6 ms·
Tired of the expense of the Bay Area, companies are now uncovering small, cheap gems that no one knew about like NYC.
by projectramo 8y ago
Tired of the expense of the Bay Area, companies are now uncovering small, cheap gems that no one knew about like NYC.
- whoisjuan 8y agoI know you're being sarcastic, but as someone who lived in NYC and California there is not even a comparison on how better is NYC when it comes to the amount of options you get to flexibly spend your money and smartly extend your paycheck. All this while still living in one of the boroughs. I lived for a year in Manhattan with a $50K salary. I wasn't living like a king at all and definitely not saving money, but still managed to have a lifestyle that I would consider comfortable and healthy. This was 2015. Now, compare that to San Francisco. $50K it's basically one level above homelessness.
- projectramo 8y agoWell, if it’s not too personal: what was your rent, where, and for how much space in the two cities?
- whoisjuan 8y agoMy rent in NYC was $1500 with utilities included. I was renting one bedroom in a 2 bedrooms apartment in 75th street. Only downside is that it was a semi-basement (Those apartments with tiny windows that are the same height of the street level---Probably a huge fire hazard). The plus was that I lived three blocks away from Central Park. Some people said that I was lucky to find that place, but in my search I saw similar places that ranged between 1400 without utilities to 2000 in Upper East, some areas of Midtown and East Village. I even saw one guy renting a room for 700 in Upper West. So yes, I was probably lucky to find that place, but not extremely lucky.
- thatfrenchguy 8y agoWith roommates you can definitely have 1500 of rent in SF in « desirable » neighborhoods.
- Touche 8y agoThe average Manhanttan apartment is ~3.5k a month. I'd say you likely got lucky if you lived comfortable on a 50k salary.
- huebnerob 8y agoPeople always forget that Manhattan goes all the way up into the 200s of streets. You can live in Manhattan on pretty much any budget imaginable. Whether you should is another question. The East Village also goes all the way out to Avenue D, and the West Side, to 12th Avenue. These are transit deserts relative to the rest of the island, and priced accordingly.
- rcpt 8y agoRight. Yet all of SF is a transit desert relative to Manhattan and is still priced about the same.
- NikolaeVarius 8y agoI never know why people trot these prices out. Literally nobody I know actually pays 3.5k a month for rent, and a majority of my friends are in the software field in one way or another. The most that anyone pays is like 1.8k
- ericd 8y agoIf you want to live without roommates (you have a family, or you just like living alone), you're probably paying more than 1,800/mo.
- throwaway427 8y agoAnd/or you have a lease started after 2016/17.
- Alex3917 8y ago1,800 will get you a nice 2BR if you're willing to accept a 45 min commute. Even in nicer neighborhoods, e.g. a 2BR in Riverdale is 2,000 - 2,400.
- aylmao 8y agoAs someone who currently lives in NYC, I personally prefer it to San Francisco, but I wouldn't call it better without comparison. A lot of the cheap rent is a longer commute away-- like is the case with SF. In the case of Google, they have shuttles in California, and I would personally take a shuttle over the subway any day. I'm not living in the cheapest apartment I could find (tried that before and regretted it twice, both because it wasn't that cheap, and because it was horrible), and as far as I've researched I'd pay about the same as I would in San Francisco.
- akhilcacharya 8y agoI'm pretty sure they have shuttles in NYC too. I live in Boston and my company has shuttles to the suburbs as well. All of the Big4 do.
- tetromino_ 8y agoNo, Google does not have shuttles in NYC. There is no need for them (the Port Authority building literally stands on top of a subway station) and it would be nearly impossible to run them (even if you ignore the traffic, there isn't any space next to the building to legally park a shuttle).
- akhilcacharya 8y agoInteresting. Even my old internship had shuttle buses in NYC.
- jchendy 8y ago> I would personally take a shuttle over the subway any day. If you're crossing any bridges or tunnels, a 15 minute train ride could easily be 45 minutes in a shuttle or car.
- habosa 8y agoTook that shuttle for 2 years. It's nice but ... it's still a bus. There's no nice way to be on a bus for 3hr a day. I'd much prefer the subway, which is much faster.
- habosa 8y agoSF really has no low end on anything. There's no $1 pizza slice when you really need a cheap meal and there's nowhere cheap to live without a punishing commute. The high end of NY is also much higher than SF. NY is where the first $100M apartment is. NY is as expensive on average but it's an average of a much wider and range.
- log_n 8y agoThere's an In-N-Out on the north side of SF and Chinatown has a ton of cheap eating options. You can eat for cheap in either city.
- Eire_Banshee 8y agoJust one in-n-out?
- habosa 8y agoYeah SF has only one In-N-Out and it's more expensive and crowded than any other location I've seen. SF strongly limits fast food (which I find annoying). My suburb home town had more McDonald's locations than SF does.
- Klonoar 8y ago"on the north side of SF" is really "over in Fisherman's Wharf", which is a notorious tourist trap that's not convenient to get to in the slightest. It can't be compared to a pizza slice joint or falafel or what have you. Chinatown, yes.
- thatfrenchguy 8y agoThere’s this thing, called a grocery store. I’ve even heard there is multiple of those in the city !
- Alex3917 8y ago> NY is where the first $100M apartment is. Most things being sold for more than 20M are probably being sold for money laundering purposes. A more fair comparison would be looking at only apartments that people actually live in full time; a pied-à-terre isn’t really part of basic living expenses.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- clubm8 8y agoI did the research when interviewing for a job in NYC. What would cost ~3500 in SF was more like 1500-2000. NYC has much better transit - I could commute in from Park Slope to Manhattan and have a 1500 studio which would have been much much more expensive if I say, commuted from Mission to Civic center on BART. It is significantly cheaper if you don't live in Manhattan, and transit allows that
- joshuamorton 8y agoSure, but you could commute from Millbrae to Civic Center in the same time as Park slope to manhattan (depending on the exact stop obviously), and that's uhh, cheaper, than Mission.
- jbarciauskas 8y agoAnd living in Park Slope is much nicer than living in Millbrae, at least if you're looking for an urban lifestyle with walkable amenities. New York City just has that everywhere, for miles and miles.
- clubm8 8y agoAlso the parts of Millbrae that rival Park Slope in cost are not walkable to the subway (well technically walkable but quite a walk) vs the places I was looking at were a 5-10 min walk to the subway station. Trains in NYC come much more often, later, and frankly Millbrae is no Park Slope ;)
- electricslpnsld 8y agoYea but transit in the Bay shuts down hella early. Getting to Park Slope at 2am from Manhattan is significantly easier (and safer) than Millbrae (or Oakland or wherever) from San Francisco.
- dmode 8y agoJust for perspective Google also is planning to add ~50k employees in the Bay Area. They have been on a massive real estate buying spree here https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Google-s-Bay-Area-real-estate-empire-equivalent-12704953.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Google-s-Bay-Ar...
- titanomachy 8y agoAlso Seattle. Building a big new office near all the Amazon ones, as well as expanding their existing Seattle sites.
- frutiger 8y agoAs all of the comments below are comparing the San Francisco Bay Area with New York City in terms of real estate, transit time, etc. it's worth noting the stark differences between the two. The Bay Area is of size 6,000-10,000 sq. mi. with a population of 7.7-8.8 million people[1]. NYC is of size 302 sq. mi. (yes, really! That's 20x-50x smaller) with a population of 8.1-8.6 million people[2]. Perhaps it's easy to underestimate just how much of a big world city NYC is and how varied its people and industries are compared to what they might be used to on the west coast. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Bay_Area 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City
- RSZC 8y agoWhy are you comparing the SF bay area to the city limits of New York? Better would be to compare SF bay area to New York Metro Area, which is far bigger than the SF bay area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_metropolitan_area
- hn_throwaway_99 8y agoI originally had the same reaction as you, but reading the parent's comment charitably I believe he's getting at "the population of the entire Bay Area is actually comparable to the population of just NYC proper with it's much tinier (relatively) area)." In other words, some people tend to think of NYC as "huge major East Coast city" and SF as "huge major West Coast city", but the sheer enormous density of NYC makes it actually on a whole other level than SF.
- Declanomous 8y agoEven coming from the Midwest SF feels like a midsize city. I've visited SF, I considered doing the SF software dev thing, but SF just feels like if Cincinnati developed a tech sector. Chicago's urban population is 8.66m, and the urban area is 2,200 sq miles. I feel like I'm in a city here. When I go to West Coast cities I feel like I'm in a giant (sometimes quaint and charming) suburb. There's no density.
- 8y ago