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> and has a dampening effect on rent increase Is that really true? I don't know if this data is accurate but googling "average rent new york city" vs "average

> and has a dampening effect on rent increase Is that really true? I don't know if this data is accurate but googling "average rent new york city" vs "average rent san francisco" brings up these 2 results as the first hits. They look almost identical. The site claims average rent for NYC is $3634 vs SF at $3735. It also claims prices increased in NYC by 9.46% over last year vs SF at 0.62% https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-rent-trends/ https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-san-francisco-ren... https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-new-york-rent-trends/ https://www.rentjungle.com/average-rent-in-new-york-rent-tre...

dmoy 8y ago
The difference is a reasonable transit ride puts you in the radius of a staggeringly large amount of housing stock comparatively in NYC. But, go to the SF burbs and try to find high rises... :/
nostrademons 8y ago
If NYC is currently at $3634 then yes, NYC has done much better than SF. I remember getting out of college in 2005, hearing about the $3000+ 1BR apartments in NYC, and thinking "Why the hell would anyone want to move to NYC?" (I was living with my parents in Boston at the time, but looked at moving out and would've paid $650 with roommates or about $1100 for a 1BR in that city.) My now-wife was living in SF that same year and paid $1200 in rent. The huge increases in SF rent happened mostly from 2010-2015. I paid $1400/month for a 1BR in 2009-2010 (Mountain View, not SF, but SF was still < $2000 at the time). By 2014 it was basically impossible to find something < $3000 in any transit-accessible part of the city, and apparently it's leveled off since.
ramraj07 8y ago
I'm a tech worker in NYC and none of my firends (except one idiot) pays more than 2500 for their studio apartment within Manhattan. I share a super fancy apartment in a hirise in Brooklyn and pay less than 2K. If you're okay living in Queens you can get a 2BR with less than 1h commute. And this is not even talking about distant Brooklyn, Bronx or jersey (also less tax)
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  You can also get a 2BR less than one hour's commute away from San Francisco for under $2000 / month.
  - graeme 8y ago
    A transit commute?
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      Yes, my commute from South Hayward to Embarcadero station in SF was 45 minutes, I used BART (obviously), and rent was under $2000.
  - sincerely 8y ago
    where?
    - thaumasiotes 8y ago
      Hayward.
      - sincerely 8y ago
        Wow, I looked it up and you're right. Thanks for the info. What's living in Hayward like?
        thaumasiotes 8y ago
        It seemed quietly beautiful to me. Very nice scenery and otherwise typically suburban? The local hispanic population is large; I walked up into the hills once and found an impressive park, filled with people none of whom were speaking English.
  - caymanjim 8y ago
    None of the tech jobs are in San Francisco. Unlike most cities, people live in SF/Oakland and commute to the suburbs in Mountain View and Palo Alto to work, and that commute is closer to two hours door to door.
closeparen 8y ago
You can live in many places that are not New York City and have a reasonably timely public transit commute into it.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  New York City is huge though. To live in a place that isn’t NYC while still in state means Yonkers or White Plains. Reasonable commute is like an hour, maybe more.
  - saalweachter 8y ago
    Eh, you can get to dense suburbia in about 45 minutes, sparse suburbia in like 1 hour, and if you're willing to commute 90 minutes, maybe two hours, you're out in what city slickers would call "rural". Also don't forget Long Island, the Other In State. (I'm one of the idiots who commutes ~2 hours from near Poughkeepsie, which is (a) still on commuter rail [the super-express Hudson line train takes ~90 minutes, plus the time to get to & from it] and (b) where half of the food you find in NYC farmer's markets comes from. I kinda like it.)
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      I know from my stint on Crouton on Hudson, but its still a pain. You don't truly live in the city, you just visit it from time to time.
      - saalweachter 8y ago
        You're definitely not living in the city and it's certainly not for everyone. For me, I didn't really take advantage of the city - I like occasionally went to a museum or went out to eat but I mostly just sat on the couch watching TV and surfing the internet. So I moved north and got myself forty acres of tree-covered Bath-Nassau soil with rocky outcroppings. Now my free time is filled with rennovating a 200 year old vernacular house, turning my land into a proper hobby farm, and going to various kitschy festivals and hiking trails with my family. My commute is, frankly, the most relaxing part of my week, where I can sit quietly for 90 minutes and read a book or take a nap or post WoT conspiracy theories on Reddit. It may not be for everyone, but it's amazing to me that I can have this lifestyle while also commuting to a regular old desk job in the largest city in the country. (It's also amazing to me that I'm part of a multi-century tradition of both commuting to the city from rural upstate and of gentleman farmers coming upstate from the city.)
vonmoltke 8y ago
One thing, not immediately clear from those averages, is that apartments in Manhattan tend to be larger than those in SF. If you look at the breakdown by bedroom count: 1BR: SF -> $3303 | NY -> $2939 2BR: SF -> $4481 | NY -> $3752 This makes clear that NY inventory is biased towards larger units, which makes comparisons of overall averages deceptive.
- kevstev 8y ago
  Do you have any data to support this? I am not being argumentative, I just found that from personal experience the opposite was true- that total rent tended to be higher in SF, but the apartments tended to be larger, at least than those in Manhattan. It seemed to me that SF was slightly cheaper per sq ft, with many more houses having access to outdoor space. The closest I could find in terms of data was this site- https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/us-average-apartment-size-trends-downward/ https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/us-average-apart... which compares SF to all of NYC, not Manhattan. The studios are somewhat bigger, the 1BRs slightly smaller, and the 2BRs are on average slightly larger- but the difference is very small.
  - vonmoltke 8y ago
    I'm going just by the bedroom counts listed on that website. It's possible that those numbers are also deceptive because square footage per bedroom is sufficiently different. I was mainly remarking that the breakdown seems to indicate that NY inventory is biased towards 2BR apartments while SF inventory is biased towards 1BR. This is based merely on the fact that the SF overall average is much closer to the SF 1BR average while the NY overall average is much closer to the NY 2BR average. Price per square foot would shed more light on this, but I don't know of a reliable (free) source of that data.
jswizzy 8y ago
Both NYC and SF are rent controlled areas. Rent control is cancer that punishes younger and newer inhabitants while making rent cheap for the rich. In fact, NYC has more vacant apartments than homeless people.
- CydeWeys 8y ago
  Rent control is much less of a thing in NYC than it is in SF. There are only 27k rent controlled apartments in all of NYC (with its >8M population). More info here: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/rentguidelinesboard/resources/rent-control.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/rentguidelinesboard/resources/rent... There are plenty of rent stabilized apartments in NYC, but that's a much different and weaker thing, and isn't comparable to rent control in SF.
CydeWeys 8y ago
Those stats about NYC are, quite frankly, incorrect. I have no idea where they got that garbage data from, but it's garbage. Housing stock was massively added to over the past year and the market has actually gotten friendlier to renters, with many buildings offering one month free rent to entice renters. You can see some more accurate stats here: https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/24/16925172/nyc-rent-2017-decrease-2016 https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/24/16925172/nyc-rent-2017-decre...

dmoy 8y ago

The difference is a reasonable transit ride puts you in the radius of a staggeringly large amount of housing stock comparatively in NYC. But, go to the SF burbs and try to find high rises... :/

nostrademons 8y ago

If NYC is currently at $3634 then yes, NYC has done much better than SF. I remember getting out of college in 2005, hearing about the $3000+ 1BR apartments in NYC, and thinking "Why the hell would anyone want to move to NYC?" (I was living with my parents in Boston at the time, but looked at moving out and would've paid $650 with roommates or about $1100 for a 1BR in that city.) My now-wife was living in SF that same year and paid $1200 in rent. The huge increases in SF rent happened mostly from 2010-2015. I paid $1400/month for a 1BR in 2009-2010 (Mountain View, not SF, but SF was still < $2000 at the time). By 2014 it was basically impossible to find something < $3000 in any transit-accessible part of the city, and apparently it's leveled off since.

ramraj07 8y ago

I'm a tech worker in NYC and none of my firends (except one idiot) pays more than 2500 for their studio apartment within Manhattan. I share a super fancy apartment in a hirise in Brooklyn and pay less than 2K. If you're okay living in Queens you can get a 2BR with less than 1h commute. And this is not even talking about distant Brooklyn, Bronx or jersey (also less tax)

thaumasiotes 8y ago
You can also get a 2BR less than one hour's commute away from San Francisco for under $2000 / month.
- graeme 8y ago
  A transit commute?
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    Yes, my commute from South Hayward to Embarcadero station in SF was 45 minutes, I used BART (obviously), and rent was under $2000.
- sincerely 8y ago
  where?
  - thaumasiotes 8y ago
    Hayward.
    - sincerely 8y ago
      Wow, I looked it up and you're right. Thanks for the info. What's living in Hayward like?
      - thaumasiotes 8y ago
        It seemed quietly beautiful to me. Very nice scenery and otherwise typically suburban? The local hispanic population is large; I walked up into the hills once and found an impressive park, filled with people none of whom were speaking English.
- caymanjim 8y ago
  None of the tech jobs are in San Francisco. Unlike most cities, people live in SF/Oakland and commute to the suburbs in Mountain View and Palo Alto to work, and that commute is closer to two hours door to door.

closeparen 8y ago

You can live in many places that are not New York City and have a reasonably timely public transit commute into it.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago
New York City is huge though. To live in a place that isn’t NYC while still in state means Yonkers or White Plains. Reasonable commute is like an hour, maybe more.
- saalweachter 8y ago
  Eh, you can get to dense suburbia in about 45 minutes, sparse suburbia in like 1 hour, and if you're willing to commute 90 minutes, maybe two hours, you're out in what city slickers would call "rural". Also don't forget Long Island, the Other In State. (I'm one of the idiots who commutes ~2 hours from near Poughkeepsie, which is (a) still on commuter rail [the super-express Hudson line train takes ~90 minutes, plus the time to get to & from it] and (b) where half of the food you find in NYC farmer's markets comes from. I kinda like it.)
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    I know from my stint on Crouton on Hudson, but its still a pain. You don't truly live in the city, you just visit it from time to time.
    - saalweachter 8y ago
      You're definitely not living in the city and it's certainly not for everyone. For me, I didn't really take advantage of the city - I like occasionally went to a museum or went out to eat but I mostly just sat on the couch watching TV and surfing the internet. So I moved north and got myself forty acres of tree-covered Bath-Nassau soil with rocky outcroppings. Now my free time is filled with rennovating a 200 year old vernacular house, turning my land into a proper hobby farm, and going to various kitschy festivals and hiking trails with my family. My commute is, frankly, the most relaxing part of my week, where I can sit quietly for 90 minutes and read a book or take a nap or post WoT conspiracy theories on Reddit. It may not be for everyone, but it's amazing to me that I can have this lifestyle while also commuting to a regular old desk job in the largest city in the country. (It's also amazing to me that I'm part of a multi-century tradition of both commuting to the city from rural upstate and of gentleman farmers coming upstate from the city.)

vonmoltke 8y ago

One thing, not immediately clear from those averages, is that apartments in Manhattan tend to be larger than those in SF. If you look at the breakdown by bedroom count: 1BR: SF -> $3303 | NY -> $2939 2BR: SF -> $4481 | NY -> $3752 This makes clear that NY inventory is biased towards larger units, which makes comparisons of overall averages deceptive.

kevstev 8y ago
Do you have any data to support this? I am not being argumentative, I just found that from personal experience the opposite was true- that total rent tended to be higher in SF, but the apartments tended to be larger, at least than those in Manhattan. It seemed to me that SF was slightly cheaper per sq ft, with many more houses having access to outdoor space. The closest I could find in terms of data was this site- https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/us-average-apartment-size-trends-downward/ https://www.rentcafe.com/blog/rental-market/us-average-apart... which compares SF to all of NYC, not Manhattan. The studios are somewhat bigger, the 1BRs slightly smaller, and the 2BRs are on average slightly larger- but the difference is very small.
- vonmoltke 8y ago
  I'm going just by the bedroom counts listed on that website. It's possible that those numbers are also deceptive because square footage per bedroom is sufficiently different. I was mainly remarking that the breakdown seems to indicate that NY inventory is biased towards 2BR apartments while SF inventory is biased towards 1BR. This is based merely on the fact that the SF overall average is much closer to the SF 1BR average while the NY overall average is much closer to the NY 2BR average. Price per square foot would shed more light on this, but I don't know of a reliable (free) source of that data.

jswizzy 8y ago

Both NYC and SF are rent controlled areas. Rent control is cancer that punishes younger and newer inhabitants while making rent cheap for the rich. In fact, NYC has more vacant apartments than homeless people.

CydeWeys 8y ago
Rent control is much less of a thing in NYC than it is in SF. There are only 27k rent controlled apartments in all of NYC (with its >8M population). More info here: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/rentguidelinesboard/resources/rent-control.page https://www1.nyc.gov/site/rentguidelinesboard/resources/rent... There are plenty of rent stabilized apartments in NYC, but that's a much different and weaker thing, and isn't comparable to rent control in SF.

CydeWeys 8y ago

Those stats about NYC are, quite frankly, incorrect. I have no idea where they got that garbage data from, but it's garbage. Housing stock was massively added to over the past year and the market has actually gotten friendlier to renters, with many buildings offering one month free rent to entice renters. You can see some more accurate stats here: https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/24/16925172/nyc-rent-2017-decrease-2016 https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/24/16925172/nyc-rent-2017-decre...