Down and out on $117k in SF

[Velar Fricative]

A family of four in San Francisco making $117k/year is now classified as "low income."

I am always fascinated by this topic because even as a New Yorker, housing prices on the West Coast astound me. I feel like there have got to be affordable options besides commuting to SF from practically Nevada (or whatever the analogy would be in the Seattle area) if you make a more typical median salary, even if the cities and towns closer to SF aren't "cool." And if there aren't...why not? Fewer high-density housing options? I feel like there has to be more involved since this is a crisis all along the West Coast up to Vancouver, so it's not just California-specific.

www.nytimes.com/2018/07/06/opinion/san-francisco-housing-homelessness.html?

In order to do the other thing that Breed wants to do, build more housing of all kinds, she has to secure the social contract. That is: Can people accept more crowded neighborhoods, in a city that is already the second most densely populated among big cities in the nation, if they feel that elected leaders do not have a decent plan — or a clue?

[ESF]

Jul 6, 2018 11:44:37 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

A family of four in San Francisco making $117k/year is now classified as "low income."

I am always fascinated by this topic because even as a New Yorker, housing prices on the West Coast astound me. I feel like there have got to be affordable options besides commuting to SF from practically Nevada (or whatever the analogy would be in the Seattle area) if you make a more typical median salary, even if the cities and towns closer to SF aren't "cool." And if there aren't...why not? Fewer high-density housing options? I feel like there has to be more involved since this is a crisis all along the West Coast up to Vancouver, so it's not just California-specific.

For San Francisco and LA, the biggest reason is that Prop 13 royally fucked up the market. Basically in the 70s, the voters of CA passed a ballot initiative that makes it difficult for property taxes to be raised, and while I don't know the specifics, I believe the low property tax rates can be passed on to heirs. The result is that people aren't pressured to move when housing costs go up, and in particular, the elderly don't have an incentive to downsize, and their kids don't have an incentive to sell. That means there are fewer houses on the market in general, which means what's there is more expensive. 

Environmental rules, passed partly because people care about the environment, partly because there are legit environmental concerns, and partly because we are a coast full of NIMBYs and psuedo-libertarians who waive the banner of environmentalism to protect their property rights. That restricts what can be built, where things can be built, and when things can be built.

The geography of the SF Bay Area. San Francisco is a tiny little peninsula. The only suburbs that abut it are on a thin corridor of land. All the other suburbs involve crossing enormous bodies of water. So even though Oakland is considered close to SF, you just have limited ways to actually get to SF from there. So when the "close" suburbs are a long ways away, everyone who can't afford the close suburb gets shoved out to much, much further away.

We also just have a shit ton of economic activity here, and a shit ton of the highest paying jobs in the country. SF, Oakland, and San Jose are basically a DC/Baltimore but with way less land and much higher paying jobs.



I don't find prices on the rest of the West Coast crazy, but that's probably because SF has distorted my view of what is crazy. That said, while I think environmentalism has something to do with it, I think a lot of the prices elsewhere on this coast are going up because people just want to live here. White people anyway. The housing market in SF is just pushing a lot of people to cheaper places on the coast, which is in turn driving up those prices. 

[zelda25]

Jul 6, 2018 12:24:59 GMT -5 ESF said:

Jul 6, 2018 11:44:37 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

I think a lot of the prices elsewhere on this coast are going up because people just want to live here. White people anyway. The housing market in SF is just pushing a lot of people to cheaper places on the coast, which is in turn driving up those prices. 

This is what's going on in Portland. It's stunningly beautiful, with the coast an hour in one direction and the Cascades an hour in the other direction. Mild climate...there's just nothing to dislike about it.

The Portland metro area has a very stringent UGB to keep sprawl to a minimum, which is great, but with so many people moving here, housing is at a premium. 

[wawa]

Jul 6, 2018 12:51:04 GMT -5 zelda25 said:

Jul 6, 2018 12:24:59 GMT -5 ESF said:

This is what's going on in Portland. It's stunningly beautiful, with the coast an hour in one direction and the Cascades an hour in the other direction. Mild climate...there's just nothing to dislike about it.

The Portland metro area has a very stringent UGB to keep sprawl to a minimum, which is great, but with so many people moving here, housing is at a premium. 

UGB?

[heyjude]

“I feel like there have got to be affordable options besides commuting to SF from practically Nevada (or whatever the analogy would be in the Seattle area) if you make a more typical median salary, even if the cities and towns closer to SF aren't "cool." And if there aren't...why not?”

There are. Cities around SF are planning for the mass Bay Area exodus. Many houses in the Sacramento metro/fooothill/central valley areas are being gobbled up by Bay Area people. But they are also inflating the prices in the process.....

[imojoebunny]

My aunt and uncle live in a suburb of San Fran, by Stanford. It is a lovely place. They can't afford to move because their taxes would be 5X+ what they are now. They are close to retirement, and probably would downsize/relocate, if the taxes wouldn't make it more expensive. Their house would sell for $3M-$3.5M. They paid under $500K, and renovated for probably another $200K. There kids have moved away because San Fran is expensive and they can live better other places. I don't see a problem with that. If a place is so expensive, no one with a normal job can afford to live there, then maybe other places should benefit from the fall out, and once there are no longer places for anyone to live to teach the rich people's kids, put out their fires, or clean their houses, maybe prices will fall, and people will get a clue. Families live on less than what new people on my uncle's street pay in property taxes, all over the US.

[zelda25]

Jul 6, 2018 13:01:32 GMT -5 wawa said:

Jul 6, 2018 12:51:04 GMT -5 zelda25 said:

UGB?

Sorry--urban growth boundary.

[wawa]

Jul 6, 2018 13:22:45 GMT -5 zelda25 said:

Jul 6, 2018 13:01:32 GMT -5 wawa said:

UGB?

Sorry--urban growth boundary.

Fascinating. That's a new term for me- none of my local jurisdictions have anything so plainly stated. (Though most have something that serves the same purpose. Though I'd not call any of them stringent)

[Velar Fricative]

Now here's a seriously dumb question - I would assume that in the major tech companies that dominate SF/Silicon Valley, Seattle, etc., that would mean a not-insignificant amount of people in those workforces who could conceivably work remotely at least part-time...right? So that means people who aren't restricted to $$$ towns in those areas could conceivably live further out. Or maybe that's exactly what's happening (which might relate to heyjude 's post above), but a lot of people still need to or wish to live in the big city. And maybe it doesn't help that if you're putting in a gazillion hours of work every day, you don't necessarily want to be super far from work anyway (that's a whole other issue). I don't know if I'm articulating my train of thought well. I do just find it fascinating that this is happening all along the western seaboard. I mean, the eastern seaboard has its $$$ cities but we also have Delaware, lol. And obviously other cheaper cities and states too.

I also think that despite visiting SF a few times (ESF and meshaliuknits are my witnesses), I have trouble comparing things geographically to NYC, which is the only area I've ever lived in. The NYC area has its $$$$$ areas but also its more affordable areas. Yes, they may come with long commutes or teeny apartments but my working-class mom still has a (tight but affordable) place to live in a great town close to her job. I am sure there's plenty of neighborhoods/towns in the Bay Area that also don't get a lot of publicity and are where non-rich people live, but it seems like all these articles about the West Coast are about how no one can afford to live there unless they live 3 hours away. I am sure that's an exaggeration...right?

[zelda25]

Jul 6, 2018 13:25:04 GMT -5 wawa said:

Jul 6, 2018 13:22:45 GMT -5 zelda25 said:

Sorry--urban growth boundary.

Fascinating. That's a new term for me- none of my local jurisdictions have anything so plainly stated. (Though most have something that serves the same purpose. Though I'd not call any of them stringent)

It's a constant fucking battle. People who appreciate the lack of sprawl want to (understandably) not tinker with the UGB. On the other hand, Portland's real estate market has exploded in the past few years. Inventory of both rentals and homes for sale is minimal, and we don't have the large collection of companies with lots of high-paying jobs, so pretty much only people who have moved here with a wad of cash or an amazing job somewhere else that they do remotely from here can afford the rent.

Homelessness has exploded alongside the latest real estate boom. So all of that means we need more housing, but there's nowhere to go but up. Or, even less popular but very common, squeezed in between existing homes--skinny homes.

All of the above has combined to completely change the look and feel of Portland, which has set-up a never-ending battle between those who have been here for a while and miss the way it was and the influx of newcomers who just want to live here and enjoy the amenities.

[Deleted]

Jul 6, 2018 13:38:47 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

This has struck me when visiting both SF and NYC.

I have a friend in SF who pays $2200/month for a studio apartment. She was competing with COUPLES for that apartment. Now, she lives in a cool, trendy neighborhood with lots of great things nearby, but I still kind of found transportation there to be a pain - she's not near BART, and if you have to transfer buses, it basically will take you 45 minutes to get anywhere. I think it took us 45 minutes to go like 3.5 miles away because it was essentially a diagonal away, and we had to take a bus north and then transfer to an eastbound bus.

I have a friend who lives in Brooklyn. She pays $3000/month for a 2-bedroom apartment. She is also in a cool neighborhood but has more space than my SF friend and can be in Manhattan in about 30 minutes because she's maybe 2 blocks away from the subway.

Both are obviously expensive, but it just seemed like there are more options to make things work with a nominally decent quality of life in NYC.

[litebright]

To add to the geographic point -- SF and the area all around SF Bay is very steep and hilly. Flat ground is at a particular premium. And they're not particularly stable hills, either (I'm thinking of the East Bay hills and South Bay hills, for instance). You simply can't pack as many houses or buildings as you can on flat ground and it's harder and more expensive to build. Mudslides happen pretty much every year during the rainy season, even if most of them aren't destructive enough to make the national news, and once the ground starts to go it's just about impossible to do anything about it. When I was interning at the Chronicle back in the day, that was one of the things I saw first-hand.

Also, earthquakes. There hasn't been a big one in a long time, but the new skyscrapers that are going up -- in part to address the housing crisis -- probably aren't as safe as people think they are. But if you change the codes to increase the chance of the building surviving an earthquake, you make housing even *more* expensive.

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/17/us/san-francisco-earthquake-seismic-gamble.html

"San Francisco lives with the certainty that the Big One will come. But the city is also putting up taller and taller buildings clustered closer and closer together because of the state’s severe housing shortage. Now those competing pressures have prompted an anxious rethinking of building regulations. Experts are sending this message: The building code does not protect cities from earthquakes nearly as much as you might think. ... After decades of public hostility toward skyscrapers, the city has been advocating a more dense and more vertical downtown. San Francisco now has 160 buildings taller than 240 feet and a dozen more are planned or under construction. ... California has strict building requirements to protect schools and hospitals from a major earthquake. But not skyscrapers. A five-story building has the same strength requirements as a 50-story building. ...

The latest measurements, taken in December, show that [Millennium Tower] has sunk a foot and a half and is leaning 14 inches toward neighboring high rises. It is across the street from Salesforce Tower and right next to a transit hub for buses, trains and eventually high speed rail that is being touted as the Grand Central of the West. With the Millennium Tower, San Francisco got a foretaste of what it means to have a structurally compromised skyscraper. If the city is hit by a severe earthquake, experts fear there could be many more. The area around Millennium Tower is considered among the most hazardous for earthquakes. The United States Geological Survey rates the ground there — layers of mud and clay — as having a very high risk of acting like quicksand during an earthquake, a process known as liquefaction.

At least 100 buildings taller than 240 feet were built in areas that have a “very high” chance of liquefaction."

It's a terrible conundrum. DH and I loved that area while we were both in grad school there, but when we graduated, we knew that with a low six-figure HHI, if we wanted things like a SFH and/or a reasonable commute, we were better off going elsewhere. So, like a lot of people living in California, we went to CO.

[ESF]

Jul 6, 2018 13:38:47 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Now here's a seriously dumb question - I would assume that in the major tech companies that dominate SF/Silicon Valley, Seattle, etc., that would mean a not-insignificant amount of people in those workforces who could conceivably work remotely at least part-time...right? So that means people who aren't restricted to $$$ towns in those areas could conceivably live further out. Or maybe that's exactly what's happening (which might relate to heyjude 's post above), but a lot of people still need to or wish to live in the big city. And maybe it doesn't help that if you're putting in a gazillion hours of work every day, you don't necessarily want to be super far from work anyway (that's a whole other issue). I don't know if I'm articulating my train of thought well. I do just find it fascinating that this is happening all along the western seaboard. I mean, the eastern seaboard has its $$$ cities but we also have Delaware, lol. And obviously other cheaper cities and states too.

I also think that despite visiting SF a few times (ESF and meshaliuknits are my witnesses), I have trouble comparing things geographically to NYC, which is the only area I've ever lived in. The NYC area has its $$$$$ areas but also its more affordable areas. Yes, they may come with long commutes or teeny apartments but my working-class mom still has a (tight but affordable) place to live in a great town close to her job. I am sure there's plenty of neighborhoods/towns in the Bay Area that also don't get a lot of publicity and are where non-rich people live, but it seems like all these articles about the West Coast are about how no one can afford to live there unless they live 3 hours away. I am sure that's an exaggeration...right?

Yes, there are poor people everywhere, as well as true middle class incomes. They live in these places because either they live in a rent-controlled place and have for many years, the cities have subsidized housing or other programs to ensure people who make less than a certain amount can live there, or because they inherited homes.

There are also farther out suburbs, that are not a three hour drive into the city. That said, it's not that much of an exaggeration, as the commute times here are bad, particularly for people who have to commute to SF. That's partly because there has not been the same kind of investment in public transit, but also partly because building transit is much more expensive than it is in NY. Building a subway line underneath the San Francisco Bay (or an additional bridge over it) is a million times more expensive than doing that over/under the East River. And we have earthquakes, which drives up the cost of infrastructure. So unlike most cities, where you have tons of highways and roads and bridges into them, SF only has six: a train, subway and a highway from the south, a highway and a subway line from the east, and a highway from the north. Plus a few ferries.  To build more, would cost billions and take years. (It took over 20 years to build a new Bay Bridge.)  And again, because there's so much water, the "close" people are far, and the far people are really far. 

So while there are not millions of people commuting 3 hours each way,  there are people who bought homes farther out twenty years ago and once had an hour commute that now find it's like a 2.5 hour commute. And there are people who can't find anything that's within an hour of SF during rush hour because there are really only a few places where that's actually the case.

[ESF]

Jul 6, 2018 13:49:38 GMT -5 @angryharpy said:

Jul 6, 2018 13:38:47 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

This has struck me when visiting both SF and NYC.

I have a friend in SF who pays $2200/month for a studio apartment. She was competing with COUPLES for that apartment. Now, she lives in a cool, trendy neighborhood with lots of great things nearby, but I still kind of found transportation there to be a pain - she's not near BART, and if you have to transfer buses, it basically will take you 45 minutes to get anywhere. I think it took us 45 minutes to go like 3.5 miles away because it was essentially a diagonal away, and we had to take a bus north and then transfer to an eastbound bus.

I have a friend who lives in Brooklyn. She pays $3000/month for a 2-bedroom apartment. She is also in a cool neighborhood but has more space than my SF friend and can be in Manhattan in about 30 minutes because she's maybe 2 blocks away from the subway.

Both are obviously expensive, but it just seemed like there are more options to make things work with a nominally decent quality of life in NYC.

Yup, on paper, the cities are comparable, but the value is better for most people in NYC. Right now we have an amazing deal on rent, but if our landlord ever decides to sell our place, H and I have discussed moving to NYC using this very reasoning. 

[imojoebunny]

Jul 6, 2018 13:38:47 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Now here's a seriously dumb question - I would assume that in the major tech companies that dominate SF/Silicon Valley, Seattle, etc., that would mean a not-insignificant amount of people in those workforces who could conceivably work remotely at least part-time...right? So that means people who aren't restricted to $$$ towns in those areas could conceivably live further out.

My cousin works for a big tech company in silicon valley.  She has worked there for 10+ years, moved away when she married, and her DH got a job in a much less expensive city, still a major city, but not nearly as expensive as SF.   She gave notice, and they countered back she could work from home for 6 months.  It has been two years, and she still works for them.  She flies in once a month for a couple of days, at their expense.  Still is paid like she lives in SF.  It is a pretty great situation.  I think more and more people will do this.  All you need is an airport.  My brother is a partner in a large consulting company.  He lives by the beach.  Doesn't matter to him.  He flies out every Monday, and back on Thursday or Friday.  He likes it because his kids get to live in an amazing place, much less traffic, and the airport is small and a 30 minute flight to a major hub, so it actually takes him less time to fly out of than the major city.  

[terpsfan]

Jul 6, 2018 18:05:31 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

Jul 6, 2018 13:38:47 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Now here's a seriously dumb question - I would assume that in the major tech companies that dominate SF/Silicon Valley, Seattle, etc., that would mean a not-insignificant amount of people in those workforces who could conceivably work remotely at least part-time...right? So that means people who aren't restricted to $$$ towns in those areas could conceivably live further out.

My cousin works for a big tech company in silicon valley.  She has worked there for 10+ years, moved away when she married, and her DH got a job in a much less expensive city, still a major city, but not nearly as expensive as SF.   She gave notice, and they countered back she could work from home for 6 months.  It has been two years, and she still works for them.  She flies in once a month for a couple of days, at their expense.  Still is paid like she lives in SF.  It is a pretty great situation.  I think more and more people will do this.  All you need is an airport.  My brother is a partner in a large consulting company.  He lives by the beach.  Doesn't matter to him.  He flies out every Monday, and back on Thursday or Friday.  He likes it because his kids get to live in an amazing place, much less traffic, and the airport is small and a 30 minute flight to a major hub, so it actually takes him less time to fly out of than the major city.  

The pendulum is swinging back a bit on the remote worker concept. Yes, there will always be a market and willingness to cater to highly skilled and experienced people who want to work remotely (not within a few days onsite in office type of situation—- like wicked remote where cheap). But for the most part employers want people 0-10 years into their careers onsite and collaborating with other.

[pantsparty]

Jul 6, 2018 13:37:30 GMT -5 strawberry said:

Jul 6, 2018 13:14:00 GMT -5 heyjude said:

“I feel like there have got to be affordable options besides commuting to SF from practically Nevada (or whatever the analogy would be in the Seattle area) if you make a more typical median salary, even if the cities and towns closer to SF aren't "cool." And if there aren't...why not?”

There are. Cities around SF are planning for the mass Bay Area exodus. Many houses in the Sacramento metro/fooothill/central valley areas are being gobbled up by Bay Area people. But they are also inflating the prices in the process.....

. This! I spent the 1st 23 years of life in the Central Valley. My mom bought a house for $80,000 in 1996. A basic, boring as hell, 1100 square foot 3 bed 2 bath 2 hours from SF. Those same boring, plain houses are literally $200,000 more now. And this pisses me off. She sold it before the big crash, but it annoys me because my husband & I if we wanted to move back to CA could not afford to even rent a house as nice as the one we own in the Midwest. The hometown where I grew up , in my opinion is too far to commute to for those Bay Area salaries yet that is why the prices of the houses are so damn high.

This is why we moved inland as well. And there's actually an exodus from OC to where we live (there's tons of brand new builder communities and you can get much more for your money). The result, of course, is crushing commute traffic. H and I are both fortunate to work from home, but on the occasion I have to get an early morning flight and get to the airport the traffic is horrendous. Of course we don't have any public transportation options, either. H and I would love to go to LA more, but from where we live, it's about 70 miles but a 4 hour round-trip in a day. Not worth it.

[imojoebunny]

Jul 6, 2018 18:20:48 GMT -5 terpsfan said:

Jul 6, 2018 18:05:31 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

My cousin works for a big tech company in silicon valley.  She has worked there for 10+ years, moved away when she married, and her DH got a job in a much less expensive city, still a major city, but not nearly as expensive as SF.   She gave notice, and they countered back she could work from home for 6 months.  It has been two years, and she still works for them.  She flies in once a month for a couple of days, at their expense.  Still is paid like she lives in SF.  It is a pretty great situation.  I think more and more people will do this.  All you need is an airport.  My brother is a partner in a large consulting company.  He lives by the beach.  Doesn't matter to him.  He flies out every Monday, and back on Thursday or Friday.  He likes it because his kids get to live in an amazing place, much less traffic, and the airport is small and a 30 minute flight to a major hub, so it actually takes him less time to fly out of than the major city.  

The pendulum is swinging back a bit on the remote worker concept. Yes, there will always be a market and willingness to cater to highly skilled and experienced people who want to work remotely (not within a few days onsite in office type of situation—- like wicked remote where cheap). But for the most part employers want people 0-10 years into their careers onsite and collaborating with other.

True, and when the younger workforce starts refusing to move there in favor of more affordable options, the companies will move, too.  I just read an article about unpaid internships being in a downward spiral.  Good luck to companies that want new, young workers in expensive cities.   The talented will find jobs elsewhere, where they can live without having 5 roommates and a 3 hour commute.  It isn't like NYC, and SF are the only places in the world with great jobs and great lifestyles.  In Atlanta, I rent places to very talented younger people for $800 a bedroom in neighborhoods where you don't need a car, with loads of amenities in walking distance.  In SF, it would cost you 2-3X that, and you wouldn't have a pool, a giant park, museums, gardens, bars and restaurants, and grocery within a 1/2 mile.  The pay differential isn't enough to get young people.  I don't see a problem with it.  SF has chosen or ended up being a city for the affluent because of their success or georgraphy, good for them, but I don't think anyone should be subsidizing people who make over $100K a year.   That is ridiculous.   

[dorothyinAus]

Jul 6, 2018 13:16:02 GMT -5 @heyitsme said:

When my parents retired and moved to Reno, I bought their house (the house I grew up in) from them.  Because it was a parent/child transfer, I continue to pay the property taxes on the house based on when they bought the house in the early 80's.  While I paid market value for the house, you can imagine how low my property taxes are.

Would you object to paying property taxes closer to the average if it meant more affordable housing for others?

[sugarbear]

Seattle here. The housing market is insane. And I’m somewhat immune because we bought a long time ago and have been able to renovate on the cheap, but we can’t teally afford to move.

It’s becoming a big deal at thre school where I teach. First-year teachers with a masters degree can’t afford rent (~$1500 for a 300 sq ft studio in my neighborhood). We are paying people wages that qualify them for low-income housing.

[bugandbibs]

Jul 6, 2018 12:51:04 GMT -5 zelda25 said:

Jul 6, 2018 12:24:59 GMT -5 ESF said:

This is what's going on in Portland. It's stunningly beautiful, with the coast an hour in one direction and the Cascades an hour in the other direction. Mild climate...there's just nothing to dislike about it.

The Portland metro area has a very stringent UGB to keep sprawl to a minimum, which is great, but with so many people moving here, housing is at a premium. 

The UGB coupled with multnomah county taxes is what eventually prompted MH and I to move across the river 10 years ago. I grew up in the Hollywood neighborhood and we were living near Reed prior to the move. We miss the walkability, but our quality of life is better. The commute for MH is sometimes a problem, but his hours are way off rush hour so it's mostly okay. I took a pay cut to lose the commute because it was too stressful for me after 5 years.

[heyjude]

Jul 6, 2018 14:20:53 GMT -5 ESF said:

Jul 6, 2018 13:49:38 GMT -5 @angryharpy said:

This has struck me when visiting both SF and NYC.

I have a friend in SF who pays $2200/month for a studio apartment. She was competing with COUPLES for that apartment. Now, she lives in a cool, trendy neighborhood with lots of great things nearby, but I still kind of found transportation there to be a pain - she's not near BART, and if you have to transfer buses, it basically will take you 45 minutes to get anywhere. I think it took us 45 minutes to go like 3.5 miles away because it was essentially a diagonal away, and we had to take a bus north and then transfer to an eastbound bus.

I have a friend who lives in Brooklyn. She pays $3000/month for a 2-bedroom apartment. She is also in a cool neighborhood but has more space than my SF friend and can be in Manhattan in about 30 minutes because she's maybe 2 blocks away from the subway.

Both are obviously expensive, but it just seemed like there are more options to make things work with a nominally decent quality of life in NYC.

H and I have discussed moving to NYC using this very reasoning. 

Nooooooooooooooooooo!

[konapoppy]

Jul 6, 2018 11:44:37 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

I feel like there have got to be affordable options besides commuting to SF from practically Nevada

😢

ETA: as always, I agree with everything ESF has to say on this topic.

[ESF]

Jul 6, 2018 19:43:24 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Jul 6, 2018 14:20:53 GMT -5 ESF said:

H and I have discussed moving to NYC using this very reasoning. 

Nooooooooooooooooooo!

Hahahaha there is no immediate plan. The housing market and the fact that SF is so full of douchebags these days depresses me. I really miss living in a city and as my parents get older, it's harder to live so far from them. I really love California though and don't feel ready to leave. So who knows.

[irishbride2]

I’m all for at least controlling prop tax increases for owners., especially under a certain value. It sucks if the market skyrockets and all of a sudden you can’t afford your house because your taxes Triple. We have Save Our Homes which caps
The increase.

But passing that to heirs is stupid.

[isabel]

Jul 6, 2018 19:18:01 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

Jul 6, 2018 18:20:48 GMT -5 terpsfan said:

The pendulum is swinging back a bit on the remote worker concept. Yes, there will always be a market and willingness to cater to highly skilled and experienced people who want to work remotely (not within a few days onsite in office type of situation—- like wicked remote where cheap). But for the most part employers want people 0-10 years into their careers onsite and collaborating with other.

True, and when the younger workforce starts refusing to move there in favor of more affordable options, the companies will move, too.  

DH's company recently relocated their headquarters from the bay area to Denver. They have people who work all over, but I think this was one of their primary motivations. People wouldn't move to where they were because it was too expensive. Denver isn't cheap anymore, but it's still considered pretty reasonable and supports a great lifestyle.

eta: Actually, "pretty reasonable" is probably not accurate. Studio apartment rents are over $1k and the average home price here is in the $490s. That said, it's still quite a bit less than the bay area and there are enough suburbs and areas outside the city to find housing at more reasonable prices.

[zelda25]

Jul 6, 2018 19:30:13 GMT -5 bugandbibs said:

Jul 6, 2018 12:51:04 GMT -5 zelda25 said:

The UGB coupled with multnomah county taxes is what eventually prompted MH and I to move across the river 10 years ago. I grew up in the Hollywood neighborhood and we were living near Reed prior to the move. We miss the walkability, but our quality of life is better. The commute for MH is sometimes a problem, but his hours are way off rush hour so it's mostly okay. I took a pay cut to lose the commute because it was too stressful for me after 5 years.

We want the fuck out of multnomah county, and we're selling our house in the spring. I actually like Vancouver, but I just changed jobs in large part because my East Portland-to-Beaverton commute sapped my will to live; there's no way I'm commuting from Clark county. We'll be looking at clackamas or Washington county.

Sent from my SM-G930P using proboards

[dorothyinAus]

Jul 6, 2018 21:40:11 GMT -5 @heyitsme said:

Jul 6, 2018 19:27:53 GMT -5 dorothyinAus said:

Would you object to paying property taxes closer to the average if it meant more affordable housing for others?

Is that rhetorical or are you trying to prove a point somewhere here?

Of course I would.

No, I was really wondering if it was a case of "sucks to be you."

Housing costs are insane in Australia and the advice from the current government is either (1) have richer parents or (2) get a better job. (Honestly, that's what the Primie Minister and the Treasurer have said when asked about the un-afforablitly of housing for even people making over $100,000/year.) So basically, if you can't afford to buy a house or rent anywhere close to where you work, "sucks to be you."

I was wondering if the cushy situation you described was a case of I'm lucky, everyone else can suck it.

[imojoebunny]

Jul 6, 2018 21:29:58 GMT -5 isabel said:

Jul 6, 2018 19:18:01 GMT -5 imojoebunny said:

True, and when the younger workforce starts refusing to move there in favor of more affordable options, the companies will move, too.  

DH's company recently relocated their headquarters from the bay area to Denver. They have people who work all over, but I think this was one of their primary motivations. People wouldn't move to where they were because it was too expensive. Denver isn't cheap anymore, but it's still considered pretty reasonable and supports a great lifestyle.

eta: Actually, "pretty reasonable" is probably not accurate. Studio apartment rents are over $1k and the average home price here is in the $490s. That said, it's still quite a bit less than the bay area and there are enough suburbs and areas outside the city to find housing at more reasonable prices.

This *might* be the town my cousin moved to from SF.  Yes, it is still not cheap, like a more rural place, but it has all the things, like a airport hub with easy access to other majors, great healthcare, and a lot of other features that SF has, without the cost, and there are suburbs that are affordable.  My cousin pays the same for her mortgage on a decent house in a central, walkable area that she paid in rent for a studio in downtown SF, so yes, affordable is relative, but a similar house would cost $4-5M in SF, with way more tax because of the tax "plan". $1M  for an actual house, centrally located, looks like a bargain to bay area people.   

[1confused1]

I was born and raised and still live in the Bay Area. I grew up in San Jose, all my jobs (including my current job) are in San Jose. About 10 years ago, my now-xh and I decided to move to the East Bay because you could get so much more house for what you could in the South Bay area (a 7 year old house for $900K vs. a 50 year old fixer upper for 1 million dollars). In doing this, it forced us both to have to start commuting. On a good day, my commute is 1 1/2 hours, a bad day it is a really bad day. We knew this and were ok with it.

I am now divorced and still living in the east bay town we moved to. We had to sell our house and the rental prices in this area are astronomical. A 3 bedroom home is going for $3500 per month. And the person who is going to rent that will likely be commuting hours away for work. The unfortunate thing about this economy is that there is no way I would ever be able to move back down to the South Bay, rents there are 2-3 times what they are in my town.

I don't doubt that $117K is low income in SF. It's incredibly depressing.