8 ms·

Literally everyone I know in the bay area who doesn't already own a house is considering leaving. As extreme as the shortage of housing is the shortage of chil

Literally everyone I know in the bay area who doesn't already own a house is considering leaving. As extreme as the shortage of housing is the shortage of childcare. 150 person waitlists for 50 kid day-cares are common.

cx1000 10y ago
When I visited the Seattle area, locals were complaining about all the Bay Area people moving up there and driving the rent up. I wonder how big a problem that might become for places that are appealing to Bay Area residents like Seattle, Austin, Denver, etc.
- amyjess 10y ago
  Locals in Dallas are similarly complaining. We've had a lot of companies move here in the last few years, and housing prices have skyrocketed as a result. So far, rents haven't gone up quite as much as purchase prices, but they're going up too, and it's only a matter of time before rent catches up. We used to be one of the cheapest cities in the country, and while we're still cheap compared to California, the gap has noticeably narrowed. (edit: I've also heard of Californians moving here who make an offer for well above the asking price, just to make sure they get it, which contributes to the skyrocketing prices)
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    > I've also heard of Californians moving here who make an offer for well above the asking price, just to make sure they get it, which contributes to the skyrocketing prices Maybe that's all Californians know. It's normal out here. I put in an offer on a home that received 45 other written offers, 1/4 of them all-cash and above asking price. If you're financing, you need to go much higher than 25% above asking. It's insanity. Then we go move to different parts of the country and forget that you don't need that aggressive approach everywhere.
- chiph 10y ago
  It's already a problem. It's not uncommon for home sales in Austin to be all-cash, and 10% over the asking price. It's not all Californians though - a coworker reports Chinese investors buying 3 homes in his neighborhood. Combine the inflow of new residents with the existing stressed road system and city & county council inaction on mass transit, and traffic is ugly. It can take me 35-40 minutes to go 8.5 miles some days.
  - gech 10y ago
    "Chinese investors buying 3 homes in his neighborhood" Here's a problem...
    - chiph 10y ago
      Not because they're Chinese, but because they paid in cash and above the asking price, affecting affordability. Two of them have tenants, one is sitting empty.
- brogrammernot 10y ago
  It'll be a large problem. The issue is that the concept of ownership is changing in the "millennial" generation. There isn't a drive to own a car, a house or other large purchases so the concept of paying $200-500/more a month for leasing an apartment isn't as cumbersome as it was for the past generation. So as the technology folks from other cities move into these newly labeled "tech hubs" they'll drive the rent up because the costs seem so much lower than they actually are. It's a hard concept for some reason to grasp that they can pay $1500/month for a 1 bedroom in other tech cities that's $2800/month in SV/SF. However, what they don't realize is that it used to be $1100/month but landlords take advantage of the fact that $400/more/month is not an issue for someone coming from SF/SV
  - pjc50 10y ago
    There isn't a drive to own a car, a house or other large purchases Isn't it more the lack of spare cash for those, especially the large deposits required for housing? so the concept of paying $200-500/more a month for leasing an apartment isn't as cumbersome as it was for the past generation I think you underestimate the extent to which people have looked at the mortgage costs and would love to own a house if they could afford to.
    - jahewson 10y ago
      No, it's not a spare cash problem. The modern world is full of credit. Anyone can save a deposit given enough time, affording the monthly mortgage payments is the challenge. There's a demographic difference, for example I'm constantly being asked by members of the prior generation why I don't own two cars and how we possibly cope. Actually I have no interested in owning any cars at all but one is necessary. The same goes for housing - why don't you buy? Because I don't need to... Now, we millennials do care a lot about housing but only to the extent that the previous generation has made it unaffordable.
      - x3n0ph3n3 10y ago
        > The modern world is full of credit. I'm sure a generation of young people who watched their parents go into crippling debt has made people wary of credit. > Anyone can save a deposit given enough time, affording the monthly mortgage payments is the challenge. Funny, I can handle the mortgage, but not the down payment (even with $100K+ in the bank).
- chadgeidel 10y ago
  Pretty sure it's already happening in Denver. I've got a few co-workers who moved from the Bay Area recently. Primarily because of housing and more child care options / schools.
- jseliger 10y ago
  locals were complaining about all the Bay Area people moving up there and driving the rent up My family moved from CA to the Seattle area in the '90s and people complained about the same damn things. The other day I was talking to my Dad about this, after I sent him an article saying that the average price of a house in Seattle (or maybe King County) hit about $600,000, but in SF / SV it was $1.2 million. He observed that Seattle-area prices were also half of Bay Area prices twenty years ago, and that it's pretty funny that the ratio has remained about the same.
ianai 10y ago
I hope they and their companies do leave. Many places in the US would kill for the problems SV has.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  Inflated real estate prices and a tax base driven by a cyclic industry that pushes everyone else out of the housing stock?
  - ryandrake 10y ago
    Clean, high tech employers on every street corner for miles, multiple world-class universities and a highly skilled/educated workforce?
    - toomuchtodo 10y ago
      Which benefits the employers and the employees. How has this benefited San Francisco? The real estate tax base would increase regardless of the tech community due to foreign money flowing in from China (Vancouver has had the same issue without a SFBA tech base). Miami, LA, NYC, Dallas/Fort Worth, and Chicago to a lesser extent, all have thriving economies without being tech-centric. This fallacy that SF has some special magic nowhere else has economically speaking needs to die already. Please don't bring your Bay Area problems elsewhere (becoming a wage slave to afford a million dollar single family home, overflowing poverty in one of the richest parts of the world, displacing non-tech residents through housing costs).
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - ianai 10y ago
      I recently visited my home town and alma mater. Both places need new industry. My home town is littered with empty office buildings and work is hard to find. My alma mater's surrounding area just lost one of its two grocery stores and has little outside of the college. Even where I currently live needs another industry as its current is literally a gamble - Las Vegas. It frustrates me to see so much potential concentrated in an age where travel and telepresence allow outsourcing abroad.
pinaceae 10y ago
Living and working in the East Bay is totally possible and actually getting easier. Tri-Valley has added a shitload of housing (condos), BART terminates in it, and some great companies are hiring like mad.
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Can you name a few? Tri-Valley is nice, although Pleasanton and Dublin are pretty much unaffordable already. What would be great is if they could extend BART out to Tracy or even Stockton. They're still semi-affordable, but the commute by car is brutal.
  - pinaceae 10y ago
    Workday, Veeva, GE Digital are all hiring. Oracle, SAP operate large campuses here. Yes, not everyone a sexy startup, but stable growing business or just huge, established. Fully agree on the BART extension, Livermore at least.
DannyBee 10y ago
Yeah, you aren't kidding on childcare. I recently got the last spot for at a daycare that literally won't even finish being constructed for 6 months (and at the time we did it, it was 9 months).
- schoen 10y ago
  Maybe someone will start trading daycare futures.
- eitally 10y ago
  The new Primrose in Willow Glen?
  - DannyBee 10y ago
    Bingo. Current plan is for it to open march/april.
- chimeracoder 10y ago
  > and at the time we did it, it was 9 months Yeah, I know people who have literally planned their pregnancies around expected childcare availability. As in, they make sure they can have a spot lined up quickly before they even start trying to get pregnant.
pj_mukh 10y ago
If people were leaving en masse, the rent would come down! Still waiting. Desperately waiting.
ex3ndr 10y ago
Always wonder - what's a problem buying house in SF? Awesome 3br in luxury part of SF costs ~500k, if you and some of your friends just try to find money for initial payment (say 100k) then you could just pay only 1-2k$/month.
- moultano 10y ago
  I would be amazed if you could find a property of any type at all available in SF for 500k.
  - mateo411 10y ago
    There are probably a few studios available for 500K.
- imh 10y ago
  An awesome 3br in a luxury part of SF is definitely not going to be ~500k. This search [0] puts them in more of the 1.5M - 3M range. [0] https://www.redfin.com/city/17151/CA/San-Francisco/filter/min-beds=3,max-beds=3,viewport=37.80588:37.76315:-122.38502:-122.45085 https://www.redfin.com/city/17151/CA/San-Francisco/filter/mi...
  - ex3ndr 10y ago
    Ok, i hyperbolated a little, but you still can buy a apartment and pay much less than renting it. Only issue is first payment, but this is no a very big problem for good software developers (they can find extra 100k in first 3 years of career). I believe that Software Engineer can find 1m$ in 30 years.
    - imh 10y ago
      Taking a typical track, a dev might start working at 22 and start a family around 30, leaving 8 years to save 300k (20% down payment on 1.5M), meaning they have to save $37.5k/year. Add to that a $2-3k/mo rent for those 8 years, and you basically double that. Including income tax, that's about $110k/yr just towards housing. Let's say they have $500-1k/mo of other expenses (food, gym, discretionary) and add the $5.5k annual IRA contribution, and that's ballpark $130k/year average every year. That's without a lot of the fun things you should do in your twenties and an irresponsibly low contribution to retirement. Oh, and with the other 80% as a loan, there's a requirement that the payments aren't over 40% of your income, so a $1.2M loan at 3.92% for 30 years means you need to make more than $170k/year. You're right that lots of good software devs make that, but this is a crazy amount above the area median. And that's the lowest end $1.5M from the $1.5-3M range for a 3br in those areas. Hyperbole is not quite the way to spin it.

cx1000 10y ago

When I visited the Seattle area, locals were complaining about all the Bay Area people moving up there and driving the rent up. I wonder how big a problem that might become for places that are appealing to Bay Area residents like Seattle, Austin, Denver, etc.

amyjess 10y ago
Locals in Dallas are similarly complaining. We've had a lot of companies move here in the last few years, and housing prices have skyrocketed as a result. So far, rents haven't gone up quite as much as purchase prices, but they're going up too, and it's only a matter of time before rent catches up. We used to be one of the cheapest cities in the country, and while we're still cheap compared to California, the gap has noticeably narrowed. (edit: I've also heard of Californians moving here who make an offer for well above the asking price, just to make sure they get it, which contributes to the skyrocketing prices)
- ryandrake 10y ago
  > I've also heard of Californians moving here who make an offer for well above the asking price, just to make sure they get it, which contributes to the skyrocketing prices Maybe that's all Californians know. It's normal out here. I put in an offer on a home that received 45 other written offers, 1/4 of them all-cash and above asking price. If you're financing, you need to go much higher than 25% above asking. It's insanity. Then we go move to different parts of the country and forget that you don't need that aggressive approach everywhere.
chiph 10y ago
It's already a problem. It's not uncommon for home sales in Austin to be all-cash, and 10% over the asking price. It's not all Californians though - a coworker reports Chinese investors buying 3 homes in his neighborhood. Combine the inflow of new residents with the existing stressed road system and city & county council inaction on mass transit, and traffic is ugly. It can take me 35-40 minutes to go 8.5 miles some days.
- gech 10y ago
  "Chinese investors buying 3 homes in his neighborhood" Here's a problem...
  - chiph 10y ago
    Not because they're Chinese, but because they paid in cash and above the asking price, affecting affordability. Two of them have tenants, one is sitting empty.
brogrammernot 10y ago
It'll be a large problem. The issue is that the concept of ownership is changing in the "millennial" generation. There isn't a drive to own a car, a house or other large purchases so the concept of paying $200-500/more a month for leasing an apartment isn't as cumbersome as it was for the past generation. So as the technology folks from other cities move into these newly labeled "tech hubs" they'll drive the rent up because the costs seem so much lower than they actually are. It's a hard concept for some reason to grasp that they can pay $1500/month for a 1 bedroom in other tech cities that's $2800/month in SV/SF. However, what they don't realize is that it used to be $1100/month but landlords take advantage of the fact that $400/more/month is not an issue for someone coming from SF/SV
- pjc50 10y ago
  There isn't a drive to own a car, a house or other large purchases Isn't it more the lack of spare cash for those, especially the large deposits required for housing? so the concept of paying $200-500/more a month for leasing an apartment isn't as cumbersome as it was for the past generation I think you underestimate the extent to which people have looked at the mortgage costs and would love to own a house if they could afford to.
  - jahewson 10y ago
    No, it's not a spare cash problem. The modern world is full of credit. Anyone can save a deposit given enough time, affording the monthly mortgage payments is the challenge. There's a demographic difference, for example I'm constantly being asked by members of the prior generation why I don't own two cars and how we possibly cope. Actually I have no interested in owning any cars at all but one is necessary. The same goes for housing - why don't you buy? Because I don't need to... Now, we millennials do care a lot about housing but only to the extent that the previous generation has made it unaffordable.
    - x3n0ph3n3 10y ago
      > The modern world is full of credit. I'm sure a generation of young people who watched their parents go into crippling debt has made people wary of credit. > Anyone can save a deposit given enough time, affording the monthly mortgage payments is the challenge. Funny, I can handle the mortgage, but not the down payment (even with $100K+ in the bank).
chadgeidel 10y ago
Pretty sure it's already happening in Denver. I've got a few co-workers who moved from the Bay Area recently. Primarily because of housing and more child care options / schools.
jseliger 10y ago
locals were complaining about all the Bay Area people moving up there and driving the rent up My family moved from CA to the Seattle area in the '90s and people complained about the same damn things. The other day I was talking to my Dad about this, after I sent him an article saying that the average price of a house in Seattle (or maybe King County) hit about $600,000, but in SF / SV it was $1.2 million. He observed that Seattle-area prices were also half of Bay Area prices twenty years ago, and that it's pretty funny that the ratio has remained about the same.

ianai 10y ago

I hope they and their companies do leave. Many places in the US would kill for the problems SV has.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
Inflated real estate prices and a tax base driven by a cyclic industry that pushes everyone else out of the housing stock?
- ryandrake 10y ago
  Clean, high tech employers on every street corner for miles, multiple world-class universities and a highly skilled/educated workforce?
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    Which benefits the employers and the employees. How has this benefited San Francisco? The real estate tax base would increase regardless of the tech community due to foreign money flowing in from China (Vancouver has had the same issue without a SFBA tech base). Miami, LA, NYC, Dallas/Fort Worth, and Chicago to a lesser extent, all have thriving economies without being tech-centric. This fallacy that SF has some special magic nowhere else has economically speaking needs to die already. Please don't bring your Bay Area problems elsewhere (becoming a wage slave to afford a million dollar single family home, overflowing poverty in one of the richest parts of the world, displacing non-tech residents through housing costs).
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - ianai 10y ago
    I recently visited my home town and alma mater. Both places need new industry. My home town is littered with empty office buildings and work is hard to find. My alma mater's surrounding area just lost one of its two grocery stores and has little outside of the college. Even where I currently live needs another industry as its current is literally a gamble - Las Vegas. It frustrates me to see so much potential concentrated in an age where travel and telepresence allow outsourcing abroad.

pinaceae 10y ago

Living and working in the East Bay is totally possible and actually getting easier. Tri-Valley has added a shitload of housing (condos), BART terminates in it, and some great companies are hiring like mad.

ryandrake 10y ago
Can you name a few? Tri-Valley is nice, although Pleasanton and Dublin are pretty much unaffordable already. What would be great is if they could extend BART out to Tracy or even Stockton. They're still semi-affordable, but the commute by car is brutal.
- pinaceae 10y ago
  Workday, Veeva, GE Digital are all hiring. Oracle, SAP operate large campuses here. Yes, not everyone a sexy startup, but stable growing business or just huge, established. Fully agree on the BART extension, Livermore at least.

DannyBee 10y ago

Yeah, you aren't kidding on childcare. I recently got the last spot for at a daycare that literally won't even finish being constructed for 6 months (and at the time we did it, it was 9 months).

schoen 10y ago
Maybe someone will start trading daycare futures.
eitally 10y ago
The new Primrose in Willow Glen?
- DannyBee 10y ago
  Bingo. Current plan is for it to open march/april.
chimeracoder 10y ago
> and at the time we did it, it was 9 months Yeah, I know people who have literally planned their pregnancies around expected childcare availability. As in, they make sure they can have a spot lined up quickly before they even start trying to get pregnant.

pj_mukh 10y ago

If people were leaving en masse, the rent would come down! Still waiting. Desperately waiting.

ex3ndr 10y ago

Always wonder - what's a problem buying house in SF? Awesome 3br in luxury part of SF costs ~500k, if you and some of your friends just try to find money for initial payment (say 100k) then you could just pay only 1-2k$/month.

moultano 10y ago
I would be amazed if you could find a property of any type at all available in SF for 500k.
- mateo411 10y ago
  There are probably a few studios available for 500K.
imh 10y ago
An awesome 3br in a luxury part of SF is definitely not going to be ~500k. This search [0] puts them in more of the 1.5M - 3M range. [0] https://www.redfin.com/city/17151/CA/San-Francisco/filter/min-beds=3,max-beds=3,viewport=37.80588:37.76315:-122.38502:-122.45085 https://www.redfin.com/city/17151/CA/San-Francisco/filter/mi...
- ex3ndr 10y ago
  Ok, i hyperbolated a little, but you still can buy a apartment and pay much less than renting it. Only issue is first payment, but this is no a very big problem for good software developers (they can find extra 100k in first 3 years of career). I believe that Software Engineer can find 1m$ in 30 years.
  - imh 10y ago
    Taking a typical track, a dev might start working at 22 and start a family around 30, leaving 8 years to save 300k (20% down payment on 1.5M), meaning they have to save $37.5k/year. Add to that a $2-3k/mo rent for those 8 years, and you basically double that. Including income tax, that's about $110k/yr just towards housing. Let's say they have $500-1k/mo of other expenses (food, gym, discretionary) and add the $5.5k annual IRA contribution, and that's ballpark $130k/year average every year. That's without a lot of the fun things you should do in your twenties and an irresponsibly low contribution to retirement. Oh, and with the other 80% as a loan, there's a requirement that the payments aren't over 40% of your income, so a $1.2M loan at 3.92% for 30 years means you need to make more than $170k/year. You're right that lots of good software devs make that, but this is a crazy amount above the area median. And that's the lowest end $1.5M from the $1.5-3M range for a 3br in those areas. Hyperbole is not quite the way to spin it.