24 ms·

S.F. population fell 6.3%, most in nation, to lowest level since 2010

326 points by memish 4y ago

blindmute 4y ago
I'm not surprised about this, given anecdata I've heard. I only hope they will vote for different policies than the ones which caused them to leave (they won't)
dontbenebby 4y ago
Makes sense. First summer I rented in the area (around that time), I had to use AirBnB to find something halfway affordable, and I was basically using it more as a trust broker. The unit I paid 1500 a month for, literally a bedroom in a dog dander riddled home with a tiny shared kitchen. I looked, and within 3 years the same place would have been more like 4500/month. (This was walkable to Castro street, but so is a lot in that weather.) Meanwhile, I heard all these tech bros WHINING, literally WHINING. Oh, San Francisco is so cold in temperature, and all this other BULLSHIT. I had grown up somewhere if you wore a rainbow shirt someone would have killed you, full stop. We didn't have beer gardens like tied house. You couldn't even walk anywhere, there were no sidewalks, and the township police would have rolled up on you if you tried. (Meanwhile, one of the richest townships in the country to this day has no bus system as a leftover anarchornism from the era of bussing during MLK's time.) But people talked like El Camino Real and similar stretches of road out in urban Appalachia were interchangable. The last summer I was out there, Elliot Rodger went on a rampage after the university counseling center sent me off to Mozilla with two refills on a bottle of aloprazolam and zero leads on therapy for the summer. (You had to go through the counseling center for it to be covered by the student health plan, and if you met someone who seemed to actually be skilled or empathetic, they'd break it to you they can't "poach clients" even if you wanted to do otherwise, or had misunderstood your benefits, or any other edge case) I ended going back to my college town and venting to my therapist something to the effect that if folks continue down this path of making the world a giant Ikea without the social programs, folks may perceive it's an easier path to a 1BR and a Playstation if they murder an island of children than if they learn to code or whatever. And then I went down to the gun range, and rented a glock 40 and about fifty rounds. (The guy who came with me got a bolt action 223 and quietly sent all his downrange about 200 hundred yards) (Less kick than a 1911, but still a hell of a recoil. You gotta be within about ten feet if you want to actually make use of one without practice) I hope folks understand how utterly degrading it is to have it rammed down your throat since childhood to "respect women", then have a string of them who have more assets that your entire family make a show of letting you buy them lunch off OkCupid when the only reason you signed up is because you felt so strongly that folks should focus on work at work, having known what it's like to abandon an entire field of study because someone got too handsy. (It's not "nice", you South Park loving sociopoaths) Anyways, the time the summer of snowden rolled around, I was DONE WITH IT. I went back to flyover country and told my therapist that I'd read Elliot Rodgers manifesto, and I thought he was a whiny little freak. I told her that despite that I was sincerely worried that folks might melt down like he did, decide to not JUST commit suicide. I tried to show her an essay I got anonymously published about my special education experiences -- she refused to even read it. They had this weird kind of "If you don't like grad school, you can drop out and work at Subway" mentality. (I wrote this a while back, but left the tab open because I got distracted -- Happy Memorial Day weekend, peace out girl scouts.)
MetroWind 4y ago
I mean yes? Why would anybody want to live in SF?
Proven 4y ago
[dead]
gamblor956 4y ago
In the first year of COVID. I can't comment about how SF is faring these days, but LA also cleared out that first year. But this year, people came roaring back. The average rent increase in my neighborhood was over 20%. The competition for rental units in some buildings is intense enough that potential tenants either sign a rental agreement on the spot or lose the unit to someone else willing to sign, and at least one of the apartment buildings on my block has a waitlist. (Also interesting to note that the city of LA was not one of the top cities in terms of population loss per the Census, but several suburban cities in LA County, like Torrance, were on the list.)
- j_walter 4y ago
  I haven't seen any data to support "roaring back". 6-ish months ago they were still saying SF rents were down 20% from March 2020. Any idea how many rentals aren't rentals anymore because of the moratorium impact? I know up here in Portland there was a huge net reduction of rentals and prices spiked pretty hard. For example: https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/ca/san-francisco/ https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/ca/sa... https://therealdeal.com/sanfrancisco/2022/05/02/san-francisco-rentals-make-gains-still-last-market-lagging-behind-pre-pandemic-numbers/ https://therealdeal.com/sanfrancisco/2022/05/02/san-francisc...
  - gamblor956 4y ago
    Like I said, I can't comment on how SF is doing because I don't live there. But I do live in LA, and the apartments in my neighborhood have never been this full before. For point of comparison: at two of the apartment buildings on my block, a 1 BR 540 sq ft studio will rent for about $2800. This is up 16% from pre-COVID rates of approximately $2400 for those same units ($2200 during COVID, which is where the >20% increase comes from). EDIT: At one of those buildings, a 1BR is listed for $3600, which is what a 2BR used to rent for at that same building pre-COVID. I can't say what the 2BR rates are right now because there aren't any listed.
    - j_walter 4y ago
alaricus 4y ago
- thenayr 4y ago
ramesh31 4y ago
- thenayr 4y ago
- jyounker 4y ago
  I'd say it's the opposite. The city has a few bad spots, but overall it's quite nice. The big problem is the lack of housing, which is arguably driven by the way that Prop 13 warps economic incentives.
  - vondur 4y ago
    I wonder how much residential property is still under Prop 13? My guess is that it's declined quite a bit in the last 20 years or so.
    - amscanne 4y ago
      It still applies to all residential property. On sale, the tax rate is set to 1% of the sale price, and increases are limited to 2% per year. This creates the incentive to not sell, even if you have way too much house (e.g. empty nesters) because you may significantly increase your tax burden by downsizing.
    - dilyevsky 4y ago
      You’re probably thinking of rent control? Prop 13 applies to every property including commercial. You can also transfer reduced tax to your heirs or to another property of yours
      - vondur 4y ago
        Some houses that haven't changed hands since Prop 13 was enacted pay really low taxes. New houses and those that have changed hands since then are not under the really low tax rate. Yes, property taxes in California are lower in rates, but in general, the high value of property will still mean large tax property bills.
_fat_santa 4y ago
I think remote work is often understated in reasons people move away. When you go into the office every day, it's pretty obvious that you have to live in whatever city you live in. But with remote work, the question becomes "if I don't have to live here, do I want to keep living here". For many (including myself), the answer was a definitive NO. Sure many headlines and news segments make it seem that it's the crime, the high rent, and all these super visible indicators and while I'm sure that factored into the decisions of some, for many it was that they just wanted a change and got the golden opportunity to do so. EDIT: It's not even that one may even "want a change", it's when you're presented with the opportunity to make a change, the gears in your head start turning as to what options you have at your disposal. I would imagine many people that moved had previously no intention to but just got the opportunity and decided to take it while it lasted.
- anothernewdude 4y ago
  This is exactly why I left to a smaller town. Once I was fully remote, there was nothing keeping me from seeking out better prices for housing, better schooling for my children, and better streets to walk down.
- anm89 4y ago
  I agree but I think this also understates the importance of just how messed up SF has become. I don't want to come into contact with human feces as part of my daily commute. I'm going to leave no matter what once that is the case. Especially when the equity in my two bedroom apartement is enough to buy the nicest house ever built in some other smaller city.
  - Mumps 4y ago
    If people keep leaving, will that equity materialise as you hope?
    - anm89 4y ago
      Right, which is why you get out while things are still liquid
somethoughts 4y ago
I think in the two scenarios you can focus on either the positives or the negatives. When population goes up: positive - the area is vibrant economically; negative - rent is spiraling upwards out of control When population goes down: positive - rent is finally affordable; negative - the area is falling apart existentially I think the media in general has found the negative spin sells better.
- mr90210 4y ago
  As a non-US citizen, sometimes I ask myself how did California end up like the country where I am from, which is located in the so called third world.
  - deleted 4y ago
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  - Jackpillar 4y ago
  - compiler-guy 4y ago
    The short version is that it isn't. You just hear about the worst parts. There are still plenty of fully functional cities and towns and the crime rate is still quite low by historical standards. Definitely has its problems, but the availability heuristic makes things seem worse than they are.
    - TameAntelope 4y ago
      Yeah, this is definitely a real problem. I live in semi-rural America, and I have literally never in my life even seen a gun fire before. I used to live in DC, for six years, and I was never robbed, accosted, or even made to feel unsafe, and I had on multiple occasions walked miles home from a bar after closing. It was a downright pleasant way to get home if I didn’t need to be up the next morning. America the country is basically nothing like America shown on TV. It’s just too big and complex to explain in a soundbyte.
999900000999 4y ago
With even hybrid work models your living a better life living up in Sac and driving down once a week. This is a good thing. People should vote with their feet.
- jeromegv 4y ago
  Problem is when hybrid becomes 2, and then 3 days. That commutes starts becoming a nightmare.
  - wfhordie 4y ago
    That’s when you buck up and let your boss know you mean business. Sorry to be crass, but fuck this hybrid bullshit. Commutes are a massive waste of time and doing it even once a week is unacceptable. I’ll quit before hybrid. It’s a great market to change jobs.
  - xvedejas 4y ago
    The capitol corridor train is pleasant enough, even if not the most convenient of bay area transit options.
    - thebean11 4y ago
      Isn't that like 2 hours each way..? That's like a quarter of your day, no thanks.
      - xvedejas 4y ago
        Yes, 2 hours from Sac. Quite rough to do every day, but I'd think pleasant to do twice a week; there's WiFi and a café on board, for what it's worth. That said, if you just want cheaper housing, Fairfield is only an hour away in the same direction, so there are plenty of intermediate options.
        ghaff 4y ago
        I had a 90 minute+ door to door commute (which I could do mostly by train) for about 18 months. I only had to do it about half the time and it was manageable but probably not sustainable long-term, especially for stretches when I was regularly going in more frequently. Once a week would be pretty doable; I go in for the day periodically but nothing like once a week.
darth_avocado 4y ago
Ridiculous rent for houses/apartments in a very bad shape, rising crime and eroding faith in the justice system (you could argue that the data doesn’t support this, but the reality is that the data doesn’t support this because a lot of crimes these days go unreported), school district going to shit, bad city governance (which trickles into bad transportation, more homelessness, filth in the streets, businesses closing or not enough new ones opening, ever increasing taxes etc.) and overall high taxes which you question when you don’t get proportional services.
- deleted 4y ago
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- gsibble 4y ago
  Pretty much all the reasons I left in 2018 after 10 years. Expensive, filthy, and dangerous. I live in Boston now and my quality of life has soared. Make just as much too.
systemvoltage 4y ago
I went to SF over last weekend and thought of stopping by Walgreens (Pharmacy) to pick up eye drops. I had to call the associate to unlock the cabinet doors to pick them up. Took 5-10 mins to just get hold of someone with a key ring the size of a coconut. Every cabinet was locked from toothpaste to tampons. This is at the Walgreens near Union Square which is still better than other areas. People are leaving because of the decline. I wish San Franciscans would stop defending themselves and admit that things are actually worse and whatever politics they're advocating hasn't worked. This extends more generally to California (and other west coast states). I voted for Shellenberger for Governor of CA. Felt right.
- deleted 4y ago
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- floren 4y ago
  > I voted for Shellenberger for Governor of CA. Felt right. Same, but note that this was only the primary... it's entirely possible we'll end up with Newsom and some other random Democrat on the actual ballot.
  - systemvoltage 4y ago
    Unfortunately, yes. People have stopped voting based on rationale and policy, but instead based on team colors. For those who don't know Shellenberger, he is your classic liberal running as an independent. Pro nuclear alone gets a vote from me. But there are so many things he talks about that are just common sense in majority of large cities around the world. If you're fed up with CA, please look him up.
    - floren 4y ago
      But surely if we just vote in the same people for another 30 years or so, they'll get around to solving these problems!
    - rc_mob 4y ago
      The only voting choices you have in America are Republican and not Republican. The non Republican party is a disorganized mess. Its the world we live in.
birken 4y ago
One thing to note is that the 2021 population is an estimate, and if you are a Census buff as I am, and compare the Census' 2019 estimates to the 2020 actual populations (as calculated from the census), there are often very large differences. The article also says that CA's estimate of the population decline is much smaller, and arguably CA itself would have more accurate data for this particular metric (residency and voter rolls). So while I'm sure the gist of the argument is true, there is probably a larger margin of error on the calculation than you'd think at first glance. I'm not quite going to say the article is sensationalist, but if you look at the totality of the data (house prices, rental prices, CA's population estimates, etc), I'm not sure the "SF is in freefall" narrative holds up.
- ttymck 4y ago
  I appreciate the point you are making, so I ask this genuinely: how confident are we in the census count? How confident are we usually, and how did that change given the hurdles the pandemic introduced?
  - jeffbee 4y ago
    Both the decennial census and the census ACS are estimates. All population counts are estimates.
    - geoalchimista 4y ago
      All statistical inferences are estimates, and carry standard errors with them. What is your point?
      - naniwaduni 4y ago
        All measurements are estimates, but sometimes the errors look like "we have a machine that spits out 4 all the time" and other times they look like "I saw two people, but I can't rule out the possibility that I spontaneously hallucinated them."
librish 4y ago
SF is probably hit the hardest by WFH. If you lived and worked in the city you probably had a pretty good commute, so you're not getting the biggest benefit. And while I know it's a less common preference on HN, a lot of people enjoy going in to a lively office and occasionally grabbing drinks with your coworkers after work. It's a great way to make new friends. But with WFH there's a prisoners dilemma where no-one goes in because no-one goes in. Hard to justify living in one of the most expensive cities in the world at that point. As a side note, I've been reading a lot of comments like the one below describing SF as a "nightmarish hellscape" and I just want to caution people to not read into things too much. I've spent a lot of time in both SF and Seattle, and while there's specific streets you want to avoid, and you can (rarely) run into weird or disturbed people in other areas (like most major cities) overall they're lovely places if you can afford them.
- acchow 4y ago
  On the other hand, SF has a significant tech population that has been living in the city but taking shuttle buses for an hour to their offices down south. I imagine flexible WFH for 2-3 days/wk will enable a larger number of people in the future to live in SF
  - iancmceachern 4y ago
    I'm in this boat and this is true. A hybrid wfh and partial in the office option really opens up options living in this area, it makes it much more doable.
    - acchow 4y ago
      I think flexible WFH will also be a boost to Apple, which traditionally was unable to hire some people who loved city life and refused to commute.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  It's the people paying $3000 for a bunk bed who bailed on the city.
jmyeet 4y ago
SF is expensive and horrible. The only reason people in tech live there is because of employers in the area and it beats living elsewhere in the Bay Area which is expensive and dull. There's really no other reason people would put up with an hour (or more) commute each way every day.
- newbie2020 4y ago
  Yep, the Bay Area somehow got lucky with the nexus of high tech being here. Without these jobs, this area wouldn’t have a whole lot to offer
- deleted 4y ago
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hyperpl 4y ago
Anyone know stats on NYC? I'm having trouble understanding the current true state wrt to apartment rental pricing: many people left during Covid but I'm not quite sure if many of those in fact returned. Furthermore, it would seem as though rental inventory is quite low or at least demand is through the roof (typically one needs to be ready to sign on the spot) with little to no room to shop-around. Prices are also quite high, I understand we have been in a recent high inflation regime but I just can't help but think the apartment rental market isn't as transparent as it was say, 3+ years ago.
- pcurve 4y ago
  price is above pre pandemic
- ipnon 4y ago
  There are many incentives in NYC that prevent rents from dropping. What we saw during the pandemic was static rent prices with increased benefits that lowered the actual price, for example last month is free so in effect rent has been lowered by 1/12 while still being listed as 12/12. Landlords do this for a variety of completely [redacted] reasons, including price controls, taxes, vacancy regulations, credit for "improvements", advertising histories. Rents do not fall in NYC, they merely stop rising for a time.
  - eezurr 4y ago
    The main reason they do it, IIRC, is because the banks handing out the landlords loans require some minimum rent prices on the leases in the loan contracts. The way they get around this is by offering a month or three of free rent. That way the leases signed by the tenants still me the contractual obligations of the bank. In the end the tenant still gets screwed when the lease comes up to be renewed, unless they are willing to move out over negotiating another free month in the next cycle.
  - mancerayder 4y ago
    There was a big price spike in late 2021 to the present for rents. There was an amazing opportunity in early 2021 for a super negotiation position. Unfortunately the people came back all at the same time, seemingly. The state is booming with low vacancy, that's the present state
dijonman2 4y ago
- gsibble 4y ago
  Agreed. I left in 2018 and am much happier now to not have to play the game "Is that water or urine?" when I see a puddle on the street. Trick question.....it's always urine.
- deleted 4y ago
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RosanaAnaDana 4y ago
Could this be a potential source of a housing bubble collapse?
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Given that work from office is the primary reason SF became so expensive in the first place, yes. How can SF home prices be justified vs SD or LA in a remote work world?
  - ghaff 4y ago
    >How can SF home prices be justified vs SD or LA in a remote work world? I don't live in SF or even in a city but, in the abstract, I'd pick SF from that triplet. LA is complete sprawl and a little bit of SoCal beaches goes a long way for me. And San Diego is nice enough but sort of soulless. I like the SF climate even when summer is the coldest winter you ever spent--and there are great recreational options and scenery.
    - adam_arthur 4y ago
      It's not really about preferring SF, but preferring it at twice the home price (or whatever the actual gap is). It's hard to justify that if not forced to live there for work
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
- dopeboy 4y ago
  Negative - this is a geography that will remain unaffected by housing downturns. Too much money on the sidelines for it to collapse.
draw_down 4y ago
cheeseblubber 4y ago
If you compare rent trends of SF vs NYC or LA https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-francisco-ca https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-francisco-ca https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/new-york-ny https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/new-york-ny https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/los-angeles-ca https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/los-angeles-ca You'll notice a huge difference between in SF and the other cities. Rent prices still hasn't gone back to pre pandemic level.
- yodsanklai 4y ago
  The prices in NYC are just insane!
  - sethhochberg 4y ago
    Much like many cities - NYC included - are seeing people leave because they are no longer tied to wherever they had been with remote work, we're also seeing many people moving here specifically because they can work remotely from NYC. Available rental inventory is almost nonexistent right now, vacancy rates are at the floor. Much of our new development is exactly the kind of new amenity building that folks in the high-earning tech remote worker crowd often seek, but its still not managing to keep pace with demand. There's a shortage of inventory for virtually everyone except the billionaire class (not that they occupy much of the market in absolute terms). I've been in NYC about a decade an even in pre-pandemic years that most folks agree were much more stereotypically booming and I can't ever remember a housing market that was so frothy.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    Apparently 3 beds are cheaper than 1 in new york. 3,695 vs 3,600.
    - mancerayder 4y ago
      That's probably a factor tied to area - dense Manhattan is more luxurious and expensive than Bensonhurst, where a three bedroom is more common and a fraction of the cost. A more meaningful metric would be, by borough, market rate housing. Then Manhattan three bedrooms will be 6,000 and not 3,600. They can easily reach 9 in a doorman building downtown.
shadowgovt 4y ago
Price people out of living somewhere and the market will eventually react.
throwaway0a5e 4y ago
The most regrettable thing is that it's those who bear the most responsibility for the city being less desirable (in a multitude of unrelated but compounding ways) are the ones with the most ability to just move elsewhere. I wish these people had to sleep in the bed they made.
- anonygler 4y ago
  The idea that people who simply decide to live somewhere are guilty of some moral failing is preposterous. Hold your elected leaders accountable for not doing their job.
- khazhoux 4y ago
  Your comment could be read as a slam on rich techies, or the homeless, or even a specific race or ethnicity. Amazingly ambiguous! :-)
peanut_worm 4y ago
San Francisco is the dirtiest city I have ever seen. It doesn’t seem like a great place to spend 1 million dollars on a house unless you work there.
- mancerayder 4y ago
  I thought NYC was the dirtiest place I've ever seen, sounds like there's competition!
  - asdff 4y ago
    Neither are as dirty as New Orleans. There's trash, there's excrement, then there is rotting catfish and shellfish on top of the trash and excrement and it just sits stewing in stagnant, humid, swampy and hot air.
    - the_only_law 4y ago
      I was actually going to go there last year for a show, until nature decided to try and destroy it again (though I hear the hurricane wasn’t too bad)
      - selimthegrim 4y ago
        The few weeks afterwards when the trash wasn’t getting picked up made me hightail it to Mobile for the duration.
    - selimthegrim 4y ago
      I live in the Lower Ninth Ward and based on what I saw of SF last fall I’d still give that award to SF (unless comparing the few weeks after Ida)
- twiceaday 4y ago
  1 million dollars might get you a two-bedroom condo. Median house price is 1.6 million https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/ https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/
oneoff786 4y ago
Is there a lot of empty housing then?
cpncrunch 4y ago
https://archive.ph/BWJzQ https://archive.ph/BWJzQ
eins1234 4y ago
As someone who still enjoys SF and wants to keep living here, I read this as great news since I expected rents to decrease by a similar amount. But I just checked my apartment's website and it seems like if anything the rents have slightly increased compared to the price I renewed at last year!? Obviously this is a sample size of 1 and doesn't reflect the overall market. Curious if anyone else has real data on rent price trends. Is it just my apartment or is this a case of the market staying irrational for longer than I'd have hoped? EDIT: data was provided in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31533492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31533492
- truthwhisperer 4y ago
- some-guy 4y ago
  I'm in Oakland and I'm not in SF all the time, but it does feel like Market St. / the Financial District is the most affected post-pandemic, but the rest of the city feels like it's as popular as ever. Lots of SF residents I know in tech are working from home but are still living and enjoying the city.
outside1234 4y ago
It will be interesting to see how much of this is Bay Area spread. We've had a huge number of people move to Santa Cruz, for example, so I've wondered how much of this might be the Bay Area getting broader instead of smaller.
- mwattsun 4y ago
  The increase in rental prices in Santa Cruz reflect that. It's good for my family since we've been there 90 years but I'm currently in San Jose because I can get a nicer place for the same amount. It's not bad because I throw my electric bike on the bus that runs over the hill every hour when I want to go visit.
JaceLightning 4y ago
Keep going. Needs to drop another 50% or so.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
sethbannon 4y ago
Those that have "made it" are moving out of SF and the young and hungry are moving in. SF has seen a wave of Gen Z inbound recently. I'll take that trade anytime. "the number of rental applications by people who fall into Gen Z (defined as those born between 1997 and 2012) have increased by 21% in the past year. Meanwhile, as we just discussed, rental applications from every single other generation have been lessening. Millennials, for instance, saw an 8% decrease in rental activity... Between 2020 and 2021, people who fall into Generation Z were filling out 21% more leases nationwide, as compared with the year before. When that search is narrowed to San Francisco, Rentcafé says those 20-somethings had a 101% increase in rental applications. They now make up more than a fifth of all people looking to lease in SF." https://sfist.com/2022/03/22/san-francisco-is-getting-younger-gen-z-flocking-to-the-bay/ https://sfist.com/2022/03/22/san-francisco-is-getting-younge...
- antiverse 4y ago
  Majestic take. More than likely, the ones that "made it" are staying where they are, having bought whatever property they've been able to and are now renting it out to the Gen Z'ers to pay it off. The older generation, wisely, realizes there's no future there and have ended their rental terms to go elsewhere where they can actually afford to buy something, not having gained any real estate ownership of their own. Calling Gen Z'es "hungry" in this instance is, God bless their hearts, insulting to common sense and rationality of things at play here.
  - jethro_tell 4y ago
    I think there's a middle ground. I'm sure gen Z is hungry. Good chunks of every generation are, on the other hand, counting rental applications is a little odd. There's a good chunk of millennials that are settled. They aren't moving in or out. an 8% drop for a generation that is about to turn 40 during a 2.5% interest rates seems a lot like a few people collected the cash to buy the homes and aren't renting any longer. But we'll never know because this is a single stat in a whole sea of stats regarding housing by generation. *edit, I mean, we could know, we could go out there and find meaningful data to get a full picture of what's going on but I don't really care that much. Just saying that looking at one stat and crafting a wonderful narrative is pointless.
webwielder2 4y ago
Serious question: what's another place in the US with mild year-round weather, walkable neighborhoods (haven't driven a car in 12 years), and easy access to an international airport? That's what SF offers me. The "SF is an unlivable hellhole" drumbeat is so loud that I almost feel compelled to move (my own experience be damned), but I'm not sure where to.
- dopeboy 4y ago
  As someone who lives there and is taking a very hard look at other towns, the answer is none. Some small parts of LA come close.
- presentation 4y ago
  Too bad the USA has practically no livable cities.
- AnimalMuppet 4y ago
  Don't feel compelled to move. If you don't know why you want out of SF, don't leave. Everybody who is saying how horrible it is aren't going to live your life for you. Don't try to live theirs.
- vincentmarle 4y ago
  Have you ever been to Santa Monica or San Diego?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- twayt 4y ago
  > what's another place in the US with mild year-round weather, walkable neighborhoods (haven't driven a car in 12 years), and easy access to an international airport? If you consider SF (the city) weather mild, there are a ton of cities in the US that match what you're looking for. They just don't have the tech orientation and cachet that you associate with living in SF.
- rr808 4y ago
  Agreed, California is pretty special. I think its easy to get hung up on "mild year-round weather", it actually gets boring and I prefer 4 proper seasons. I enjoy some snow and some hot summers which means most of the country is available.
aantix 4y ago
Especially with the advent of Starlink, you can literally work anywhere and still have reliable enough Internet to make a six figure income.
diogenescynic 4y ago
San Francisco has become a really hostile place to live even if you make $300,000+. My wife and I lived in Glen Park and it was still a shit hole. We had a meth head constantly breaking in and living in the parking garage of our building. Cops and landlord didn't care. I regularly saw people shooting heroin and smoking meth/crack on BART during rush hour. I was sick of seeing needles on the street and smelling urine. As soon as the pandemic happened we got the heck out of the Bay Area and relocated somewhere cheaper and nicer. I am sure there are many others doing the same thing. I cannot imagine trying to raise a kid in SF.
- ransom1538 4y ago
  I with you here. Our neighbor had her apartment violently ransacked while she was at work. This is bad. What makes it evil, they waited for her to return - sitting in the apartment waiting for her to walk in. After the detective interview I had, i realized, I don't want to raise family here anymore. The detective agreed.
  - diogenescynic 4y ago
    I didn't even go into the worst of it! I had a bullet come through one of my walls, clearly shot from the walking trail near my building. Cops came out and literally laughed about it and threw the bullet casing into a sandwich bag. Landlord threw some spackling paste over the hole. We literally started packing up the next week. To this day, over 2 years later no one from SFPD has ever contacted me or followed up on the bullet. SFPD is a disgrace. The city is not safe for people. You're just once chance encounter away from something horrible happening to you and when it does, no one will take it seriously or do anything about it.
- deleted 4y ago
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- thatfrenchguy 4y ago
  I'm really curious where you live in Glen Park for this to happen. I've never seen crime there. There's no needles anywhere, and kids everywhere.
seaourfreed 4y ago
People vote if SF has a good or bad government, by voting with their feet. Cities across the nation can have people leave due to remote work. This isn't remote work. This is a vote on if SF's government is great or bad.
- jdavis703 4y ago
  Rents are up 15% YoY, which is probably a leading sign that demand is back. I know some folks might blame higher rents on greedy landlords… But it’s quite clear that at work this year’s class of new grad hires is moving to the Bay Area. What I think we saw is people left SF because there’s no point in doing remote work from a cramped, expensive apartment. So yes, it was a vote on governance. But for all SF’s problems it’s more nuanced than “people are fleeing a sh*t-hole city.” (And even funnier, I live in Oakland. There was a noticeable surge in people parking bikes with Caltrain tags in the bike room. I’m back to being the only bike with a Caltrain tag now.)
  - mistymountains 4y ago
    Yes. I moved to the east bay but despite the sunshine I think I’ll be going back to SF later this year.
m0llusk 4y ago
This is mostly an artifact. SF proper is a very small area in a metro area having around 8.5 million people. If you look carefully at a similar size urban core in other metro areas then you will see similar results.
trimbo 4y ago
So many houses in my SF neighborhood are currently empty. They're single family homes so I'm not sure of the impact on the overall population, but it's been weird around here. - For sale and empty. - Full renovations. Guessing more than half are flipping them, given the speed which construction started after sale. - Investors buying homes and keeping them empty.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  What is happening is a weird confluence of events that no-one actually cares to analyze because SF is the world's most politically charged city to speak about, so people just state their biases vs. actually thinking. The trends as I see them are: 1) An increasing number of increasingly wealthy people with connections to SF that choose to domicile elsewhere while keeping a home in the city that is used a few months a year (to your point of empty homes being kept empty). 2) The temporary shut-off of a massive pipeline of recent college grads who fill the offices of not only start-ups, but also accounting firms, consulting firms, banks, etc. 3) A reduction in appetite for '3 guys in a 2 bedroom where someone sleeps in the dining room' and an increase in appetite for '1 guy in a 2 bedroom/home office set up,' which supports price growth but not population growth. 4) The fact that for the past century, SF has been a city that grows beyond its means and then crashes, only to pick back up again on the next cycle (SF only surpassed its peak 1950 population in 1990) There are certainly more that I miss, but from a street-level perspective, SF isn't in noticeably worse shape than it was in 2000. Question is "Is post-pandemic lifestyle change similar to the car (which caused that 40 year lull) or is it more temporary?"
- wombat-man 4y ago
  Some people renovate before moving in. Might as well customize it before the big move if you can afford it.
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- diogenescynic 4y ago
  On the 400 block of Arlington street, there are several large Victorian homes that have been empty for several years. There needs to be a tax on empty homes and a tax on people owning second homes that are empty.
karmasimida 4y ago
Interestingly the inflation in SF, and Bay in general is less than national average, and much less than hot areas like Miami. I guess soon it will balance off
rattray 4y ago
According to the article, Manhattan lost 6.6% (that is, even more) in the same timeframe. Manhattan is a much closer comparable to SF than all of NYC, the lines just happen to be drawn differently.
joemazerino 4y ago
Rampant and near-encouraged crime forced the hands of my SF friends to move. Some pass it off as a standard of living situation but they all moved to low crime Red states..
- vonwoodson 4y ago
  https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-red-state-murder-problem https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-red-state-murder-problem Takeaways: + The rate of murders in the US has gone up at an alarming rate. But, despite a media narrative to the contrary, this is a problem that afflicts Republican-run cities and states as much or more than the Democratic bastions. +In 2020, per capita murder rates were 40% higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden. + 8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates in 2020 voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election this century.
  - joemazerino 4y ago
    I always enjoy a good leftist source posted to discredit experiences felt by my friends in real-life. "Here are some facts from this website Joe so stop complaining." Meanwhile in reality outside of the internet my friends have been mugged, harassed and assaulted for walking SF streets that were once the safest. The problem with these types of sources is they are collected by journalists who do not back check their own work. They are trying to make a political point. Crime statistics are based on reporting which is higher in Red states. Murder areas like Chicago have thousands of incidences of crime that go unreported.
- deleted 4y ago
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- tootie 4y ago
  SF and NYC both saw precipitous drops in crime over the past 30 years that lead to a major influx of new residents. The pandemic has seen a moderate backslide and all the transplants are flipping out. It's amazing how expectations can change. I've lived in NYC for 25 years. The homicide rate is about a quarter of what it was when I moved here, yet everyone seems to be declaring this the apocalypse that will end the city.
northerdome 4y ago
For SF specific data on housing and zoning I highly highly recommend http://socketsite.com http://socketsite.com. Such a thorough and great resource! I only wish more cities had something like it!
hiyer 4y ago
I know a few folks who moved to States like Colorado, Delaware, etc from Bay Area once their employers officially went fully remote. They all said Bay Area was unaffordable for them. These are mid-to-senior level tech guys, though not in FAANG companies.

326 points by memish 4y ago

I'm not surprised about this, given anecdata I've heard. I only hope they will vote for different policies than the ones which caused them to leave (they won't)

dontbenebby 4y ago

Makes sense. First summer I rented in the area (around that time), I had to use AirBnB to find something halfway affordable, and I was basically using it more as a trust broker. The unit I paid 1500 a month for, literally a bedroom in a dog dander riddled home with a tiny shared kitchen. I looked, and within 3 years the same place would have been more like 4500/month. (This was walkable to Castro street, but so is a lot in that weather.) Meanwhile, I heard all these tech bros WHINING, literally WHINING. Oh, San Francisco is so cold in temperature, and all this other BULLSHIT. I had grown up somewhere if you wore a rainbow shirt someone would have killed you, full stop. We didn't have beer gardens like tied house. You couldn't even walk anywhere, there were no sidewalks, and the township police would have rolled up on you if you tried. (Meanwhile, one of the richest townships in the country to this day has no bus system as a leftover anarchornism from the era of bussing during MLK's time.) But people talked like El Camino Real and similar stretches of road out in urban Appalachia were interchangable. The last summer I was out there, Elliot Rodger went on a rampage after the university counseling center sent me off to Mozilla with two refills on a bottle of aloprazolam and zero leads on therapy for the summer. (You had to go through the counseling center for it to be covered by the student health plan, and if you met someone who seemed to actually be skilled or empathetic, they'd break it to you they can't "poach clients" even if you wanted to do otherwise, or had misunderstood your benefits, or any other edge case) I ended going back to my college town and venting to my therapist something to the effect that if folks continue down this path of making the world a giant Ikea without the social programs, folks may perceive it's an easier path to a 1BR and a Playstation if they murder an island of children than if they learn to code or whatever. And then I went down to the gun range, and rented a glock 40 and about fifty rounds. (The guy who came with me got a bolt action 223 and quietly sent all his downrange about 200 hundred yards) (Less kick than a 1911, but still a hell of a recoil. You gotta be within about ten feet if you want to actually make use of one without practice) I hope folks understand how utterly degrading it is to have it rammed down your throat since childhood to "respect women", then have a string of them who have more assets that your entire family make a show of letting you buy them lunch off OkCupid when the only reason you signed up is because you felt so strongly that folks should focus on work at work, having known what it's like to abandon an entire field of study because someone got too handsy. (It's not "nice", you South Park loving sociopoaths) Anyways, the time the summer of snowden rolled around, I was DONE WITH IT. I went back to flyover country and told my therapist that I'd read Elliot Rodgers manifesto, and I thought he was a whiny little freak. I told her that despite that I was sincerely worried that folks might melt down like he did, decide to not JUST commit suicide. I tried to show her an essay I got anonymously published about my special education experiences -- she refused to even read it. They had this weird kind of "If you don't like grad school, you can drop out and work at Subway" mentality. (I wrote this a while back, but left the tab open because I got distracted -- Happy Memorial Day weekend, peace out girl scouts.)

MetroWind 4y ago

I mean yes? Why would anybody want to live in SF?

Proven 4y ago

[dead]

gamblor956 4y ago

In the first year of COVID. I can't comment about how SF is faring these days, but LA also cleared out that first year. But this year, people came roaring back. The average rent increase in my neighborhood was over 20%. The competition for rental units in some buildings is intense enough that potential tenants either sign a rental agreement on the spot or lose the unit to someone else willing to sign, and at least one of the apartment buildings on my block has a waitlist. (Also interesting to note that the city of LA was not one of the top cities in terms of population loss per the Census, but several suburban cities in LA County, like Torrance, were on the list.)

j_walter 4y ago
I haven't seen any data to support "roaring back". 6-ish months ago they were still saying SF rents were down 20% from March 2020. Any idea how many rentals aren't rentals anymore because of the moratorium impact? I know up here in Portland there was a huge net reduction of rentals and prices spiked pretty hard. For example: https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/ca/san-francisco/ https://www.rentcafe.com/average-rent-market-trends/us/ca/sa... https://therealdeal.com/sanfrancisco/2022/05/02/san-francisco-rentals-make-gains-still-last-market-lagging-behind-pre-pandemic-numbers/ https://therealdeal.com/sanfrancisco/2022/05/02/san-francisc...
- gamblor956 4y ago
  Like I said, I can't comment on how SF is doing because I don't live there. But I do live in LA, and the apartments in my neighborhood have never been this full before. For point of comparison: at two of the apartment buildings on my block, a 1 BR 540 sq ft studio will rent for about $2800. This is up 16% from pre-COVID rates of approximately $2400 for those same units ($2200 during COVID, which is where the >20% increase comes from). EDIT: At one of those buildings, a 1BR is listed for $3600, which is what a 2BR used to rent for at that same building pre-COVID. I can't say what the 2BR rates are right now because there aren't any listed.
  - j_walter 4y ago

alaricus 4y ago

thenayr 4y ago

ramesh31 4y ago

thenayr 4y ago
jyounker 4y ago
I'd say it's the opposite. The city has a few bad spots, but overall it's quite nice. The big problem is the lack of housing, which is arguably driven by the way that Prop 13 warps economic incentives.
- vondur 4y ago
  I wonder how much residential property is still under Prop 13? My guess is that it's declined quite a bit in the last 20 years or so.
  - amscanne 4y ago
    It still applies to all residential property. On sale, the tax rate is set to 1% of the sale price, and increases are limited to 2% per year. This creates the incentive to not sell, even if you have way too much house (e.g. empty nesters) because you may significantly increase your tax burden by downsizing.
  - dilyevsky 4y ago
    You’re probably thinking of rent control? Prop 13 applies to every property including commercial. You can also transfer reduced tax to your heirs or to another property of yours
    - vondur 4y ago
      Some houses that haven't changed hands since Prop 13 was enacted pay really low taxes. New houses and those that have changed hands since then are not under the really low tax rate. Yes, property taxes in California are lower in rates, but in general, the high value of property will still mean large tax property bills.

_fat_santa 4y ago

I think remote work is often understated in reasons people move away. When you go into the office every day, it's pretty obvious that you have to live in whatever city you live in. But with remote work, the question becomes "if I don't have to live here, do I want to keep living here". For many (including myself), the answer was a definitive NO. Sure many headlines and news segments make it seem that it's the crime, the high rent, and all these super visible indicators and while I'm sure that factored into the decisions of some, for many it was that they just wanted a change and got the golden opportunity to do so. EDIT: It's not even that one may even "want a change", it's when you're presented with the opportunity to make a change, the gears in your head start turning as to what options you have at your disposal. I would imagine many people that moved had previously no intention to but just got the opportunity and decided to take it while it lasted.

anothernewdude 4y ago
This is exactly why I left to a smaller town. Once I was fully remote, there was nothing keeping me from seeking out better prices for housing, better schooling for my children, and better streets to walk down.
anm89 4y ago
I agree but I think this also understates the importance of just how messed up SF has become. I don't want to come into contact with human feces as part of my daily commute. I'm going to leave no matter what once that is the case. Especially when the equity in my two bedroom apartement is enough to buy the nicest house ever built in some other smaller city.
- Mumps 4y ago
  If people keep leaving, will that equity materialise as you hope?
  - anm89 4y ago
    Right, which is why you get out while things are still liquid

somethoughts 4y ago

I think in the two scenarios you can focus on either the positives or the negatives. When population goes up: positive - the area is vibrant economically; negative - rent is spiraling upwards out of control When population goes down: positive - rent is finally affordable; negative - the area is falling apart existentially I think the media in general has found the negative spin sells better.

mr90210 4y ago
As a non-US citizen, sometimes I ask myself how did California end up like the country where I am from, which is located in the so called third world.
- deleted 4y ago
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- Jackpillar 4y ago
- compiler-guy 4y ago
  The short version is that it isn't. You just hear about the worst parts. There are still plenty of fully functional cities and towns and the crime rate is still quite low by historical standards. Definitely has its problems, but the availability heuristic makes things seem worse than they are.
  - TameAntelope 4y ago
    Yeah, this is definitely a real problem. I live in semi-rural America, and I have literally never in my life even seen a gun fire before. I used to live in DC, for six years, and I was never robbed, accosted, or even made to feel unsafe, and I had on multiple occasions walked miles home from a bar after closing. It was a downright pleasant way to get home if I didn’t need to be up the next morning. America the country is basically nothing like America shown on TV. It’s just too big and complex to explain in a soundbyte.

999900000999 4y ago

With even hybrid work models your living a better life living up in Sac and driving down once a week. This is a good thing. People should vote with their feet.

jeromegv 4y ago
Problem is when hybrid becomes 2, and then 3 days. That commutes starts becoming a nightmare.
- wfhordie 4y ago
  That’s when you buck up and let your boss know you mean business. Sorry to be crass, but fuck this hybrid bullshit. Commutes are a massive waste of time and doing it even once a week is unacceptable. I’ll quit before hybrid. It’s a great market to change jobs.
- xvedejas 4y ago
  The capitol corridor train is pleasant enough, even if not the most convenient of bay area transit options.
  - thebean11 4y ago
    Isn't that like 2 hours each way..? That's like a quarter of your day, no thanks.
    - xvedejas 4y ago
      Yes, 2 hours from Sac. Quite rough to do every day, but I'd think pleasant to do twice a week; there's WiFi and a café on board, for what it's worth. That said, if you just want cheaper housing, Fairfield is only an hour away in the same direction, so there are plenty of intermediate options.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        I had a 90 minute+ door to door commute (which I could do mostly by train) for about 18 months. I only had to do it about half the time and it was manageable but probably not sustainable long-term, especially for stretches when I was regularly going in more frequently. Once a week would be pretty doable; I go in for the day periodically but nothing like once a week.

darth_avocado 4y ago

Ridiculous rent for houses/apartments in a very bad shape, rising crime and eroding faith in the justice system (you could argue that the data doesn’t support this, but the reality is that the data doesn’t support this because a lot of crimes these days go unreported), school district going to shit, bad city governance (which trickles into bad transportation, more homelessness, filth in the streets, businesses closing or not enough new ones opening, ever increasing taxes etc.) and overall high taxes which you question when you don’t get proportional services.

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gsibble 4y ago
Pretty much all the reasons I left in 2018 after 10 years. Expensive, filthy, and dangerous. I live in Boston now and my quality of life has soared. Make just as much too.

systemvoltage 4y ago

I went to SF over last weekend and thought of stopping by Walgreens (Pharmacy) to pick up eye drops. I had to call the associate to unlock the cabinet doors to pick them up. Took 5-10 mins to just get hold of someone with a key ring the size of a coconut. Every cabinet was locked from toothpaste to tampons. This is at the Walgreens near Union Square which is still better than other areas. People are leaving because of the decline. I wish San Franciscans would stop defending themselves and admit that things are actually worse and whatever politics they're advocating hasn't worked. This extends more generally to California (and other west coast states). I voted for Shellenberger for Governor of CA. Felt right.

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floren 4y ago
> I voted for Shellenberger for Governor of CA. Felt right. Same, but note that this was only the primary... it's entirely possible we'll end up with Newsom and some other random Democrat on the actual ballot.
- systemvoltage 4y ago
  Unfortunately, yes. People have stopped voting based on rationale and policy, but instead based on team colors. For those who don't know Shellenberger, he is your classic liberal running as an independent. Pro nuclear alone gets a vote from me. But there are so many things he talks about that are just common sense in majority of large cities around the world. If you're fed up with CA, please look him up.
  - floren 4y ago
    But surely if we just vote in the same people for another 30 years or so, they'll get around to solving these problems!
  - rc_mob 4y ago
    The only voting choices you have in America are Republican and not Republican. The non Republican party is a disorganized mess. Its the world we live in.

birken 4y ago

One thing to note is that the 2021 population is an estimate, and if you are a Census buff as I am, and compare the Census' 2019 estimates to the 2020 actual populations (as calculated from the census), there are often very large differences. The article also says that CA's estimate of the population decline is much smaller, and arguably CA itself would have more accurate data for this particular metric (residency and voter rolls). So while I'm sure the gist of the argument is true, there is probably a larger margin of error on the calculation than you'd think at first glance. I'm not quite going to say the article is sensationalist, but if you look at the totality of the data (house prices, rental prices, CA's population estimates, etc), I'm not sure the "SF is in freefall" narrative holds up.

ttymck 4y ago
I appreciate the point you are making, so I ask this genuinely: how confident are we in the census count? How confident are we usually, and how did that change given the hurdles the pandemic introduced?
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Both the decennial census and the census ACS are estimates. All population counts are estimates.
  - geoalchimista 4y ago
    All statistical inferences are estimates, and carry standard errors with them. What is your point?
    - naniwaduni 4y ago
      All measurements are estimates, but sometimes the errors look like "we have a machine that spits out 4 all the time" and other times they look like "I saw two people, but I can't rule out the possibility that I spontaneously hallucinated them."

librish 4y ago

SF is probably hit the hardest by WFH. If you lived and worked in the city you probably had a pretty good commute, so you're not getting the biggest benefit. And while I know it's a less common preference on HN, a lot of people enjoy going in to a lively office and occasionally grabbing drinks with your coworkers after work. It's a great way to make new friends. But with WFH there's a prisoners dilemma where no-one goes in because no-one goes in. Hard to justify living in one of the most expensive cities in the world at that point. As a side note, I've been reading a lot of comments like the one below describing SF as a "nightmarish hellscape" and I just want to caution people to not read into things too much. I've spent a lot of time in both SF and Seattle, and while there's specific streets you want to avoid, and you can (rarely) run into weird or disturbed people in other areas (like most major cities) overall they're lovely places if you can afford them.

acchow 4y ago
On the other hand, SF has a significant tech population that has been living in the city but taking shuttle buses for an hour to their offices down south. I imagine flexible WFH for 2-3 days/wk will enable a larger number of people in the future to live in SF
- iancmceachern 4y ago
  I'm in this boat and this is true. A hybrid wfh and partial in the office option really opens up options living in this area, it makes it much more doable.
  - acchow 4y ago
    I think flexible WFH will also be a boost to Apple, which traditionally was unable to hire some people who loved city life and refused to commute.
kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
It's the people paying $3000 for a bunk bed who bailed on the city.

jmyeet 4y ago

SF is expensive and horrible. The only reason people in tech live there is because of employers in the area and it beats living elsewhere in the Bay Area which is expensive and dull. There's really no other reason people would put up with an hour (or more) commute each way every day.

newbie2020 4y ago
Yep, the Bay Area somehow got lucky with the nexus of high tech being here. Without these jobs, this area wouldn’t have a whole lot to offer
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hyperpl 4y ago

Anyone know stats on NYC? I'm having trouble understanding the current true state wrt to apartment rental pricing: many people left during Covid but I'm not quite sure if many of those in fact returned. Furthermore, it would seem as though rental inventory is quite low or at least demand is through the roof (typically one needs to be ready to sign on the spot) with little to no room to shop-around. Prices are also quite high, I understand we have been in a recent high inflation regime but I just can't help but think the apartment rental market isn't as transparent as it was say, 3+ years ago.

pcurve 4y ago
price is above pre pandemic
ipnon 4y ago
There are many incentives in NYC that prevent rents from dropping. What we saw during the pandemic was static rent prices with increased benefits that lowered the actual price, for example last month is free so in effect rent has been lowered by 1/12 while still being listed as 12/12. Landlords do this for a variety of completely [redacted] reasons, including price controls, taxes, vacancy regulations, credit for "improvements", advertising histories. Rents do not fall in NYC, they merely stop rising for a time.
- eezurr 4y ago
  The main reason they do it, IIRC, is because the banks handing out the landlords loans require some minimum rent prices on the leases in the loan contracts. The way they get around this is by offering a month or three of free rent. That way the leases signed by the tenants still me the contractual obligations of the bank. In the end the tenant still gets screwed when the lease comes up to be renewed, unless they are willing to move out over negotiating another free month in the next cycle.
- mancerayder 4y ago
  There was a big price spike in late 2021 to the present for rents. There was an amazing opportunity in early 2021 for a super negotiation position. Unfortunately the people came back all at the same time, seemingly. The state is booming with low vacancy, that's the present state

dijonman2 4y ago

gsibble 4y ago
Agreed. I left in 2018 and am much happier now to not have to play the game "Is that water or urine?" when I see a puddle on the street. Trick question.....it's always urine.
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RosanaAnaDana 4y ago

Could this be a potential source of a housing bubble collapse?

adam_arthur 4y ago
Given that work from office is the primary reason SF became so expensive in the first place, yes. How can SF home prices be justified vs SD or LA in a remote work world?
- ghaff 4y ago
  >How can SF home prices be justified vs SD or LA in a remote work world? I don't live in SF or even in a city but, in the abstract, I'd pick SF from that triplet. LA is complete sprawl and a little bit of SoCal beaches goes a long way for me. And San Diego is nice enough but sort of soulless. I like the SF climate even when summer is the coldest winter you ever spent--and there are great recreational options and scenery.
  - adam_arthur 4y ago
    It's not really about preferring SF, but preferring it at twice the home price (or whatever the actual gap is). It's hard to justify that if not forced to live there for work
- colinmhayes 4y ago
dopeboy 4y ago
Negative - this is a geography that will remain unaffected by housing downturns. Too much money on the sidelines for it to collapse.

draw_down 4y ago

cheeseblubber 4y ago

If you compare rent trends of SF vs NYC or LA https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-francisco-ca https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/san-francisco-ca https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/new-york-ny https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/new-york-ny https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/los-angeles-ca https://www.zumper.com/rent-research/los-angeles-ca You'll notice a huge difference between in SF and the other cities. Rent prices still hasn't gone back to pre pandemic level.

yodsanklai 4y ago
The prices in NYC are just insane!
- sethhochberg 4y ago
  Much like many cities - NYC included - are seeing people leave because they are no longer tied to wherever they had been with remote work, we're also seeing many people moving here specifically because they can work remotely from NYC. Available rental inventory is almost nonexistent right now, vacancy rates are at the floor. Much of our new development is exactly the kind of new amenity building that folks in the high-earning tech remote worker crowd often seek, but its still not managing to keep pace with demand. There's a shortage of inventory for virtually everyone except the billionaire class (not that they occupy much of the market in absolute terms). I've been in NYC about a decade an even in pre-pandemic years that most folks agree were much more stereotypically booming and I can't ever remember a housing market that was so frothy.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  Apparently 3 beds are cheaper than 1 in new york. 3,695 vs 3,600.
  - mancerayder 4y ago
    That's probably a factor tied to area - dense Manhattan is more luxurious and expensive than Bensonhurst, where a three bedroom is more common and a fraction of the cost. A more meaningful metric would be, by borough, market rate housing. Then Manhattan three bedrooms will be 6,000 and not 3,600. They can easily reach 9 in a doorman building downtown.

shadowgovt 4y ago

Price people out of living somewhere and the market will eventually react.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago

The most regrettable thing is that it's those who bear the most responsibility for the city being less desirable (in a multitude of unrelated but compounding ways) are the ones with the most ability to just move elsewhere. I wish these people had to sleep in the bed they made.

anonygler 4y ago
The idea that people who simply decide to live somewhere are guilty of some moral failing is preposterous. Hold your elected leaders accountable for not doing their job.
khazhoux 4y ago
Your comment could be read as a slam on rich techies, or the homeless, or even a specific race or ethnicity. Amazingly ambiguous! :-)

peanut_worm 4y ago

San Francisco is the dirtiest city I have ever seen. It doesn’t seem like a great place to spend 1 million dollars on a house unless you work there.

mancerayder 4y ago
I thought NYC was the dirtiest place I've ever seen, sounds like there's competition!
- asdff 4y ago
  Neither are as dirty as New Orleans. There's trash, there's excrement, then there is rotting catfish and shellfish on top of the trash and excrement and it just sits stewing in stagnant, humid, swampy and hot air.
  - the_only_law 4y ago
    I was actually going to go there last year for a show, until nature decided to try and destroy it again (though I hear the hurricane wasn’t too bad)
    - selimthegrim 4y ago
      The few weeks afterwards when the trash wasn’t getting picked up made me hightail it to Mobile for the duration.
  - selimthegrim 4y ago
    I live in the Lower Ninth Ward and based on what I saw of SF last fall I’d still give that award to SF (unless comparing the few weeks after Ida)
twiceaday 4y ago
1 million dollars might get you a two-bedroom condo. Median house price is 1.6 million https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/ https://www.zillow.com/san-francisco-ca/home-values/

oneoff786 4y ago

Is there a lot of empty housing then?

cpncrunch 4y ago

https://archive.ph/BWJzQ https://archive.ph/BWJzQ

eins1234 4y ago

As someone who still enjoys SF and wants to keep living here, I read this as great news since I expected rents to decrease by a similar amount. But I just checked my apartment's website and it seems like if anything the rents have slightly increased compared to the price I renewed at last year!? Obviously this is a sample size of 1 and doesn't reflect the overall market. Curious if anyone else has real data on rent price trends. Is it just my apartment or is this a case of the market staying irrational for longer than I'd have hoped? EDIT: data was provided in another thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31533492 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31533492

truthwhisperer 4y ago
some-guy 4y ago
I'm in Oakland and I'm not in SF all the time, but it does feel like Market St. / the Financial District is the most affected post-pandemic, but the rest of the city feels like it's as popular as ever. Lots of SF residents I know in tech are working from home but are still living and enjoying the city.

outside1234 4y ago

It will be interesting to see how much of this is Bay Area spread. We've had a huge number of people move to Santa Cruz, for example, so I've wondered how much of this might be the Bay Area getting broader instead of smaller.

mwattsun 4y ago
The increase in rental prices in Santa Cruz reflect that. It's good for my family since we've been there 90 years but I'm currently in San Jose because I can get a nicer place for the same amount. It's not bad because I throw my electric bike on the bus that runs over the hill every hour when I want to go visit.

JaceLightning 4y ago

Keep going. Needs to drop another 50% or so.

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sethbannon 4y ago

Those that have "made it" are moving out of SF and the young and hungry are moving in. SF has seen a wave of Gen Z inbound recently. I'll take that trade anytime. "the number of rental applications by people who fall into Gen Z (defined as those born between 1997 and 2012) have increased by 21% in the past year. Meanwhile, as we just discussed, rental applications from every single other generation have been lessening. Millennials, for instance, saw an 8% decrease in rental activity... Between 2020 and 2021, people who fall into Generation Z were filling out 21% more leases nationwide, as compared with the year before. When that search is narrowed to San Francisco, Rentcafé says those 20-somethings had a 101% increase in rental applications. They now make up more than a fifth of all people looking to lease in SF." https://sfist.com/2022/03/22/san-francisco-is-getting-younger-gen-z-flocking-to-the-bay/ https://sfist.com/2022/03/22/san-francisco-is-getting-younge...

antiverse 4y ago
Majestic take. More than likely, the ones that "made it" are staying where they are, having bought whatever property they've been able to and are now renting it out to the Gen Z'ers to pay it off. The older generation, wisely, realizes there's no future there and have ended their rental terms to go elsewhere where they can actually afford to buy something, not having gained any real estate ownership of their own. Calling Gen Z'es "hungry" in this instance is, God bless their hearts, insulting to common sense and rationality of things at play here.
- jethro_tell 4y ago
  I think there's a middle ground. I'm sure gen Z is hungry. Good chunks of every generation are, on the other hand, counting rental applications is a little odd. There's a good chunk of millennials that are settled. They aren't moving in or out. an 8% drop for a generation that is about to turn 40 during a 2.5% interest rates seems a lot like a few people collected the cash to buy the homes and aren't renting any longer. But we'll never know because this is a single stat in a whole sea of stats regarding housing by generation. *edit, I mean, we could know, we could go out there and find meaningful data to get a full picture of what's going on but I don't really care that much. Just saying that looking at one stat and crafting a wonderful narrative is pointless.

webwielder2 4y ago

Serious question: what's another place in the US with mild year-round weather, walkable neighborhoods (haven't driven a car in 12 years), and easy access to an international airport? That's what SF offers me. The "SF is an unlivable hellhole" drumbeat is so loud that I almost feel compelled to move (my own experience be damned), but I'm not sure where to.

dopeboy 4y ago
As someone who lives there and is taking a very hard look at other towns, the answer is none. Some small parts of LA come close.
presentation 4y ago
Too bad the USA has practically no livable cities.
AnimalMuppet 4y ago
Don't feel compelled to move. If you don't know why you want out of SF, don't leave. Everybody who is saying how horrible it is aren't going to live your life for you. Don't try to live theirs.
vincentmarle 4y ago
Have you ever been to Santa Monica or San Diego?
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twayt 4y ago
> what's another place in the US with mild year-round weather, walkable neighborhoods (haven't driven a car in 12 years), and easy access to an international airport? If you consider SF (the city) weather mild, there are a ton of cities in the US that match what you're looking for. They just don't have the tech orientation and cachet that you associate with living in SF.
rr808 4y ago
Agreed, California is pretty special. I think its easy to get hung up on "mild year-round weather", it actually gets boring and I prefer 4 proper seasons. I enjoy some snow and some hot summers which means most of the country is available.

aantix 4y ago

Especially with the advent of Starlink, you can literally work anywhere and still have reliable enough Internet to make a six figure income.

diogenescynic 4y ago

San Francisco has become a really hostile place to live even if you make $300,000+. My wife and I lived in Glen Park and it was still a shit hole. We had a meth head constantly breaking in and living in the parking garage of our building. Cops and landlord didn't care. I regularly saw people shooting heroin and smoking meth/crack on BART during rush hour. I was sick of seeing needles on the street and smelling urine. As soon as the pandemic happened we got the heck out of the Bay Area and relocated somewhere cheaper and nicer. I am sure there are many others doing the same thing. I cannot imagine trying to raise a kid in SF.

ransom1538 4y ago
I with you here. Our neighbor had her apartment violently ransacked while she was at work. This is bad. What makes it evil, they waited for her to return - sitting in the apartment waiting for her to walk in. After the detective interview I had, i realized, I don't want to raise family here anymore. The detective agreed.
- diogenescynic 4y ago
  I didn't even go into the worst of it! I had a bullet come through one of my walls, clearly shot from the walking trail near my building. Cops came out and literally laughed about it and threw the bullet casing into a sandwich bag. Landlord threw some spackling paste over the hole. We literally started packing up the next week. To this day, over 2 years later no one from SFPD has ever contacted me or followed up on the bullet. SFPD is a disgrace. The city is not safe for people. You're just once chance encounter away from something horrible happening to you and when it does, no one will take it seriously or do anything about it.
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thatfrenchguy 4y ago
I'm really curious where you live in Glen Park for this to happen. I've never seen crime there. There's no needles anywhere, and kids everywhere.

seaourfreed 4y ago

People vote if SF has a good or bad government, by voting with their feet. Cities across the nation can have people leave due to remote work. This isn't remote work. This is a vote on if SF's government is great or bad.

jdavis703 4y ago
Rents are up 15% YoY, which is probably a leading sign that demand is back. I know some folks might blame higher rents on greedy landlords… But it’s quite clear that at work this year’s class of new grad hires is moving to the Bay Area. What I think we saw is people left SF because there’s no point in doing remote work from a cramped, expensive apartment. So yes, it was a vote on governance. But for all SF’s problems it’s more nuanced than “people are fleeing a sh*t-hole city.” (And even funnier, I live in Oakland. There was a noticeable surge in people parking bikes with Caltrain tags in the bike room. I’m back to being the only bike with a Caltrain tag now.)
- mistymountains 4y ago
  Yes. I moved to the east bay but despite the sunshine I think I’ll be going back to SF later this year.

m0llusk 4y ago

This is mostly an artifact. SF proper is a very small area in a metro area having around 8.5 million people. If you look carefully at a similar size urban core in other metro areas then you will see similar results.

trimbo 4y ago

So many houses in my SF neighborhood are currently empty. They're single family homes so I'm not sure of the impact on the overall population, but it's been weird around here. - For sale and empty. - Full renovations. Guessing more than half are flipping them, given the speed which construction started after sale. - Investors buying homes and keeping them empty.

RC_ITR 4y ago
What is happening is a weird confluence of events that no-one actually cares to analyze because SF is the world's most politically charged city to speak about, so people just state their biases vs. actually thinking. The trends as I see them are: 1) An increasing number of increasingly wealthy people with connections to SF that choose to domicile elsewhere while keeping a home in the city that is used a few months a year (to your point of empty homes being kept empty). 2) The temporary shut-off of a massive pipeline of recent college grads who fill the offices of not only start-ups, but also accounting firms, consulting firms, banks, etc. 3) A reduction in appetite for '3 guys in a 2 bedroom where someone sleeps in the dining room' and an increase in appetite for '1 guy in a 2 bedroom/home office set up,' which supports price growth but not population growth. 4) The fact that for the past century, SF has been a city that grows beyond its means and then crashes, only to pick back up again on the next cycle (SF only surpassed its peak 1950 population in 1990) There are certainly more that I miss, but from a street-level perspective, SF isn't in noticeably worse shape than it was in 2000. Question is "Is post-pandemic lifestyle change similar to the car (which caused that 40 year lull) or is it more temporary?"
wombat-man 4y ago
Some people renovate before moving in. Might as well customize it before the big move if you can afford it.
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diogenescynic 4y ago
On the 400 block of Arlington street, there are several large Victorian homes that have been empty for several years. There needs to be a tax on empty homes and a tax on people owning second homes that are empty.

karmasimida 4y ago

Interestingly the inflation in SF, and Bay in general is less than national average, and much less than hot areas like Miami. I guess soon it will balance off

rattray 4y ago

According to the article, Manhattan lost 6.6% (that is, even more) in the same timeframe. Manhattan is a much closer comparable to SF than all of NYC, the lines just happen to be drawn differently.

joemazerino 4y ago

Rampant and near-encouraged crime forced the hands of my SF friends to move. Some pass it off as a standard of living situation but they all moved to low crime Red states..

vonwoodson 4y ago
https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-red-state-murder-problem https://www.thirdway.org/report/the-red-state-murder-problem Takeaways: + The rate of murders in the US has gone up at an alarming rate. But, despite a media narrative to the contrary, this is a problem that afflicts Republican-run cities and states as much or more than the Democratic bastions. +In 2020, per capita murder rates were 40% higher in states won by Donald Trump than those won by Joe Biden. + 8 of the 10 states with the highest murder rates in 2020 voted for the Republican presidential nominee in every election this century.
- joemazerino 4y ago
  I always enjoy a good leftist source posted to discredit experiences felt by my friends in real-life. "Here are some facts from this website Joe so stop complaining." Meanwhile in reality outside of the internet my friends have been mugged, harassed and assaulted for walking SF streets that were once the safest. The problem with these types of sources is they are collected by journalists who do not back check their own work. They are trying to make a political point. Crime statistics are based on reporting which is higher in Red states. Murder areas like Chicago have thousands of incidences of crime that go unreported.
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tootie 4y ago
SF and NYC both saw precipitous drops in crime over the past 30 years that lead to a major influx of new residents. The pandemic has seen a moderate backslide and all the transplants are flipping out. It's amazing how expectations can change. I've lived in NYC for 25 years. The homicide rate is about a quarter of what it was when I moved here, yet everyone seems to be declaring this the apocalypse that will end the city.

northerdome 4y ago

For SF specific data on housing and zoning I highly highly recommend http://socketsite.com http://socketsite.com. Such a thorough and great resource! I only wish more cities had something like it!

hiyer 4y ago

I know a few folks who moved to States like Colorado, Delaware, etc from Bay Area once their employers officially went fully remote. They all said Bay Area was unaffordable for them. These are mid-to-senior level tech guys, though not in FAANG companies.