3 ms·

Now that companies are moving to remote-first and permanent work from home and there are fewer benefits of living in the city due to social distancing, it seems

Now that companies are moving to remote-first and permanent work from home and there are fewer benefits of living in the city due to social distancing, it seems like this is a natural consequence. Companies will likely give a stipend for home offices instead of paying for food or commuting, then people can will want to move somewhere they can get more space for their money. I know people in their 40s living with roommates in SF paying rent that could be a mortgage payment in a suburb not far away.

scarmig 6y ago
To be fair, rent in SF is basically a mortgage payment in SF, when you compare apples to apples. It's accumulating the down payment and a buffer that's hard.
- skrtskrt 6y ago
  Yeah this is tough everywhere. In Chicago I could easily be paying for mortgage on decent house for what I'm paying in rent. It's just that I'm in my mid-20s and only really been making decent money for a year. It's going to take years to build up the down payment, meanwhile rent money is just flying out the window into someone else's pocket every month. I could save a lot more by just not doing any retirement saving, but that doesn't seem like a good trade off, considering the money I put in now is going to have the most time to compound.
  - dclusin 6y ago
    I didn't start contributing to 401k, equity accounts, and such until now (my mid 30s). I'm not in a crisis, my life isn't terrible, and its definitely still fixable with minor changes. But the feeling of falling behind peers savings/housing wise is definitely palpable. You're making a very safe and reasonable choice. You can always start a business or take more financial risk down the line too if you want, and you'll have the benefit of savings as a cushion.
- diogenescynic 6y ago
  Sure, but for what I'm paying in rent now I could buy a place in two other cities and have a summer and winter home or rent one out... There are way more options if you don't have to work from an office.
fzeroracer 6y ago
The counter point is that this will also likely result in depressed wages, as companies realize they don't have to price in local factors such as rent or commute. We can't discount the externalities which are then offloaded to the worker as well such as computers / monitors, home offices, internet caps etc. For a large band of workers I think remote work makes sense, but for entry-level developers and/or people on the lower end of the spectrum I think it might be a harder sell.
- ricco221 6y ago
  I could see wages theoretically increase, too. Geographic control is a major form of staff retention, because employees are less likely to want to change companies to work somewhere with fewer opportunities (smaller towns) or somewhere far away that they’d need to move all their stuff to reach (far away towns). Reducing employee friction to jump ship to higher paying firms or to companies which previously didn’t support remote but which now do may make it much harder for companies to maintain staff loyalty when defection is now trivial, you have no comfy benefits or free food/drinks they need to give up to leave, and you no longer have an “office culture” besides what your company pays, and who the highest bidder is.

scarmig 6y ago

To be fair, rent in SF is basically a mortgage payment in SF, when you compare apples to apples. It's accumulating the down payment and a buffer that's hard.

skrtskrt 6y ago
Yeah this is tough everywhere. In Chicago I could easily be paying for mortgage on decent house for what I'm paying in rent. It's just that I'm in my mid-20s and only really been making decent money for a year. It's going to take years to build up the down payment, meanwhile rent money is just flying out the window into someone else's pocket every month. I could save a lot more by just not doing any retirement saving, but that doesn't seem like a good trade off, considering the money I put in now is going to have the most time to compound.
- dclusin 6y ago
  I didn't start contributing to 401k, equity accounts, and such until now (my mid 30s). I'm not in a crisis, my life isn't terrible, and its definitely still fixable with minor changes. But the feeling of falling behind peers savings/housing wise is definitely palpable. You're making a very safe and reasonable choice. You can always start a business or take more financial risk down the line too if you want, and you'll have the benefit of savings as a cushion.
diogenescynic 6y ago
Sure, but for what I'm paying in rent now I could buy a place in two other cities and have a summer and winter home or rent one out... There are way more options if you don't have to work from an office.

fzeroracer 6y ago

The counter point is that this will also likely result in depressed wages, as companies realize they don't have to price in local factors such as rent or commute. We can't discount the externalities which are then offloaded to the worker as well such as computers / monitors, home offices, internet caps etc. For a large band of workers I think remote work makes sense, but for entry-level developers and/or people on the lower end of the spectrum I think it might be a harder sell.

ricco221 6y ago
I could see wages theoretically increase, too. Geographic control is a major form of staff retention, because employees are less likely to want to change companies to work somewhere with fewer opportunities (smaller towns) or somewhere far away that they’d need to move all their stuff to reach (far away towns). Reducing employee friction to jump ship to higher paying firms or to companies which previously didn’t support remote but which now do may make it much harder for companies to maintain staff loyalty when defection is now trivial, you have no comfy benefits or free food/drinks they need to give up to leave, and you no longer have an “office culture” besides what your company pays, and who the highest bidder is.