That's like a quarter | of your day, no thanks. | xvedejas wrote: | Yes, 2 hours from Sac. Quite rough to do every day, but | I'd think pleasant to do twice a week; there's WiFi and a | cafe on board, for what it's worth. That said, if you | just want cheaper housing, Fairfield is only an hour away | in the same direction, so there are plenty of | intermediate options. | ghaff wrote: | I had a 90 minute+ door to door commute (which I could do | mostly by train) for about 18 months. I only had to do it | about half the time and it was manageable but probably | not sustainable long-term, especially for stretches when | I was regularly going in more frequently. Once a week | would be pretty doable; I go in for the day periodically | but nothing like once a week. | twblalock wrote: | You can live cheaper in a lot of cities closer to San Francisco | than Sac which still offer reasonable commutes. Most of the | east bay, south bay, peninsula, etc. | 650REDHAIR wrote: | You couldn't pay me enough to live and work in Sacramento let | alone live there and commute to the city. | shadowgovt wrote: | Price people out of living somewhere and the market will | eventually react. | throwaway0a5e wrote: | The most regrettable thing is that it's those who bear the most | responsibility for the city being less desirable (in a multitude | of unrelated but compounding ways) are the ones with the most | ability to just move elsewhere. I wish these people had to sleep | in the bed they made. | khazhoux wrote: | Your comment could be read as a slam on rich techies, or the | homeless, or even a specific race or ethnicity. Amazingly | ambiguous! :-) | anonygler wrote: | The idea that people who simply decide to live somewhere are | guilty of some moral failing is preposterous. Hold your elected | leaders accountable for not doing their job. | rattray wrote: | According to the article, Manhattan lost 6.6% (that is, even | more) in the same timeframe. | | Manhattan is a much closer comparable to SF than all of NYC, the | lines just happen to be drawn differently. | trimbo wrote: | So many houses in my SF neighborhood are currently empty. They're | single family homes so I'm not sure of the impact on the overall | population, but it's been weird around here. | | - For sale and empty. | | - Full renovations. Guessing more than half are flipping them, | given the speed which construction started after sale. | | - Investors buying homes and keeping them empty. | wombat-man wrote: | Some people renovate before moving in. Might as well customize | it before the big move if you can afford it. | RC_ITR wrote: | What is happening is a weird confluence of events that no-one | actually cares to analyze because SF is the world's most | politically charged city to speak about, so people just state | their biases vs. actually thinking. | | The trends as I see them are: | | 1) An increasing number of increasingly wealthy people with | connections to SF that choose to domicile elsewhere while | keeping a home in the city that is used a few months a year (to | your point of empty homes being kept empty). | | 2) The temporary shut-off of a _massive_ pipeline of recent | college grads who fill the offices of not only start-ups, but | also accounting firms, consulting firms, banks, etc. | | 3) A reduction in appetite for '3 guys in a 2 bedroom where | someone sleeps in the dining room' and an increase in appetite | for '1 guy in a 2 bedroom/home office set up,' which supports | price growth but not population growth. | | 4) The fact that for the past century, SF has been a city that | grows beyond its means and then crashes, only to pick back up | again on the next cycle (SF only surpassed its peak 1950 | population in 1990) | | There are certainly more that I miss, but from a street-level | perspective, SF isn't in noticeably worse shape than it was in | 2000. Question is "Is post-pandemic lifestyle change similar to | the car (which caused that 40 year lull) or is it more | temporary?" | oneoff786 wrote: | Is there a lot of empty housing then? | sethbannon wrote: | Those that have "made it" are moving out of SF and the young and | hungry are moving in. SF has seen a wave of Gen Z inbound | recently. I'll take that trade anytime. | | "the number of rental applications by people who fall into Gen Z | (defined as those born between 1997 and 2012) have increased by | 21% in the past year. Meanwhile, as we just discussed, rental | applications from every single other generation have been | lessening. Millennials, for instance, saw an 8% decrease in | rental activity... | | Between 2020 and 2021, people who fall into Generation Z were | filling out 21% more leases nationwide, as compared with the year | before. When that search is narrowed to San Francisco, Rentcafe | says those 20-somethings had a 101% increase in rental | applications. They now make up more than a fifth of all people | looking to lease in SF." | | https://sfist.com/2022/03/22/san-francisco-is-getting-younge... | [deleted] | antiverse wrote: | Majestic take. | | More than likely, the ones that "made it" are staying where | they are, having bought whatever property they've been able to | and are now renting it out to the Gen Z'ers to pay it off. The | older generation, wisely, realizes there's no future there and | have ended their rental terms to go elsewhere where they can | actually afford to buy something, not having gained any real | estate ownership of their own. | | Calling Gen Z'es "hungry" in this instance is, God bless their | hearts, insulting to common sense and rationality of things at | play here. | jethro_tell wrote: | I think there's a middle ground. I'm sure gen Z is hungry. | Good chunks of every generation are, on the other hand, | counting rental applications is a little odd. | | There's a good chunk of millennials that are settled. They | aren't moving in or out. an 8% drop for a generation that is | about to turn 40 during a 2.5% interest rates seems a lot | like a few people collected the cash to buy the homes and | aren't renting any longer. But we'll never know because this | is a single stat in a whole sea of stats regarding housing by | generation. | | *edit, I mean, we could know, we could go out there and find | meaningful data to get a full picture of what's going on but | I don't really care that much. Just saying that looking at | one stat and crafting a wonderful narrative is pointless. | onlyrealcuzzo wrote: | > The older generation, wisely, realizes there's no future | there and have ended their rental terms to go elsewhere where | they can actually afford to buy something, not having gained | any real estate ownership of their own. | | Wise > No Future > Makes biggest investment there anyway. | | Does not compute. | bastawhiz wrote: | > the number of rental applications by people who fall into Gen | Z (defined as those born between 1997 and 2012) have increased | by 21% in the past year. | | Is this surprising or useful? Most folks get their first | apartment around age 21. Right now, that means there's roughly | four years of Gen Z renting apartments. If the oldest members | of Gen Z are 25, an increase of 21% is... pretty much exactly | how many people you'd expect to be getting old enough to lease | their first apartment in one year. | | > Between 2020 and 2021, people who fall into Generation Z were | filling out 21% more leases nationwide, as compared with the | year before. | | And this is _less_ than you 'd expect. If the oldest Gen Z is | 25, two years ago they'd be 23. One new year of college grads | _should yield_ a 30-50% bump. But the pandemic happened. | | > When that search is narrowed to San Francisco, Rentcafe says | those 20-somethings had a 101% increase in rental applications. | | Again, not super useful. Most 20-somethings leasing apartments | during those years are definitionally millennials (and probably | still are!). The pandemic changed who was looking for housing | and who they lived with, and the change as it affects SF in | 2020 is probably not a usual trend. | | > They now make up more than a fifth of all people looking to | lease in SF | | If we assume teenagers aren't leasing apartments, this is again | no surprise. If every decade of people (20-somethings, | 30-somethings...) made up an equal share, this is very | reasonable up to the average life expectancy. People lease less | as they get older, which skews the numbers towards younger | generations. I'm sure you could look up the numbers and find | out the exact distribution, but 20%+ of renters being in their | 20s seems...ordinary. Maybe even a bit low. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-05-27 23:01 UTC)