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Alternate experience: I just moved into SF a week ago from elsewhere in the Bay. I was able to get a large, modern, luxury 1BR in a decent location for under $

Alternate experience: I just moved into SF a week ago from elsewhere in the Bay. I was able to get a large, modern, luxury 1BR in a decent location for under $3K + almost a 1 month concession and no deposit. Being a single, young(ish) guy, it still makes sense to be in a city. I have more space than I need now, and I can afford the rent. Maybe things aren’t that nice right now, but I’m hoping they’ll get back to semi-normality in a few months. Plus, I’m still banking on there being more opportunity to level up in my career much more here.

DataWorker 6y ago
What’s the decent location? Even without parking rent that seems extremely low for sf. Also luxury?
- vmception 6y ago
  Rent is extremely low in SF compared to what it a year ago. 9-25% off. Yeah, wide range. Luxury buildings are the primary ones offering more 1-2 month concessions, which really means rent has dropped another 18% than what is listed. And this is without evictions on tenants, or foreclosures on homeowners. Both of which can't really get started until November or January due to local regulations and now backlog. This is with purely voluntary departures.
fiblye 6y ago
> I was able to get a large, modern, luxury 1BR in a decent location for under $3K This sounds like a joke about just how absurd SF rents are.
- verst 6y ago
  Assuming the 1BR is 700+ sqft and the location is something like SOMA or Hayes Valley this would be a good deal. Yes SF rents are generally insane.
  - baron816 6y ago
    820sf and right between those two neighborhoods.
    - vmception 6y ago
      And for reference, a Hayes Valley 1bd would still be right above $3k. Or right below with concessions. Luxury studios are going to $2400 already though. Expecting further drops. Yes, there are many people in Central Valley who can now afford to live out their dream of being in "the city". A change of scenery is a change of scenery. I've met suddenly unencumbered East Coasters that roadtripped across during Phase 1 Shelter in Place, and they are content with the new environment. I don't see these as demand drivers, as the replacements are not the economic powerhouses that were here: subsidized college kids and tech workers. So its nice if the city gets a diverse culture again, but in the topic of rent and housing prices, I wouldn't expect a rebound so optimistically.
      - jquery 6y ago
        Luxury studios were about that much 10 years ago. I don’t expect drops to be much further. The exodus is already decelerating according to Zestimates I’ve been following closely. I expect prices to drop further for a little bit longer then start to creep back up. Anyone who wants to live in the best weather in the continental USA should lock in their price now.
        vmception 6y ago
        I also think $2400 is a floor here, but I also think the spread between unit types will get much closer. Instead of a 1bd being $2900, maybe it will be $2490. I've seen this curve compress in a lot of different combinations over the last 3 months. But the other factor, which I think everyone is still neglecting, is that the exodus was only voluntarily exits. Evictions and foreclosures aren't happening and there is a massive backlog when they do. So with only the current date, November - January is when the fireworks start.
        6y ago
- boringg 6y ago
  That's a good deal.
  - josephg 6y ago
    Only because of how insane housing in SF is. For comparison I own a 2br apartment in Melbourne, Australia. It takes about 15 minutes to walk from here to the heart of the city. My mortgage repayments (including interest) are about $700usd/month.
    - bezmenov 6y ago
      Better coffee and no human excrement on the sidewalks too.
      - jquery 6y ago
        I live in SF and no excrement on the sidewalk where I live. Problem with SF is some neighborhoods are being neglected. There’s no penalty for lawless vagrancy, not even a “shoo shoo”. I’ve seen portapotties set up next to tent camps. I guess that’s better than street shitting but it’s a major disappointment to see tent cities encouraged.
    - x87678r 6y ago
      > My mortgage repayments (including interest) are about $700usd/month. Melbourne is not cheap, there must be more to this story. The average house price in Melbourne is $855,428. A $600k unit, 20% deposit, 25y mortgage, cheap 2% rate is $1.4k or USD 1k. + strata fees
      - Mandatum 6y ago
        Yeah, this person lives in a shoebox in the outer suburbs. We pay double that for a 1920s apartment (so very spacious, but cheap) in a suburb walking distance from the CBD, right next to a tram line.
        6y ago
- formerly_proven 6y ago
  Guy spends about 150 % of my net income just on rent.
- bluedino 6y ago
  That’s a deal, it’s not much higher than it was ten years ago (oddly enough, when it was already insanely high)
  - kelnos 6y ago
    Really? I was living in a nice not-rent-controlled ~800sqft 1BR in a decent part of the western addition in 2010, for $1700/mo. $3k might have been common at the high end, but I don't think that was typical.
- Bud 6y ago
  Only if you don't know how many more jobs there are in SF that pay well enough to afford that than there are in other places.
  - chiefalchemist 6y ago
    If salaries don't need to reflect local cost of living, it seems that salaries will be subject to change. Fairly soon?
    - readhn 6y ago
      that's an excellent point!!
    - Bud 6y ago
      You're assuming that salaries are not also impacted by the immense amount of wealth being generated by the Silicon Valley economy, though. And you're also assuming that housing prices will radically change, which I don't think is guaranteed even in the medium-term.
      - chiefalchemist 6y ago
        That's not what this article and others are saying. That is, people are leaving and housing is falling. Also, much of the appeal comes from bars, restaurants, boutiques, and such. Those too are falling off the map. I'm not assuming anything.
- davchana 6y ago
  I actually re-read the comment to see if he said 3BR. Was disappointed to find that it was 3k for 1BR, absolutely not imaginable in my salary.
  - ummonk 6y ago
    Six figure salaries are the norm for software engineers in SF. Hard not to be able to afford a 3k rent as a software engineer.
- torgian 6y ago
  Damn. That’s a lot of money.
p1mrx 6y ago
But you're just renting... won't the price skyrocket when things go back to normal?
- vmception 6y ago
  who cares? live your dream for 1 or 2 years and move on, or cross your fingers that new opportunities present itself in the denser environment that let you keep up with the rent. If you don't make new friends that you want to be roommates with for lower individual rent, then you end up moving on anyway.
- pjlegato 6y ago
  Almost all apartments in SF are rent controlled. The landlord can only raise the rent by some tiny nominal percentage mandated by the rent board every year.
  - darkwizard42 6y ago
    This isn't really true... it only applies to units that were built before a certain year (1979). If you are in any kind of modern unit / luxury unit as noted by GP, then this won't hold. However, most landlords in non-managed buildings are fairly reasonable about only raising rent 2-5% a year. Your mileage may vary.
    - bezmenov 6y ago
      That still applies to ~170k rental units, which constitute ~70% of the entire SF rental market. https://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/publications_pdfs/SPUR_8_Ways_to_Make_San_Francisco_More_Affordable.pdf https://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/publications_pdfs/S...
    - hadlock 6y ago
      I think rent control laws recently changed, in the last two years; in SF units older than 2005 now fall under standard rent control rules of ~2% per year or CPI increase, whichever is less. Values of properties built in 2005 recently dropped as a result. A couple years ago, rent controlled units were much older.
Redoubts 6y ago
> Being a single, young(ish) guy, it still makes sense to be in a city. A city, yes. SF? No. By far it's the worst place for this I've ever seen.
- baron816 6y ago
  > By far it's the worst place for this I've ever seen. San Jose is worse. As was the suburb I just moved from. But, yes, point taken.
- jquery 6y ago
  There are far worse places than SF. But yeah SF needs better leadership. Our current incognito mayor needs to be thrown out.
- ummonk 6y ago
  Depends on sexual orientation.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- jonny_eh 6y ago
  Beijing would be worse.
- Camillo 6y ago
  What's a good US city to live in?
  - CardenB 6y ago
    For a single guy? New York. DC.
    - Camillo 6y ago
      New York for sure before the pandemic, but now?
mistersquid 6y ago
> I was able to get a large, modern, luxury 1BR in a decent location for under $3K + almost a 1 month concession and no deposit. After being in my 1br in the Tendernob for 10 years ($1675/mo), I upgraded to a larger (similar layout) apt for just over $2K in Nob Hill. I received two-months concession for a 15-month lease. I'm long past wanting to blow $200+ a night on bars and restaurants every day and because I love being in SF, I'm really happy.
gravypod 6y ago
You can rent-to-own a 6br house on a 6k+ sqft lot with a detached garage in NJ with a ~1hr commute to Manhattan for $3,500/month in NJ. $3k/month on an apartment gets you a luxury huge 2 to 3 bedroom with in unit w/d and bowling/swimming in the basement or something in Hoboken with a <25min commute to Manhattan. Thinking 36k/year (more then the total comp of many workers in America) is cheap housing is a Bay-area distortion.
- stbtrax 6y ago
  who wants that long of a commute? It's all relative and the salaries here more than make up for it. I'm sure someone in the texas exurb would think you're nuts for paying that much in hoboken.
  - gravypod 6y ago
    I think it's nuts too. I'd rather work from home and live in the middle of nowhere. 3k/month is a mansion in most parts of the world.
- kelnos 6y ago
  As someone who grew up in NJ about an hour south of Manhattan, that sounds like a living situation that would make me very unhappy as an adult (don't get me wrong; I had a great childhood). But I have some dear friends who lived in San Jose for several years and then ended up moving back to rural South Jersey, so, clearly, to each their own. Even the 25min commute from Hoboken would make me sad. I want to be able to walk or take local transit to where I want to hang out. > Thinking 36k/year is cheap housing is a Bay-area distortion. I don't think anyone's making that claim?
  - jdhn 6y ago
    >I have some dear friends who lived in San Jose for several years and then ended up moving back to rural South Jersey That's a hell of a jump. What about rural South Jersey appealed to them?
    - 6y ago
swiley 6y ago
For comparison: When I was apartment shopping in late February and early march in northern Virginia (limited to walking distance to the office and nice restaurants) One place I looked at was a luxury 1BR at $2k + 1 month concession, I went with a cheaper "studio" in the same building though (the 1BR had carpet and the studio had hardwood floor and wasn't much smaller.)

DataWorker 6y ago

What’s the decent location? Even without parking rent that seems extremely low for sf. Also luxury?

vmception 6y ago
Rent is extremely low in SF compared to what it a year ago. 9-25% off. Yeah, wide range. Luxury buildings are the primary ones offering more 1-2 month concessions, which really means rent has dropped another 18% than what is listed. And this is without evictions on tenants, or foreclosures on homeowners. Both of which can't really get started until November or January due to local regulations and now backlog. This is with purely voluntary departures.

fiblye 6y ago

> I was able to get a large, modern, luxury 1BR in a decent location for under $3K This sounds like a joke about just how absurd SF rents are.

verst 6y ago
Assuming the 1BR is 700+ sqft and the location is something like SOMA or Hayes Valley this would be a good deal. Yes SF rents are generally insane.
- baron816 6y ago
  820sf and right between those two neighborhoods.
  - vmception 6y ago
    And for reference, a Hayes Valley 1bd would still be right above $3k. Or right below with concessions. Luxury studios are going to $2400 already though. Expecting further drops. Yes, there are many people in Central Valley who can now afford to live out their dream of being in "the city". A change of scenery is a change of scenery. I've met suddenly unencumbered East Coasters that roadtripped across during Phase 1 Shelter in Place, and they are content with the new environment. I don't see these as demand drivers, as the replacements are not the economic powerhouses that were here: subsidized college kids and tech workers. So its nice if the city gets a diverse culture again, but in the topic of rent and housing prices, I wouldn't expect a rebound so optimistically.
    - jquery 6y ago
      Luxury studios were about that much 10 years ago. I don’t expect drops to be much further. The exodus is already decelerating according to Zestimates I’ve been following closely. I expect prices to drop further for a little bit longer then start to creep back up. Anyone who wants to live in the best weather in the continental USA should lock in their price now.
      - vmception 6y ago
        I also think $2400 is a floor here, but I also think the spread between unit types will get much closer. Instead of a 1bd being $2900, maybe it will be $2490. I've seen this curve compress in a lot of different combinations over the last 3 months. But the other factor, which I think everyone is still neglecting, is that the exodus was only voluntarily exits. Evictions and foreclosures aren't happening and there is a massive backlog when they do. So with only the current date, November - January is when the fireworks start.
      - 6y ago
boringg 6y ago
That's a good deal.
- josephg 6y ago
  Only because of how insane housing in SF is. For comparison I own a 2br apartment in Melbourne, Australia. It takes about 15 minutes to walk from here to the heart of the city. My mortgage repayments (including interest) are about $700usd/month.
  - bezmenov 6y ago
    Better coffee and no human excrement on the sidewalks too.
    - jquery 6y ago
      I live in SF and no excrement on the sidewalk where I live. Problem with SF is some neighborhoods are being neglected. There’s no penalty for lawless vagrancy, not even a “shoo shoo”. I’ve seen portapotties set up next to tent camps. I guess that’s better than street shitting but it’s a major disappointment to see tent cities encouraged.
  - x87678r 6y ago
    > My mortgage repayments (including interest) are about $700usd/month. Melbourne is not cheap, there must be more to this story. The average house price in Melbourne is $855,428. A $600k unit, 20% deposit, 25y mortgage, cheap 2% rate is $1.4k or USD 1k. + strata fees
    - Mandatum 6y ago
      Yeah, this person lives in a shoebox in the outer suburbs. We pay double that for a 1920s apartment (so very spacious, but cheap) in a suburb walking distance from the CBD, right next to a tram line.
      - 6y ago
formerly_proven 6y ago
Guy spends about 150 % of my net income just on rent.
bluedino 6y ago
That’s a deal, it’s not much higher than it was ten years ago (oddly enough, when it was already insanely high)
- kelnos 6y ago
  Really? I was living in a nice not-rent-controlled ~800sqft 1BR in a decent part of the western addition in 2010, for $1700/mo. $3k might have been common at the high end, but I don't think that was typical.
Bud 6y ago
Only if you don't know how many more jobs there are in SF that pay well enough to afford that than there are in other places.
- chiefalchemist 6y ago
  If salaries don't need to reflect local cost of living, it seems that salaries will be subject to change. Fairly soon?
  - readhn 6y ago
    that's an excellent point!!
  - Bud 6y ago
    You're assuming that salaries are not also impacted by the immense amount of wealth being generated by the Silicon Valley economy, though. And you're also assuming that housing prices will radically change, which I don't think is guaranteed even in the medium-term.
    - chiefalchemist 6y ago
      That's not what this article and others are saying. That is, people are leaving and housing is falling. Also, much of the appeal comes from bars, restaurants, boutiques, and such. Those too are falling off the map. I'm not assuming anything.
davchana 6y ago
I actually re-read the comment to see if he said 3BR. Was disappointed to find that it was 3k for 1BR, absolutely not imaginable in my salary.
- ummonk 6y ago
  Six figure salaries are the norm for software engineers in SF. Hard not to be able to afford a 3k rent as a software engineer.
torgian 6y ago
Damn. That’s a lot of money.

p1mrx 6y ago

But you're just renting... won't the price skyrocket when things go back to normal?

vmception 6y ago
who cares? live your dream for 1 or 2 years and move on, or cross your fingers that new opportunities present itself in the denser environment that let you keep up with the rent. If you don't make new friends that you want to be roommates with for lower individual rent, then you end up moving on anyway.
pjlegato 6y ago
Almost all apartments in SF are rent controlled. The landlord can only raise the rent by some tiny nominal percentage mandated by the rent board every year.
- darkwizard42 6y ago
  This isn't really true... it only applies to units that were built before a certain year (1979). If you are in any kind of modern unit / luxury unit as noted by GP, then this won't hold. However, most landlords in non-managed buildings are fairly reasonable about only raising rent 2-5% a year. Your mileage may vary.
  - bezmenov 6y ago
    That still applies to ~170k rental units, which constitute ~70% of the entire SF rental market. https://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/publications_pdfs/SPUR_8_Ways_to_Make_San_Francisco_More_Affordable.pdf https://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/publications_pdfs/S...
  - hadlock 6y ago
    I think rent control laws recently changed, in the last two years; in SF units older than 2005 now fall under standard rent control rules of ~2% per year or CPI increase, whichever is less. Values of properties built in 2005 recently dropped as a result. A couple years ago, rent controlled units were much older.

Redoubts 6y ago

> Being a single, young(ish) guy, it still makes sense to be in a city. A city, yes. SF? No. By far it's the worst place for this I've ever seen.

baron816 6y ago
> By far it's the worst place for this I've ever seen. San Jose is worse. As was the suburb I just moved from. But, yes, point taken.
jquery 6y ago
There are far worse places than SF. But yeah SF needs better leadership. Our current incognito mayor needs to be thrown out.
ummonk 6y ago
Depends on sexual orientation.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
jonny_eh 6y ago
Beijing would be worse.
Camillo 6y ago
What's a good US city to live in?
- CardenB 6y ago
  For a single guy? New York. DC.
  - Camillo 6y ago
    New York for sure before the pandemic, but now?

mistersquid 6y ago

> I was able to get a large, modern, luxury 1BR in a decent location for under $3K + almost a 1 month concession and no deposit. After being in my 1br in the Tendernob for 10 years ($1675/mo), I upgraded to a larger (similar layout) apt for just over $2K in Nob Hill. I received two-months concession for a 15-month lease. I'm long past wanting to blow $200+ a night on bars and restaurants every day and because I love being in SF, I'm really happy.

gravypod 6y ago

You can rent-to-own a 6br house on a 6k+ sqft lot with a detached garage in NJ with a ~1hr commute to Manhattan for $3,500/month in NJ. $3k/month on an apartment gets you a luxury huge 2 to 3 bedroom with in unit w/d and bowling/swimming in the basement or something in Hoboken with a <25min commute to Manhattan. Thinking 36k/year (more then the total comp of many workers in America) is cheap housing is a Bay-area distortion.

stbtrax 6y ago
who wants that long of a commute? It's all relative and the salaries here more than make up for it. I'm sure someone in the texas exurb would think you're nuts for paying that much in hoboken.
- gravypod 6y ago
  I think it's nuts too. I'd rather work from home and live in the middle of nowhere. 3k/month is a mansion in most parts of the world.
kelnos 6y ago
As someone who grew up in NJ about an hour south of Manhattan, that sounds like a living situation that would make me very unhappy as an adult (don't get me wrong; I had a great childhood). But I have some dear friends who lived in San Jose for several years and then ended up moving back to rural South Jersey, so, clearly, to each their own. Even the 25min commute from Hoboken would make me sad. I want to be able to walk or take local transit to where I want to hang out. > Thinking 36k/year is cheap housing is a Bay-area distortion. I don't think anyone's making that claim?
- jdhn 6y ago
  >I have some dear friends who lived in San Jose for several years and then ended up moving back to rural South Jersey That's a hell of a jump. What about rural South Jersey appealed to them?
  - 6y ago

swiley 6y ago

For comparison: When I was apartment shopping in late February and early march in northern Virginia (limited to walking distance to the office and nice restaurants) One place I looked at was a luxury 1BR at $2k + 1 month concession, I went with a cheaper "studio" in the same building though (the 1BR had carpet and the studio had hardwood floor and wasn't much smaller.)