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Tech workers find communal living a solution for high rents
- f4rker 10y agoNothing new under the sun, the rest of us suffer while the top part of society buys their 3rd house and 2nd boat. Let them eat Ramen.
- contingencies 10y agoLet them eat Ramen. Actually I'm working on that already - http://infinite-food.com/ http://infinite-food.com/ - though the initial market is mainland China, and to be fair we do also plan to offer strong versions of a significant number of domestic Chinese and international (mainly Southeast Asian) noodle cuisines at launch. Hot personalized meals prepared fresh from ~$2. More seriously, from our current research early US market entry is not likely due to a highly restrictive regulatory environment. For an apparent example of a blindingly expensive, long-term fight against said regime, see http://momentummachines.com/ http://momentummachines.com/ 3rd house and 2nd boat (Full disclosure: For about a year I had two second-hand boats here in China - NZ-designed trimarans from http://wetamarine.com/ http://wetamarine.com/ - great fun, not very expensive, and there's a scene around SF. I currently have zero real estate. ;)
- paulddraper 10y agoThe number of people with 3 houses _and_ 2 boats is tiny. Much less than 0.1%.
- Buge 10y agoDoes a kayak count as a boat?
- paulddraper 10y agoOnly if dog houses do.
- gajjanag 10y ago> Nothing new under the sun, the rest of us suffer while the top part of society buys their 3rd house and 2nd boat. And yet some of these people can say that they were "dead broke" with a straight face: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jun/10/hillary-clinton/hillary-clinton-says-she-and-bill-were-dead-broke/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/jun/...
- raverbashing 10y ago$1900 for sharing a house with 40 other people? What a joke And these are people making 6 digits per year I'd rather get a lower pay and not worry about crap at this level, even though rising rents seem to be an issue at every city that matters
- pram 10y agoDickensian neo-tenements are cool and disruptive.
- alphonsegaston 10y agoI wonder how far away the tech industry is from returning to company towns, complete with Bitcoin-like digital scrip to spend at their online stores. It seems like the amount of time/energy spent dressing up the bleak economic prospects of structural inequality as new fashions could be put to better use addressing these problems. But then I guess the robber barons of the gilded age didn't have teams of marketers under the thumb of outrageous student loan debt.
- paulddraper 10y agoCompany towns only make sense when your purchases need to be local. That's hardly the case anymore.
- s0rce 10y agoOr when there isn't housing that is remotely affordable. Stanford has "company" housing for professors.
- paulddraper 10y agoSure, I meant company towns with stores. Microsoft has housing for its interns. Not uncommon.
- skyrw 10y agoUnder a certain light SF is a company town, especially when you define the 'company' as the collective of Venture Capitalists that have profit interests in every tech shop here.
- closeparen 10y ago>bleak economic prospects of structural inequality The housing crisis has nothing to do with economic inequality. If there are 3 units and 5 people who want them, 2 are going to be dissatisfied, even if they all make the exact same income. Lower inequality just changes the allocation strategy away from "who has the most to spend" to things like government lottery, who was here first, who belongs to the most politically favored class, and who is willing to spend the largest share of their equal incomes on rent (making the most sacrifices in other areas of life). Arguably, we already live in this world, due to SF's progressive policies around housing allocation which seek to dampen the influence of "how much do you have to spend on rent" on what (if any) housing you'll get access to. The housing crisis would remain exactly as severe as it is now if you erased 100% of inequality between people. We have it because there is economic inequality between geographic areas, leading people to migrate to areas where this no room for them, and no will to build vertically to make room. But that's only in a world with flat population. If we were reproducing above replacement rate, a housing crisis would be inevitable without construction, even if every person and every area had exactly the same socioeconomic status.
- inlined 10y agoI'm a bit worried that this can be penny wise and dollar foolish. Increasing density like this temporarily lowers the minimum cost of rent, but the price per square foot skyrockets. I can't imagine that will be good for any of us. I also can't imagine the actual cost of the building being anywhere near that much per person. I pay 50% more (each) with a roommate to live fantastically in a skyscraper that has plenty of room. How much is being pocketed in this arrangement?
- james_niro 10y agoDevelopers should start building communal spaces where you have your own room and bathroom and share everything else.
- Moshe_Silnorin 10y agoWe had such dwellings once. The were declared illegal.
- paulddraper 10y ago"Dorms" being the technical term for that arrangement.
- tomjen3 10y agoYou don't need your own bathrooms. Technically you don't need your own room either, but I wouldn't pay 2k a month for that.
- protomyth 10y agoThat would be a barracks. Those are often free housing with the job.
- nextos 10y agoIn Oxford & Cambridge we have the same problem. I am spending an uncomfortable part of my income in renting. Furthermore, landlords tend to be greedy and unhelpful with any issues. Regulations give you little protection. So the whole experience is disgusting even if you are willing to go for premium properties. I am considering to buy, but I am not to keen to borrow money equivalent to a decade and a half of income. It feels like selling my soul. The problem here is incredibly expensive land. A small plot in the countryside goes for at least £150k. With so much empty land, permit restrictions can only be explained as a way to keep land supply low and prices high. I can only sympathise with the tiny house movement. They try to hack planning regulations by building small homes which require no planning permits [1-4]. Maybe not a scalable solution, but definitely a way to voice concern about unfair and wealth-extracting policies that force you to devote years of work to buy a tiny chunk of land from billionaire landowners. [1] http://www.tinyhouseuk.co.uk/property-ladder.html http://www.tinyhouseuk.co.uk/property-ladder.html [2] https://tinyhousescotland.co.uk/faqs https://tinyhousescotland.co.uk/faqs [3] https://www.echoliving.co.uk/planning https://www.echoliving.co.uk/planning [4] http://tlio.org.uk/ http://tlio.org.uk/
- tomjen3 10y agoI have been looking into alternative living situations as a hobby for sometime because I am not convinced that the standard single family occupant home/apartment is best for us as humans, but at the same time 1900 a month for a shared apartment is bat shit crazy.
- patrickg_zill 10y ago40 people times 1900 per month is 76,000 per month, 912,000 per year. Usually for real estate back of envelope calculations, 120 months or 10 years' worth of rent is what the value of the property is. What did the Negev property sell for?
- s0rce 10y agoIt seems in the bay area that figure isn't accurate. From my experience the term is even greater than 150 months, often more than 200. I guess this means rent is cheap here (or conversely the price to buy is very high, probably partly because mortgage rates are so low and the interest is tax deductible).
- user5994461 10y agoIn most cities (not limited to US) it now takes 20 or 30 years of rent to make up the price of a property.
- raverbashing 10y agoHello Bubble
- bbcbasic 10y agoAhh. The good ol' days when it was only 20 yrs rent.
- user5994461 10y agoAnd the rent wasn't 50% of your income.
- lquist 10y agoHere's a less flattering article about The Negev: http://sfist.com/2014/11/21/tech_co-op_the_negev_faces_further.php http://sfist.com/2014/11/21/tech_co-op_the_negev_faces_furth...
- dorianm 10y agoAn almost 3 years old article
- hpcjoe 10y agoI try to help recruiters calling me from the Bay Area understand how profound a negative impact the housing prices are for my modest standard of living. I'm in the midwest, and my house current estimated sale price (if offered for sale today), would be insufficient to be the down payment for the purchase a comparable sized house/property in a reasonable middle class (not upscale) area. I could drop the size of my house (1600 sq ft) down to say 600 or so. And then the pricing is, using Bay Area zillow listings, about a factor of 2 higher than what I could sell my house for here. Honestly, the housing cost is a severe impediment to people with families, unless companies decide to adjust for this in a real manner. But, the moment they do, pricing/rents will go way up. The only real way to solve this problem is to not try to bring more people to the Bay Area. Defuse the rent seekers. Reduce the tech mediated inflation. I don't think this will happen on its own. You'll need a crash of some sort for the area to find its real prices. And it is alarming talking to the recruiters, whom seem to think that housing prices will only ever go up. This communal living is IMO, a symptom of the problem. It is not a long term solution. I don't know what is the solution. Though I should point out that there is a whole rest of the country which is relatively open ...
- JamilD 10y agoIt really depends on what you want, though. I'd rather be in a coliving space in San Francisco than in a big house in suburbia outside the Bay Area. As people's priorities and expected standards of living change, so does the market rate for different properties. And it seems like my generation is willing to sacrifice space for being in a large city.
- Johnny555 10y agoOne effect of this problem is that when hiring, it's only viable to bring young single people to the bay area -- anyone with a family that needs to live in something bigger than a one (or 0) bedroom condo would need to be paid an unreasonable salary to afford it. We had one employee quit after 2 months because his wife couldn't stand living in the 2 bedroom apartment they and their 2 kids were living in while they searched for a permanent residence - a search that never succeeded. He paid back the reloc costs, and said that was worth it. There are a lot of perks to living in the Bay Area (the weather being one of them, there are few other places where you can go kayaking, biking and skiing in the same weekend), but if I were asked to move here today (rather than 20 years ago), I doubt I'd come due to the high cost of housing and lousy commute (with poor public transportation) for those that live farther away for cheaper housing.
- julius_set 10y agoI used to live at the Negev, it is not an accurate depiction of startup culture in San Francisco. For starters, it used to be a place that hosted regular Hackathons, tech talks, and other tech related stuff. However it soon turned into a druggie fest, at one point I even saw a girl doing cocaine in the main communal area. I don't think I would ever live in the Negev again, but I did meet a few people that were very nice. The Negev is a small microcosm of start up culture in the Bay Area.
- tomc1985 10y agoSome of us don't want to live communally; we want a place to ourselves in a good area at a decent price :/
- blackguardx 10y agoYou could always try one of the many SROs [0] in San Francisco, primarily the tenderloin district. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_room_occupancy
- mplewis 10y agoI'm fairly sure the Tenderloin doesn't count as a good area for most people.
- blackguardx 10y agoIt has some of the best food in San Francisco, though. I think SROs make a lot of sense. It is too bad they have such a bad reputation (justified in SF) of being sketchy places. I wish there were nicer ones.
- tomc1985 10y agoIs an affordable one-bedroom apartment too much to ask? A small one- or two-bedroom house? The former are close to $1500 just for rents (nowhere near SV) and the latter do not seem to be built very much. Very depressing as a native who wants to purchase a simple house in his hometown.
- blackguardx 10y agoWhere is your hometown? With the cost of land, it seems crazy to build a 1 - 2 bedroom presumably ranch style house in San Francisco. Those style of homes in the Sunset used to be had for $500k or so ten years ago. I think they go for around $1M these days. I agree that 1 - 2 bedrooms houses are the perfect size, though. I currently live in one (not in CA).
- kyleschiller 10y agoIs this city specific? It's nowhere near this bad in south bay. I'm in Mountain view, close to Caltrain and getting a private room in a large house (sizable backyard, garage, hot tub, kitchen, living room) with two other roommates for $1600/each. We looked at at least a dozen similar houses.
- creaghpatr 10y agoFor 1900 a month you can rent the same condos as pro athletes in Atlanta, just sayin.
- Johnny555 10y agoWell yeah, but then you're living in Atlanta (and after 5 years there, I'm not moving back)
- cdransf 10y agoAs much as I like visiting the Bay Area, the cost of living is one of many reasons I'd never consider living there.
- m-j-fox 10y agoThought this was going to be about Chinese subcons a la Foxconn and friends. A different kind of tech worker but maybe not such a difference in lifestyles.
- aub3bhat 10y ago1900$ is ridiculously expensive. Even in Manhattan you can get a nice private Bedroom in shared apartment (3 to 5 BHK) for significantly less than that. At 1900$ you can get a bedroom in shared 2 Bedroom apartment physically next to the Google building in Chelsea.
- aanm1988 10y ago> Zander Dejah, 25, pays $1,900 a month rent to live in a downtown San Francisco house with at least 40 other people, many of whom sleep in bunk beds. I'm just gonna say it, that's moronic. These articles about people choosing (and yes, when you are a dev who has loads of options it is absolutely by choice) to live like this, or in vans or whatever, just piss me off.
- davidf18 10y ago> "Sarah Sherburn-Zimmer, executive director of the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, said housing problems have arisen because occupants leave buildings being converted to communal homes and cannot afford to move back in or the space is no longer suitable for them." This is incorrect. The reason is because of zoning density restrictions which causes market inefficiency in this case a politically induced scarcity which is a form of rent-seeking. These zoning laws that create artificial scarcity benefit the wealthy landowners to the detriment of those who rent or want to buy into the housing market. Economists discuss this. See Tim Harford's book, "The Undercover Economist" or read Harvard Economist Edward Glaeser for starters. David Ricard was the first to see "rent-seeking" and he joined parliament to help to overturn the "Corn Laws" in 1848. These zoning laws are simply another way of the wealthy to unfairly get more wealth from others instead of wealth creation through good ideas. With all of the wealthy company owners in SV and SF, I'm surprise they don't lobby to overturn these repressive zoning laws.