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I find this interesting as someone who has been talking to real estate agents and property managers for several weeks now, albeit in a likely biased urban area.

I find this interesting as someone who has been talking to real estate agents and property managers for several weeks now, albeit in a likely biased urban area. What I am hearing and seeing is an immense difficulty of leasing agents and private lessors finding tenants (far more move outs and record vacancy), which is leading to a persistent decline in lease rates and increase of ancillary financial benefits (e.g., free parking) … in the urban areas, while the farther away and cheaper less urban areas are seeing a slight uptick. I am also hearing real estate agents describe how people are taking up the opportunity of the low mortgage rates, but also that the distribution seems to be away from cities or urban populations. If you start looking, you will find places like high end apartment complexes with many amenities that are close to public transportation offering deals and discounts with inventory that would have never existed in the past. You will also start noticing that the lease lengths are also clearly formed to align with some kind of forecasting or predictions being made in hopes that the next moving season will normalize thing; well beyond what is normally expected.

jeffbee 6y ago
I'm definitely seeing a lot of anecdotes of people letting leases in eastern SF high rises expire, and moving to other accommodations nearby. I think this is a product of the fact that those SF buildings and those SF neighborhoods were always fundamentally undesirable and those people were only kept in place because they needed access to their jobs and our terrible transportation system was failing them. But these anecdotes involve people moving to Berkeley, not Moab. For the Bay Area specifically there are also tens of thousands of apartments being completed right now, including about 10k in SF and several 1000s in downtown Oakland. This will naturally reduce rents.
- Retric 6y ago
  The Bay Area has consistently increases the amount of commercial space much faster than residential space. This has prevented new development from actually lowering rental prices for decades. Thus looking only at the amount of new apartments on it’s own is a completely meaningless statistic.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    Indeed, but marginal production will still tend to lower prices. The thing is that Bay Area real estate price pressure is supported by the arrival of people from abroad, and this process has come to an abrupt halt. Prices will go down. This does not provide evidence of an accelerating process of people moving to Moab, Utah.
- 0xffff2 6y ago
  As a recent South Bay emigrant, I'm sympathetic to your point of view, but the current listings make it hard for me to completely buy it. Rents for low end 1 bedroom apartments in Mountain View seem to be down about 20% from a year ago. The apartment I left is still vacant a month on despite being listed much lower than what I was paying. I don't think a mere tens of thousands of new units accounts for a drop in rents that seems to be nearly unprecedented in both magnitude and geographic scope.
  - jeffbee 6y ago
    It's not just the new units, it's also that the overseas arrival process has halted while the domestic departure process is ongoing. But this is not evidence of an accelerating migration from large to small cities.

jeffbee 6y ago

I'm definitely seeing a lot of anecdotes of people letting leases in eastern SF high rises expire, and moving to other accommodations nearby. I think this is a product of the fact that those SF buildings and those SF neighborhoods were always fundamentally undesirable and those people were only kept in place because they needed access to their jobs and our terrible transportation system was failing them. But these anecdotes involve people moving to Berkeley, not Moab. For the Bay Area specifically there are also tens of thousands of apartments being completed right now, including about 10k in SF and several 1000s in downtown Oakland. This will naturally reduce rents.

Retric 6y ago
The Bay Area has consistently increases the amount of commercial space much faster than residential space. This has prevented new development from actually lowering rental prices for decades. Thus looking only at the amount of new apartments on it’s own is a completely meaningless statistic.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  Indeed, but marginal production will still tend to lower prices. The thing is that Bay Area real estate price pressure is supported by the arrival of people from abroad, and this process has come to an abrupt halt. Prices will go down. This does not provide evidence of an accelerating process of people moving to Moab, Utah.
0xffff2 6y ago
As a recent South Bay emigrant, I'm sympathetic to your point of view, but the current listings make it hard for me to completely buy it. Rents for low end 1 bedroom apartments in Mountain View seem to be down about 20% from a year ago. The apartment I left is still vacant a month on despite being listed much lower than what I was paying. I don't think a mere tens of thousands of new units accounts for a drop in rents that seems to be nearly unprecedented in both magnitude and geographic scope.
- jeffbee 6y ago
  It's not just the new units, it's also that the overseas arrival process has halted while the domestic departure process is ongoing. But this is not evidence of an accelerating migration from large to small cities.