5 ms·

Not simply "don't want to live here", usually also "can't, there are no opportunities for income here". I know lots of people optimistic that remote work would

Not simply "don't want to live here", usually also "can't, there are no opportunities for income here". I know lots of people optimistic that remote work would upend this, but even the few still-fully-remote workers I know need to live in areas where they or their family can find non-remote jobs if ever necessary.

gensym 3mo ago
Also, IME, places with no employers tend to be populated primarily by addicts, disability fraudsters, and other criminals.
- ryandrake 3mo ago
  ...or the elderly, retired, legitimately disabled, or just people temporarily down on their luck.
  - brewdad 3mo ago
    Neither of which tends to lend itself to an interesting place to live.
  - deleted 3mo ago
    [deleted]
  - gensym 3mo ago
    I get what you're saying and I see that how my comment could be interpreted. I wish I had worded it better. The most vibrant places in the world (again, IME) have a diversity of abilities, backgrounds, ages, and economic status. There's another type of place - the sort of place I had in mind - that doesn't. That attracts people who are trying to get away from law and any sort of social contract. Some of those places look attractive on the surface. That's the sort of place I'm talking about. They're probably not as common as they seem to be to me.
ecshafer 3mo ago
The clawing back of remote jobs is pretty astounding. More places are 3 days a week I guess. But the idea of living out in the country with no one around, but with your remote job is nearly fantasy. You have to be very sure that if push comes to shove, you won't ever be laid off, fired, company closes, etc.
- echelon 3mo ago
  > You have to be very sure that if push comes to shove, you won't ever be laid off, fired, company closes, etc. There are plenty of remote first employers. And that's not going to change now.
- dmurray 3mo ago
  Or...that you would be comfortable relocating if you did lose your job, helped by the buffer of savings you accumulated by not having to pay for your house?
  - coryrc 3mo ago
    Lets say housing appreciates +50% everywhere. Your podunk home went up $50k. HCOL home went up $500k. Better deal would be to hold the expensive house.
    - panny 3mo ago
      Now let's say the price collapses by 50%. You're stuck and can't sell in a "frozen" housing market... like how the housing market has been since May 2022. And the problem is structural. And it's only going to get worse as interest rates continue to rise to battle inflation. Here's a nice explainer. https://youtu.be/qROG2uXPChY?t=608 https://youtu.be/qROG2uXPChY?t=608
      - AnthonyMouse 3mo ago
        The assumption for a couple of generations has been that housing costs will always increase over time as a percent of wages. The problem with that is that it's unsustainable. The next generation has to be able to afford it in order to buy it, and they also need to buy food and utilities etc., which also cost more when real estate does. Investors can't save you either when the next generation can't afford the rent they would have to charge to turn a profit. But in order for housing to be a good investment, it has to have competitive returns with other investments, i.e. it needs to increase by at least as much as GDP per capita. Meanwhile median wages have been increasing slower than GDP per capita, which as above is the long-term cap on housing prices. In other words, housing can't long-term sustainably beat other market investments unless wages do, which they haven't, in which case people would get better returns by putting their money in stocks etc. Worse, years of ZIRP inflated housing prices beyond any sustainable level even with the scarcity being maintained by existing zoning restrictions, i.e. the "eventually it's not sustainable" point is already in the past. The result is that in order for housing to be a good investment going forward from now, there would first have to be a major housing crash so that "investors" (i.e. home buyers) could buy low instead of buying high. Which thereby implies that it wouldn't be a good long-term investment at current prices. And by major housing crash, notice what "enormous housing bubble that crashed the world economy" looks like on this chart in 2007 and compare it to what things look like since then, especially since 2020: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS A lot of people haven't realized that the party is over and are expecting housing to still be a good investment.
kyralis 3mo ago
It's not even just wanting jobs for family; it's wanting to be around services that I think people don't always consider. Sure, you could plan on doing everything yourself if that's truly your hobby, but most remote workers will want to be able to call a plumber or an electrician when something goes wrong, and even finding tradesmen in those locations can sometimes be challenging.
zamadatix 3mo ago
If there are no good doctors, dentists, schools, stores, and so in within reasonable distance then life kind of sucks even if you aren't concerned about money/other jobs. If those things are within a reasonable distance, then so are jobs (well, as about as much as "normal" at least).
andriy_koval 3mo ago
> Not simply "don't want to live here", usually also "can't, there are no opportunities for income here". also likely very underdeveloped infra
tristor 3mo ago
I think something important to consider as well is quality of basic services. I've been permanently remote since 2015, and I've moved three times since then. But as a remote worker, I spend most my time in my home and that means it needs high quality water, high quality air, high quality internet, and high quality electrical services. If I cannot get all of these, it's a non-starter. I have absolutely zero faith in getting all of these services of sufficiently high quality for the majority of homes listed on this site, and in many cases I would expect /none/ of these services to be sufficiently high quality. Most of these houses are located in places I would never live, they are essentially negative value locations (in very real terms, not just monetarily). All that said, I live in one of the lowest cost of living major metros in the US, and I bought a house in an acceptably decent neighborhood w/ high quality water, electrical, and air, and 5 gigabit symmetric fiber service for under $300k. You don't need to spend millions to find an acceptable place to live when you work remotely, but that doesn't mean you want to live in a HUD foreclosure in some of the worst most blighted neighborhoods in the country where you can't rely on even basic services and are going to be immediately a target of violent crime.

gensym 3mo ago

Also, IME, places with no employers tend to be populated primarily by addicts, disability fraudsters, and other criminals.

ryandrake 3mo ago
...or the elderly, retired, legitimately disabled, or just people temporarily down on their luck.
- brewdad 3mo ago
  Neither of which tends to lend itself to an interesting place to live.
- deleted 3mo ago
  [deleted]
- gensym 3mo ago
  I get what you're saying and I see that how my comment could be interpreted. I wish I had worded it better. The most vibrant places in the world (again, IME) have a diversity of abilities, backgrounds, ages, and economic status. There's another type of place - the sort of place I had in mind - that doesn't. That attracts people who are trying to get away from law and any sort of social contract. Some of those places look attractive on the surface. That's the sort of place I'm talking about. They're probably not as common as they seem to be to me.

ecshafer 3mo ago

The clawing back of remote jobs is pretty astounding. More places are 3 days a week I guess. But the idea of living out in the country with no one around, but with your remote job is nearly fantasy. You have to be very sure that if push comes to shove, you won't ever be laid off, fired, company closes, etc.

echelon 3mo ago
> You have to be very sure that if push comes to shove, you won't ever be laid off, fired, company closes, etc. There are plenty of remote first employers. And that's not going to change now.
dmurray 3mo ago
Or...that you would be comfortable relocating if you did lose your job, helped by the buffer of savings you accumulated by not having to pay for your house?
- coryrc 3mo ago
  Lets say housing appreciates +50% everywhere. Your podunk home went up $50k. HCOL home went up $500k. Better deal would be to hold the expensive house.
  - panny 3mo ago
    Now let's say the price collapses by 50%. You're stuck and can't sell in a "frozen" housing market... like how the housing market has been since May 2022. And the problem is structural. And it's only going to get worse as interest rates continue to rise to battle inflation. Here's a nice explainer. https://youtu.be/qROG2uXPChY?t=608 https://youtu.be/qROG2uXPChY?t=608
    - AnthonyMouse 3mo ago
      The assumption for a couple of generations has been that housing costs will always increase over time as a percent of wages. The problem with that is that it's unsustainable. The next generation has to be able to afford it in order to buy it, and they also need to buy food and utilities etc., which also cost more when real estate does. Investors can't save you either when the next generation can't afford the rent they would have to charge to turn a profit. But in order for housing to be a good investment, it has to have competitive returns with other investments, i.e. it needs to increase by at least as much as GDP per capita. Meanwhile median wages have been increasing slower than GDP per capita, which as above is the long-term cap on housing prices. In other words, housing can't long-term sustainably beat other market investments unless wages do, which they haven't, in which case people would get better returns by putting their money in stocks etc. Worse, years of ZIRP inflated housing prices beyond any sustainable level even with the scarcity being maintained by existing zoning restrictions, i.e. the "eventually it's not sustainable" point is already in the past. The result is that in order for housing to be a good investment going forward from now, there would first have to be a major housing crash so that "investors" (i.e. home buyers) could buy low instead of buying high. Which thereby implies that it wouldn't be a good long-term investment at current prices. And by major housing crash, notice what "enormous housing bubble that crashed the world economy" looks like on this chart in 2007 and compare it to what things look like since then, especially since 2020: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MSPUS A lot of people haven't realized that the party is over and are expecting housing to still be a good investment.

kyralis 3mo ago

It's not even just wanting jobs for family; it's wanting to be around services that I think people don't always consider. Sure, you could plan on doing everything yourself if that's truly your hobby, but most remote workers will want to be able to call a plumber or an electrician when something goes wrong, and even finding tradesmen in those locations can sometimes be challenging.

zamadatix 3mo ago

If there are no good doctors, dentists, schools, stores, and so in within reasonable distance then life kind of sucks even if you aren't concerned about money/other jobs. If those things are within a reasonable distance, then so are jobs (well, as about as much as "normal" at least).

andriy_koval 3mo ago

> Not simply "don't want to live here", usually also "can't, there are no opportunities for income here". also likely very underdeveloped infra

tristor 3mo ago

I think something important to consider as well is quality of basic services. I've been permanently remote since 2015, and I've moved three times since then. But as a remote worker, I spend most my time in my home and that means it needs high quality water, high quality air, high quality internet, and high quality electrical services. If I cannot get all of these, it's a non-starter. I have absolutely zero faith in getting all of these services of sufficiently high quality for the majority of homes listed on this site, and in many cases I would expect /none/ of these services to be sufficiently high quality. Most of these houses are located in places I would never live, they are essentially negative value locations (in very real terms, not just monetarily). All that said, I live in one of the lowest cost of living major metros in the US, and I bought a house in an acceptably decent neighborhood w/ high quality water, electrical, and air, and 5 gigabit symmetric fiber service for under $300k. You don't need to spend millions to find an acceptable place to live when you work remotely, but that doesn't mean you want to live in a HUD foreclosure in some of the worst most blighted neighborhoods in the country where you can't rely on even basic services and are going to be immediately a target of violent crime.