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I've seen the same. The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore. Almost everybody I know that

I've seen the same. The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore. Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled). People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. About half of the tech people I know have moved out. Of those about half have left permanently, the other half are on the fence depending on long term WFH ability / if the city is able to get the quality of life issues under control / plus a lot of complaints about taxes. -In my 6 unit building in Nob Hill (5 of which are owner occupied). 3 units including myself have moved out permanently. 1x to Austin. 1x to Palm Springs. 1x to East Bay. -5 of my 6 best friends in rent controlled units have moved out. Mostly to other cities in California. In 10 years living in SF I've never seen people willingly give up rent controlled units like this. -Other friends that were looking to move to SF that have cancelled those plans. In particular employees at large companies that were impacted by layoffs (Uber).

virginieAFP 6y ago
HI! I'm the correspondent for AFP a global news agency, and I'm looking for to speak with people leaving San Francisco because of pandemic/remote work. Did you already moved? Do you know other person in the process? Can I talk to you?
rtlfe 6y ago
> People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. What are these quality of life issues, and how have other cities avoided them?
- CoolGuySteve 6y ago
  They haven’t, NYC is also boring now. With unemployment rising and poor benefits, civil unrest, and shitty containment policies; I’m thinking about riding the rest of this out back in Canada so we don’t get robbed/assaulted.
  - sandworm101 6y ago
    >> riding the rest of this out back in Canada so we don’t get robbed/assaulted. Better come home quick. Canada is getting more than a little afraid of how badly the US is handling the covid thing. Politeness only goes so far. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53742684 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53742684 "While the border closure has had significant economic and personal repercussions for the millions of people that live along it or have loved ones on the other side, the vast majority of Canadians want it to stay shut."
    - lovecg 6y ago
      That’s for tourists. No one is talking about closing the border to Canadian citizens coming home. Pandemic or not this seems completely unimaginable.
      - sandworm101 6y ago
        The "atlantic bubble" limiting movements of canadians within canada was thought unlikely, and is probably illegal, but it is a thing. Remember when trump spoke of closing off new york state? Canada has actually done something similar. https://www.gov.nl.ca/covid-19/individuals-and-households/travel-advice-2/ https://www.gov.nl.ca/covid-19/individuals-and-households/tr... >>When entering Newfoundland and Labrador, visitors will be required to produce two pieces of government issued identification to verify that they are a permanent resident in one of the Atlantic Provinces. One piece of identification must include a home address.
    - fragmede 6y ago
      The Right of Return is an international law that allows citizens to return to their country of citizenship, and while some may have doubts about the willingness of the USA to follow the Geneva Convention, I'm pretty sure Canada still adheres to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return
  - zeveb 6y ago
    > They haven’t, NYC is also boring now. Not as much as it was. De Blasio has been an unmitigated disaster, and NYC is rapidly approaching 90s-level (if not 70s-level) squalor. Only time will tell if the voters will throw him out and elect someone who can effectively manage the city government, or double down on failure.
- simonw 6y ago
  At a guess: everything is shut down because of the pandemic. That's true in other cities too. But if you can't take advantage of the facilities a city has to offer, why pay $4,000/month rent to live there during the pandemic when you could pay less than half of that somewhere else?
- jurassic 6y ago
  Here's a short list to get you started: - Homeless issues. Mentally ill people pissing and defecating on the sidewalks in every significant public space. - Vehicle vandalism is extremely common and unchecked by police. - Extremely high income taxes with no perceivable difference in government-provided services. - Property tax law that advantages long-term owners over young people trying to buy at today's inflated prices. COVID added some new ones: - Extremely high pre-COVID rents meant many adults were living in roommate situations that seem a lot less acceptable when your health is tied to the willingness of everyone in your unit to behave responsibly. - Bars and restaurants that made the city attractive for many are now closed - Public transit in crisis and may no longer meet your needs
  - brian_cunnie 6y ago
    > Vehicle vandalism is extremely common and unchecked by police. I believe the problem is more nuanced. I spoke with a retired police officer, and he said, "we can only give them a citation, and they [the vandals] know that, that they're gonna be out the same day." In other words, the law is the problem, not the police.
    - csomar 6y ago
      No one is blaming the police officers. The police workforce is just a bunch of employees working for the government or the city.
    - sneak 6y ago
      If the same people were smashing the windows at Starbucks or Walgreens each day, the police response would suddenly be totally different. The police prioritize protecting the property rights of large landowners, first and always. Don’t buy their excuses.
      - cellis 6y ago
        Wrong. A law was passed specifically making crimes of less than $1000 a misdemeanor.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  What are these quality of life issues, and how have other cities avoided them? They haven't. But other cities have handled some quality of life issues differently, or better, or in some cases worse. It's all cyclical. New York was a great place to be in the 60's, largely due to quality of life. New York in the 70's was a hellhole, largely due to quality of life. These things ebb and flow in every city. It's just SFO's turn to be on the fuzzy end of the lollipop. It'll come back.
  - presentation 6y ago
    Uhh, maybe US cities haven’t, but here in Tokyo I never smell feces, step on needles, nor are there hordes of homeless people in every major part of the neighborhood, in a city that has affordable housing, a truly phenomenal public transit network, streets that pretty much never have potholes, and endless cultural and culinary amenities, in a place with GDP per capita far lower than SF. And it similarly was the case for pretty much every city I’ve been to in East Asia, so it’s not even just a Tokyo thing. I was active in SF housing politics when I lived there for 8 years, and my conclusion is that SF and most other US cities incompetent local governments (SF’s especially) are stuck in a mindset where they still repeatedly declare that they’re “great!” despite their blatantly subpar infrastructure and the rampant, systematic trampling of their own citizens human rights. Perhaps it is great for the elderly voters who never leave their homes in the burbs and see the “undesirables”. They make excuses about how US culture makes tried and true solutions in other cities impossible to implement (So... are they saying US culture is just inferior?), and that things will get better just around the corner (when it costs 10x more and takes 10x longer to make any updates to the built infrastructure in US cities than anywhere else, and SF itself has built virtually nothing in the last 40 years). Maybe it will, but I decided for myself that I’m not willing to wait around for it, and chose one of the countless cities in the world that in fact does do better.
    - selectodude 6y ago
      Not all of us have the opportunity to just up and leave the US, unfortunately.
- colechristensen 6y ago
  SF has an extreme homelessness problem, there are places where you can walk two blocks from posh shops to tent lined streets and open air drug markets. Working at a previous gig had me looking at the ground carefully to avoid stepping on needles, feces, and humans, all of which were nearly daily obstacles. Because of the mild weather and culture, SF is somewhat of a destination for the homeless which is less of an issue, but it wasn’t clear that the city was doing nearly enough to address the filth and human tragedy plaguing the streets. It is also so expensive that bars and restaurants (before covid) had a hard time hiring because working at an SF restaurant meant either living in squalor packed in somewhere or living extremely far away and commuting. Thus everything opened late and closed early. The food scene was overrated, most of the artists left for the east bay or LA, and the charming things about the city seemed like they were only still there because of fantasy or stubborn inertia. Other cities have room and willingness to build or the courage to restrict business growth if not willing to expand residential growth. People and businesses are much more willing to leave other cities, and that supply/demand elasticity makes problems fix themselves, but other cities don’t have the romanticism/reality disconnect in nearly the same way.
  - WWLink 6y ago
    That you have an affluent area on one block and a poor area on the next is not new at all. it was like that back in the 80s. And it's probably a good thing, in terms of making it easy to climb the ladder. If you live in a wasteland of poor people you'll never be able to sell any services at all, or make any money, or climb the ladder.
    - rtlfe 6y ago
      I agree, but it seems like "poor area" means something different in SF. Most cities don't have any areas where the sidewalks are littered with needles and human feces.
koolba 6y ago
> The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore. Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled). People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. Whether something is too expensive is not just a function of whether you can afford it. It’s a question of whether it’s worth it at the price being offered. You make make that same conflicting point. The affluent would simply be first movers in this type of situation as many do not need to time their exits with their leases ending. The cash poor, yet high income tech workers will be the next mass exodus. If you think SF is a shell of a city now, just wait till 6 months from now.
- radicaldreamer 6y ago
  Only in the short to medium term... the characteristics which make SF an attractive place to live (just like NYC) are resilient and sticky. If you consider a post-covid world 5 years from now, do you think that SF with it's museums, bars, restaurants, and proximity to nature will be an unattractive place to live? Do you think that remote-first/remote-only companies where the majority of employees are outside of the bay area will be as competitive with startups which follow a more traditional model in silicon valley? Both are things I wouldn't bet on. This is a blip. It could be a major blip, but it's a blip nonetheless and those who are betting in the complete other direction are likely to get burned.
  - wolco 6y ago
    It's like the stock market, buy on the dip. This year would be a great year to buy the sf property if you see yourself there in 5 years.
    - matt-attack 6y ago
      The article mentioned rents down, but have housing prices dipped?
      - 6y ago
reaperducer 6y ago
The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore... People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically Aren't these two sides of the same coin? Very few people base their housing choices on cost alone. Other livability factors play a huge role. That's why real estate developers put amenities in their apartment buildings, and fight over location: Because people are willing to pay more in rent if the livability is higher than a cheaper alternative.
- justchilly 6y ago
  I think you're right and we may be saying the same thing. Certainly most people consider cost vs quality of life. In SF this is particularly true for the younger people that are leaving. They just move back in with their parents, stop paying rent, and maybe will come back if/when things reopen. My point was about the other group that is leaving: more established professionals / homeowners / parents. For that group, saving on housing in the short terms isn't actually a major factor. Many are likely moving to other expensive places. The main thing keeping them in SF was their offices, professional network, or their children. In other words they were in SF despite the declining quality of life. With those constraints gone, they are leavings en mass as well.
  - fragmede 6y ago
    > in SF despite the declining quality of life. Then again, a large contribution to pre-Covid/BC-era "declining quality of life" was due to the city bursting at the seams (the city's population grew far in excess of the number of new housing units being built), and the troubles that came with that.
hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
> People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. Do you think those quality of life issues are temporary or permanent? I mean, many of the things that make SF great are temporarily closed down (its geography and architecture are notable exceptions). That said, I think SF also has more negatives than many other cities (aggressive homeless population, tons of property crime, very high taxes but with services that are comparable, or worse, to other cities). Will be interesting to see what happens in 6-12 months.
- nogabebop23 6y ago
  I think there's a sizeable group of people who found the quality of life poor prior to any shut downs or changes. SF is also not nearly as attractive to those starting a family compared to new grads and young single professionals. Combining these factors I see a significant permanent change if people can keep their high paying jobs and escape the physical proximity.
  - hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
    > SF is also not nearly as attractive to those starting a family compared to new grads and young single professionals. But that's been true for a long, long time about most major cities. Wasn't a big plot point in the ending of Friends in the 90s that Monica and Chandler were starting a family thus they were moving out to the suburbs? I don't see any big permanent change here except for perhaps people willing to relocate to somewhere way more out there than just the 'burbs.
    - Camillo 6y ago
      SF is not that great even for young single professionals that would like to start a family at some point.
    - YinglingLight 6y ago
      Telework, as slow as it has been for adoption, has proven a 100% viable possibility for the majority of white collar careers, specifically tech careers, in this pandemic.
lsiebert 6y ago
I know a fair number of people moving away because it's too expensive. I think it's important to recognize that unless you know people from a broad selection of socioeconomic groups, it's easy to have observer bias.
opportune 6y ago
Just because you can afford it doesn't mean it's a good deal, basically. And living in SF with everything shut down is a pretty terrible deal.
- kelnos 6y ago
  Living in any place where everything is shut down is a pretty bad deal, but that's the situation we're in now. Sure, you get a lot more room to yourself at lower prices if you move out of the bay area or out into the woods, but it seems pretty short-sighted to uproot your life for something that will be temporary (even if "temporary" means another year). But I guess some people are only here because they have to be for their job, and haven't cared to put down roots. I won't mourn their disappearance, frankly. Lower cost of living for those of us who actually want to be here would be delightful.
  - opportune 6y ago
    I’d rather live somewhere where petty theft, homelessness, public drug use, and dirtiness are less of an issue and where COL is much lower if they’re both equally as boring. And good for you! I admittedly don’t have many roots. Most people I know who are leaving are those who were renting and didn’t have kids. I’ve seen rents dropping so I’m sure you can benefit from the exodus as well (if you’re renting). They still haven’t dropped enough for staying to be worth it to me though
qw33nz 6y ago
The trash and homeless problems suck. They should do something about it. Oh and cut taxes too. Everyone wants to make more and pay less to clean up their mess. “I’m voting cognitive dissonance for 2020!”
hcknwscommenter 6y ago
>-In my 6 unit building in Nob Hill (5 of which are owner occupied). 3 units including myself have moved out permanently. 1x to Austin. 1x to Palm Springs. 1x to East Bay. Did they sell those units or are the owners just holding them empty? I think there is a lot of that going on. For those that bought a long time ago, there might be a comfortable equity cushion that can let them hold units like these empty for years.
rorykoehler 6y ago
>Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled). How are we supposed to reconcile this is all the insanely wealthy people saying they will move out of California because of a wealth tax they can easily afford without even noticing it?

virginieAFP 6y ago

HI! I'm the correspondent for AFP a global news agency, and I'm looking for to speak with people leaving San Francisco because of pandemic/remote work. Did you already moved? Do you know other person in the process? Can I talk to you?

rtlfe 6y ago

> People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. What are these quality of life issues, and how have other cities avoided them?

CoolGuySteve 6y ago
They haven’t, NYC is also boring now. With unemployment rising and poor benefits, civil unrest, and shitty containment policies; I’m thinking about riding the rest of this out back in Canada so we don’t get robbed/assaulted.
- sandworm101 6y ago
  >> riding the rest of this out back in Canada so we don’t get robbed/assaulted. Better come home quick. Canada is getting more than a little afraid of how badly the US is handling the covid thing. Politeness only goes so far. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53742684 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53742684 "While the border closure has had significant economic and personal repercussions for the millions of people that live along it or have loved ones on the other side, the vast majority of Canadians want it to stay shut."
  - lovecg 6y ago
    That’s for tourists. No one is talking about closing the border to Canadian citizens coming home. Pandemic or not this seems completely unimaginable.
    - sandworm101 6y ago
      The "atlantic bubble" limiting movements of canadians within canada was thought unlikely, and is probably illegal, but it is a thing. Remember when trump spoke of closing off new york state? Canada has actually done something similar. https://www.gov.nl.ca/covid-19/individuals-and-households/travel-advice-2/ https://www.gov.nl.ca/covid-19/individuals-and-households/tr... >>When entering Newfoundland and Labrador, visitors will be required to produce two pieces of government issued identification to verify that they are a permanent resident in one of the Atlantic Provinces. One piece of identification must include a home address.
  - fragmede 6y ago
    The Right of Return is an international law that allows citizens to return to their country of citizenship, and while some may have doubts about the willingness of the USA to follow the Geneva Convention, I'm pretty sure Canada still adheres to it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_of_return
- zeveb 6y ago
  > They haven’t, NYC is also boring now. Not as much as it was. De Blasio has been an unmitigated disaster, and NYC is rapidly approaching 90s-level (if not 70s-level) squalor. Only time will tell if the voters will throw him out and elect someone who can effectively manage the city government, or double down on failure.
simonw 6y ago
At a guess: everything is shut down because of the pandemic. That's true in other cities too. But if you can't take advantage of the facilities a city has to offer, why pay $4,000/month rent to live there during the pandemic when you could pay less than half of that somewhere else?
jurassic 6y ago
Here's a short list to get you started: - Homeless issues. Mentally ill people pissing and defecating on the sidewalks in every significant public space. - Vehicle vandalism is extremely common and unchecked by police. - Extremely high income taxes with no perceivable difference in government-provided services. - Property tax law that advantages long-term owners over young people trying to buy at today's inflated prices. COVID added some new ones: - Extremely high pre-COVID rents meant many adults were living in roommate situations that seem a lot less acceptable when your health is tied to the willingness of everyone in your unit to behave responsibly. - Bars and restaurants that made the city attractive for many are now closed - Public transit in crisis and may no longer meet your needs
- brian_cunnie 6y ago
  > Vehicle vandalism is extremely common and unchecked by police. I believe the problem is more nuanced. I spoke with a retired police officer, and he said, "we can only give them a citation, and they [the vandals] know that, that they're gonna be out the same day." In other words, the law is the problem, not the police.
  - csomar 6y ago
    No one is blaming the police officers. The police workforce is just a bunch of employees working for the government or the city.
  - sneak 6y ago
    If the same people were smashing the windows at Starbucks or Walgreens each day, the police response would suddenly be totally different. The police prioritize protecting the property rights of large landowners, first and always. Don’t buy their excuses.
    - cellis 6y ago
      Wrong. A law was passed specifically making crimes of less than $1000 a misdemeanor.
reaperducer 6y ago
What are these quality of life issues, and how have other cities avoided them? They haven't. But other cities have handled some quality of life issues differently, or better, or in some cases worse. It's all cyclical. New York was a great place to be in the 60's, largely due to quality of life. New York in the 70's was a hellhole, largely due to quality of life. These things ebb and flow in every city. It's just SFO's turn to be on the fuzzy end of the lollipop. It'll come back.
- presentation 6y ago
  Uhh, maybe US cities haven’t, but here in Tokyo I never smell feces, step on needles, nor are there hordes of homeless people in every major part of the neighborhood, in a city that has affordable housing, a truly phenomenal public transit network, streets that pretty much never have potholes, and endless cultural and culinary amenities, in a place with GDP per capita far lower than SF. And it similarly was the case for pretty much every city I’ve been to in East Asia, so it’s not even just a Tokyo thing. I was active in SF housing politics when I lived there for 8 years, and my conclusion is that SF and most other US cities incompetent local governments (SF’s especially) are stuck in a mindset where they still repeatedly declare that they’re “great!” despite their blatantly subpar infrastructure and the rampant, systematic trampling of their own citizens human rights. Perhaps it is great for the elderly voters who never leave their homes in the burbs and see the “undesirables”. They make excuses about how US culture makes tried and true solutions in other cities impossible to implement (So... are they saying US culture is just inferior?), and that things will get better just around the corner (when it costs 10x more and takes 10x longer to make any updates to the built infrastructure in US cities than anywhere else, and SF itself has built virtually nothing in the last 40 years). Maybe it will, but I decided for myself that I’m not willing to wait around for it, and chose one of the countless cities in the world that in fact does do better.
  - selectodude 6y ago
    Not all of us have the opportunity to just up and leave the US, unfortunately.
colechristensen 6y ago
SF has an extreme homelessness problem, there are places where you can walk two blocks from posh shops to tent lined streets and open air drug markets. Working at a previous gig had me looking at the ground carefully to avoid stepping on needles, feces, and humans, all of which were nearly daily obstacles. Because of the mild weather and culture, SF is somewhat of a destination for the homeless which is less of an issue, but it wasn’t clear that the city was doing nearly enough to address the filth and human tragedy plaguing the streets. It is also so expensive that bars and restaurants (before covid) had a hard time hiring because working at an SF restaurant meant either living in squalor packed in somewhere or living extremely far away and commuting. Thus everything opened late and closed early. The food scene was overrated, most of the artists left for the east bay or LA, and the charming things about the city seemed like they were only still there because of fantasy or stubborn inertia. Other cities have room and willingness to build or the courage to restrict business growth if not willing to expand residential growth. People and businesses are much more willing to leave other cities, and that supply/demand elasticity makes problems fix themselves, but other cities don’t have the romanticism/reality disconnect in nearly the same way.
- WWLink 6y ago
  That you have an affluent area on one block and a poor area on the next is not new at all. it was like that back in the 80s. And it's probably a good thing, in terms of making it easy to climb the ladder. If you live in a wasteland of poor people you'll never be able to sell any services at all, or make any money, or climb the ladder.
  - rtlfe 6y ago
    I agree, but it seems like "poor area" means something different in SF. Most cities don't have any areas where the sidewalks are littered with needles and human feces.

koolba 6y ago

> The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore. Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled). People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. Whether something is too expensive is not just a function of whether you can afford it. It’s a question of whether it’s worth it at the price being offered. You make make that same conflicting point. The affluent would simply be first movers in this type of situation as many do not need to time their exits with their leases ending. The cash poor, yet high income tech workers will be the next mass exodus. If you think SF is a shell of a city now, just wait till 6 months from now.

radicaldreamer 6y ago
Only in the short to medium term... the characteristics which make SF an attractive place to live (just like NYC) are resilient and sticky. If you consider a post-covid world 5 years from now, do you think that SF with it's museums, bars, restaurants, and proximity to nature will be an unattractive place to live? Do you think that remote-first/remote-only companies where the majority of employees are outside of the bay area will be as competitive with startups which follow a more traditional model in silicon valley? Both are things I wouldn't bet on. This is a blip. It could be a major blip, but it's a blip nonetheless and those who are betting in the complete other direction are likely to get burned.
- wolco 6y ago
  It's like the stock market, buy on the dip. This year would be a great year to buy the sf property if you see yourself there in 5 years.
  - matt-attack 6y ago
    The article mentioned rents down, but have housing prices dipped?
    - 6y ago

reaperducer 6y ago

The misconception is that people are leaving because the housing is too expensive and its not worth it anymore... People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically Aren't these two sides of the same coin? Very few people base their housing choices on cost alone. Other livability factors play a huge role. That's why real estate developers put amenities in their apartment buildings, and fight over location: Because people are willing to pay more in rent if the livability is higher than a cheaper alternative.

justchilly 6y ago
I think you're right and we may be saying the same thing. Certainly most people consider cost vs quality of life. In SF this is particularly true for the younger people that are leaving. They just move back in with their parents, stop paying rent, and maybe will come back if/when things reopen. My point was about the other group that is leaving: more established professionals / homeowners / parents. For that group, saving on housing in the short terms isn't actually a major factor. Many are likely moving to other expensive places. The main thing keeping them in SF was their offices, professional network, or their children. In other words they were in SF despite the declining quality of life. With those constraints gone, they are leavings en mass as well.
- fragmede 6y ago
  > in SF despite the declining quality of life. Then again, a large contribution to pre-Covid/BC-era "declining quality of life" was due to the city bursting at the seams (the city's population grew far in excess of the number of new housing units being built), and the troubles that came with that.

hn_throwaway_99 6y ago

> People are leaving because quality of life has fallen dramatically and the only thing keeping people in SF was their offices. Do you think those quality of life issues are temporary or permanent? I mean, many of the things that make SF great are temporarily closed down (its geography and architecture are notable exceptions). That said, I think SF also has more negatives than many other cities (aggressive homeless population, tons of property crime, very high taxes but with services that are comparable, or worse, to other cities). Will be interesting to see what happens in 6-12 months.

nogabebop23 6y ago
I think there's a sizeable group of people who found the quality of life poor prior to any shut downs or changes. SF is also not nearly as attractive to those starting a family compared to new grads and young single professionals. Combining these factors I see a significant permanent change if people can keep their high paying jobs and escape the physical proximity.
- hn_throwaway_99 6y ago
  > SF is also not nearly as attractive to those starting a family compared to new grads and young single professionals. But that's been true for a long, long time about most major cities. Wasn't a big plot point in the ending of Friends in the 90s that Monica and Chandler were starting a family thus they were moving out to the suburbs? I don't see any big permanent change here except for perhaps people willing to relocate to somewhere way more out there than just the 'burbs.
  - Camillo 6y ago
    SF is not that great even for young single professionals that would like to start a family at some point.
  - YinglingLight 6y ago
    Telework, as slow as it has been for adoption, has proven a 100% viable possibility for the majority of white collar careers, specifically tech careers, in this pandemic.

lsiebert 6y ago

I know a fair number of people moving away because it's too expensive. I think it's important to recognize that unless you know people from a broad selection of socioeconomic groups, it's easy to have observer bias.

opportune 6y ago

Just because you can afford it doesn't mean it's a good deal, basically. And living in SF with everything shut down is a pretty terrible deal.

kelnos 6y ago
Living in any place where everything is shut down is a pretty bad deal, but that's the situation we're in now. Sure, you get a lot more room to yourself at lower prices if you move out of the bay area or out into the woods, but it seems pretty short-sighted to uproot your life for something that will be temporary (even if "temporary" means another year). But I guess some people are only here because they have to be for their job, and haven't cared to put down roots. I won't mourn their disappearance, frankly. Lower cost of living for those of us who actually want to be here would be delightful.
- opportune 6y ago
  I’d rather live somewhere where petty theft, homelessness, public drug use, and dirtiness are less of an issue and where COL is much lower if they’re both equally as boring. And good for you! I admittedly don’t have many roots. Most people I know who are leaving are those who were renting and didn’t have kids. I’ve seen rents dropping so I’m sure you can benefit from the exodus as well (if you’re renting). They still haven’t dropped enough for staying to be worth it to me though

qw33nz 6y ago

The trash and homeless problems suck. They should do something about it. Oh and cut taxes too. Everyone wants to make more and pay less to clean up their mess. “I’m voting cognitive dissonance for 2020!”

hcknwscommenter 6y ago

>-In my 6 unit building in Nob Hill (5 of which are owner occupied). 3 units including myself have moved out permanently. 1x to Austin. 1x to Palm Springs. 1x to East Bay. Did they sell those units or are the owners just holding them empty? I think there is a lot of that going on. For those that bought a long time ago, there might be a comfortable equity cushion that can let them hold units like these empty for years.

rorykoehler 6y ago

>Almost everybody I know that moved out had no problem affording housing (high earners / home owners / rent controlled). How are we supposed to reconcile this is all the insanely wealthy people saying they will move out of California because of a wealth tax they can easily afford without even noticing it?