4 ms·

Or you could live in an appartment building, like hundreds of millions of other families do. A big house is a luxury, not a necessity.

by lgieron 10y ago

eldavido 10y ago
I currently pay $1100 for a single room in a 4-bedroom quad. I just got engaged last week and am planning to move in with my girlfriend of five years (now fiancee) into a 1br in Oakland for 2200/month. The apartment is about 1100 square feet, which hardly qualifies as "big" for two people, in my opinion. The issue isn't house vs. apartment; it's about being able to have a sane base of committed expenses in the face of 4-5 years of double-digit rental price growth in SF. When I first came here 5 years ago, I was paying 750/month for exactly what I live in now -- just 40% cheaper. I have no objection to living in an apartment and in fact, have consciously chosen to live cheaply and invest aggressively outside the Bay Area. But I think you get to a point where you might be thinking about starting a family and it makes you wonder what the future holds. I suspect most Bay Area buyers would rather buy just to have some stability in their payments, as much or more than anything else.
- lgieron 10y ago
  Re: 1100 sqft hardly being big for two people - I was raised in a flat exactly half that size. I was fine (had my own room - being an only child rocked). In my country (Poland) 1100 sqft is considered a large flat for a family with 2+ kids. In more general terms, if space is priced at insane levels, it might be smart to rethink how much you actually need to be happy (or even why stay in SF - I don't understand why people do that).
  - eldavido 10y ago
    Again, I guess just a matter of perspective. My parents house was 2200 sqft (2 siblings and 2 parents) and the Zestimate on it is like 140K. Believe me, not a day goes by where I don't think about moving. But right now, as long as you can save a bit and don't mind living in a slightly crappy apartment, you'll do just fine here. Just take all the money you would've dumped into home equity and buy stocks, real estate, invest in companies, whatever, and you'll have plenty of money. The current environment feels very unstable though. Something has to give. Either house appreciation has to slow, or wage growth has to accelerate, or a lot more new supply has to be built. I don't think your average Google/facebook employee knows or cares much about these trends but the startups do, and they're the canaries in the coal mine. If entrepreneurs stop coming to SF, and anecdotally I think it's getting less and less attractive with the rise of angel.co and other distributed funding platforms, this place is really gonna have a huge, long-term problem because big companies don't just spring into existence, they grow up from small companies that start locally.

Or you could live in an appartment building, like hundreds of millions of other families do. A big house is a luxury, not a necessity.

by lgieron 10y ago

Or you could live in an appartment building, like hundreds of millions of other families do. A big house is a luxury, not a necessity.

eldavido 10y ago

I currently pay $1100 for a single room in a 4-bedroom quad. I just got engaged last week and am planning to move in with my girlfriend of five years (now fiancee) into a 1br in Oakland for 2200/month. The apartment is about 1100 square feet, which hardly qualifies as "big" for two people, in my opinion. The issue isn't house vs. apartment; it's about being able to have a sane base of committed expenses in the face of 4-5 years of double-digit rental price growth in SF. When I first came here 5 years ago, I was paying 750/month for exactly what I live in now -- just 40% cheaper. I have no objection to living in an apartment and in fact, have consciously chosen to live cheaply and invest aggressively outside the Bay Area. But I think you get to a point where you might be thinking about starting a family and it makes you wonder what the future holds. I suspect most Bay Area buyers would rather buy just to have some stability in their payments, as much or more than anything else.

lgieron 10y ago
Re: 1100 sqft hardly being big for two people - I was raised in a flat exactly half that size. I was fine (had my own room - being an only child rocked). In my country (Poland) 1100 sqft is considered a large flat for a family with 2+ kids. In more general terms, if space is priced at insane levels, it might be smart to rethink how much you actually need to be happy (or even why stay in SF - I don't understand why people do that).
- eldavido 10y ago
  Again, I guess just a matter of perspective. My parents house was 2200 sqft (2 siblings and 2 parents) and the Zestimate on it is like 140K. Believe me, not a day goes by where I don't think about moving. But right now, as long as you can save a bit and don't mind living in a slightly crappy apartment, you'll do just fine here. Just take all the money you would've dumped into home equity and buy stocks, real estate, invest in companies, whatever, and you'll have plenty of money. The current environment feels very unstable though. Something has to give. Either house appreciation has to slow, or wage growth has to accelerate, or a lot more new supply has to be built. I don't think your average Google/facebook employee knows or cares much about these trends but the startups do, and they're the canaries in the coal mine. If entrepreneurs stop coming to SF, and anecdotally I think it's getting less and less attractive with the rise of angel.co and other distributed funding platforms, this place is really gonna have a huge, long-term problem because big companies don't just spring into existence, they grow up from small companies that start locally.