A Wave of Tech Workers Tranformed Tahoe Into a High-Priced 'Zoom-Town' (outsideonline.com) 161
In 2018 Oracle's Larry Ellison bought the historic Cal Neva Lodge on the scenic north shore of California's Lake Tahoe for $36 million. Then in 2019 Mark Zuckerberg bought a $59 million compound on Lake Tahoe's west shore.
But now a wave of techies are moving in, reports Outside magazine, "freed by COVID from cubicles and work commutes. They migrated, laptops in tow, to mountain towns all over the West, transforming them into modern-day boomtowns: 'Zoom-towns.'" "It's the wildest time," says realtor Katey Brandenburg, who works on Tahoe's Nevada side. For her and other realtors around the lake, the autumn of 2020 felt like winning the lottery. "I paid off a lifetime of debt — 28 years of loans, college, credit cards, and cars — in three months."
All told, 2020 saw more than 2,350 homes sold across the Tahoe Basin, for a boggling $3.28 billion, up from $1.76 billion in 2019, according to data analyzed by Sierra Sotheby's. That $3 billion stat is on a par with 2020 home-sales revenues in Aspen, Colorado (albeit there, the latest average home-sale price came in at $11 million). The trend is in line with real estate records being shattered from Sun Valley, Idaho, to Stowe, Vermont. And according to a just-released market update, it hasn't stopped: in the first quarter of 2021, median prices for single-family homes increased by an astronomical 70 percent year over year in Truckee, 72 percent in South Lake, and 81 percent in Incline Village...
"A disproportionate number of people who purchased homes in Tahoe in 2020 are employees of some of the largest tech companies in the Bay Area," says Deniz Kahramaner, founder of Atlasa, a real estate brokerage firm that specializes in data analytics. Of the 2,280 new-home buyers Atlasa identified throughout the Tahoe region in 2020, roughly 30 percent worked at software companies. The top three employers were Google (54 buyers), Apple (46), and Facebook (34)...
There is, however, one glaring issue with all this rapid, high-priced growth: the people who actually make a mountain town run — the ski instructors and patrollers, lift operators and shuttle drivers, housekeepers and snowcat mechanics, cooks and servers — can no longer afford to live there.
The article does note higher property taxes going toward public services (along with "more money eventually pumping into bars and restaurants.") And it also acknowledges affordable housing has for decades been an issue in tourist towns.
"It's just suddenly on steroids..."
But now a wave of techies are moving in, reports Outside magazine, "freed by COVID from cubicles and work commutes. They migrated, laptops in tow, to mountain towns all over the West, transforming them into modern-day boomtowns: 'Zoom-towns.'" "It's the wildest time," says realtor Katey Brandenburg, who works on Tahoe's Nevada side. For her and other realtors around the lake, the autumn of 2020 felt like winning the lottery. "I paid off a lifetime of debt — 28 years of loans, college, credit cards, and cars — in three months."
All told, 2020 saw more than 2,350 homes sold across the Tahoe Basin, for a boggling $3.28 billion, up from $1.76 billion in 2019, according to data analyzed by Sierra Sotheby's. That $3 billion stat is on a par with 2020 home-sales revenues in Aspen, Colorado (albeit there, the latest average home-sale price came in at $11 million). The trend is in line with real estate records being shattered from Sun Valley, Idaho, to Stowe, Vermont. And according to a just-released market update, it hasn't stopped: in the first quarter of 2021, median prices for single-family homes increased by an astronomical 70 percent year over year in Truckee, 72 percent in South Lake, and 81 percent in Incline Village...
"A disproportionate number of people who purchased homes in Tahoe in 2020 are employees of some of the largest tech companies in the Bay Area," says Deniz Kahramaner, founder of Atlasa, a real estate brokerage firm that specializes in data analytics. Of the 2,280 new-home buyers Atlasa identified throughout the Tahoe region in 2020, roughly 30 percent worked at software companies. The top three employers were Google (54 buyers), Apple (46), and Facebook (34)...
There is, however, one glaring issue with all this rapid, high-priced growth: the people who actually make a mountain town run — the ski instructors and patrollers, lift operators and shuttle drivers, housekeepers and snowcat mechanics, cooks and servers — can no longer afford to live there.
The article does note higher property taxes going toward public services (along with "more money eventually pumping into bars and restaurants.") And it also acknowledges affordable housing has for decades been an issue in tourist towns.
"It's just suddenly on steroids..."
What did you expect? (Score:4, Interesting)
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There was no warrant. One isn't always necessary. From Wikipedia:
NYPD officers approached Garner on July 17 on suspicion of selling single cigarettes from packs without tax stamps. After Garner told the police that he was tired of being harassed and that he was not selling cigarettes, the officers attempted to arrest Garner.
The problem isn't the tech workers (Score:3, Insightful)
TL;DR; rent seeking.
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the quality of life of those workers goes to shit because it's not like their pay went up just because there's a bunch of well to do tech workers around.
Au contraire mon frere. The quality of life of those workers will go up not because of the tech workers. Their quality of life will improve when their salaries rise as the companies they work for trickle down all that extra money coming in from those workers.
Happens every time without fail.
* For those of you who can't hear it, I am saying the above in th
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If the money doesn't flow to those workers (Score:2)
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they still need low wage earners to bag groceries and cook food
Did you attend the Karl Marx school of economics?
Rising demand for labor does not cause wages to decline.
so the quality of life of those workers goes to shit
If they own property, their QOL goes up because they benefit from the rising prices.
If they don't want rising prices, the obvious answer is to increase the supply of housing with new construction, which also creates jobs.
because it's not like their pay went up just because there's a bunch of well to do tech workers around.
Nonsense. Tech hubs have prevailing wages way above the national average. Here in San Jose, an entry-level job at Mcdonald's pays $18/hr.
Re:The problem isn't the tech workers (Score:5, Insightful)
Tech hubs have prevailing wages way above the national average. Here in San Jose, an entry-level job at Mcdonald's pays $18/hr.
I was going to ask you what you've been smoking, but since it's CA, I got a pretty good guess.
Let's do a little comparison, shall we? Here in SW Rural Minnesota, McDonalds pays $13/hr, and that gets me a hell-of-a-lot further here than $18 does in San Jose. One such example, a cozy 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house w/ a lawn runs me $185K here [zillow.com], while I'd need to scrap together $700K [zillow.com] to get by in San Jose. Tech hubs have ridiculous deviations in prevailing wages, and "higher-than-national-average" doesn't mean jack when cost of living is through the roof.
Cost of living in Silicon Valley is impossible, even for people of modest professional means [huffpost.com], let alone fast food workers [theguardian.com].
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Or get paid at least $18/hour!
What you're missing is that people are willing to temporarily live in squalor in exchange for the higher earnings potential, then move somewhere else and retire like a king. The same is true in Tokyo, the same is true on Alaska's oil rigs.
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people are willing to temporarily live in squalor in exchange for the higher earnings potential, then move somewhere else and retire like a king
Shit! I choked on my drink and spilled it all over my keyboard. Since when does earning $18/hour and working a few (Let's say 15) years in San Jose allow you to save enough to live like a king, even in a place like Mississippi [worldpopul...review.com] where cost of living is half that of CA?
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Ok, let's say you're working two jobs at $18/hour, 70 hours a week total. That's about $60,000/year after taxes.
Your room with shared bathroom is $800/month. No car, just a bike. Add about $2,000/month for food and other expenses. That comes to $33,600/year.
So you're putting away $26,400/year into an S&
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Working 70 hours/week for 15 years will make you go postal way before 15 years are over. That's no way to live. Plus you need health insurance,
And your math doesn't add up. 70 hours/week*52 (no vacation either. Bummer!)@18/hour comes to $65,520. Figure at least 25% on taxes (state+federal+FICA+Medicare). That brings the amount down to $49K. Subtract health insurance for $300/month, you're down to $45.5K. Subtract your other expenses and you're left with $12K. At $1K/month deposit into a 7.5% accoun
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But you can't save up much when your rent eats most of your disposable income. People don't go to Tokyo to get rich and retire.
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> People don't go to Tokyo to get rich and retire.
They go to Tokyo, LA, NYC, London, Berlin, Paris, Jerusalem, and Dubai to make their fortunes. They mostly fail at that goal.
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People in Japan go to Tokyo to make money. Sometimes they stay, other times they don't make it. Sometimes they stay temporarily.
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Did you attend the Karl Marx school of economics?
Rising demand for labor does not cause wages to decline.
"
I doubt this would significantly impact demand either way. A small number of people migrating with a great deal of wealth doesn't significantly impact demand for grocery bagging.
"If they own property, their QOL goes up because they benefit from the rising prices."
Grocery baggers do not own property. What a silly concept. You can't save a mo
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Rising demand for labor does not cause wages to decline.
It can cause real wages to decline when rent increases faster then wages. Wages go up 50% for the people barely getting by, meanwhile rent goes up 100% and they no longer have money left at the end of the month for food.
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Some places can't realistically accommodate much more housing. Sewer service has to be built out, which can be extraordinarily expensive depending on distance; terrain; and available treatment facilities. Property owners hoping to use septic tanks have to follow local regulations. They also need land that perks, and not all land will do that.
Also, rising property prices only improve quality of life if you are in the market to sell. If you try to stay in your house, you wind up paying more in property ta
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> depending on distance; terrain; and available treatment facilities.
Don't forget water.
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If they own property, their QOL goes up because they benefit from the rising prices
This is often not true. There is a reason Proposition 13 in California was passed in 1978.
Rising prices can be quite disruptive to an owner. They may benefit financially but money isn't the only metric of quality of life. And this financial gain is only realized if the property is sold - rising prices often increase the burden with respect to property taxes (I own property where the taxes went from about $200/mo to $600... I am in a position where I can afford that change, but not everybody is). If, say, yo
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It's almost as though a job in fast food isn't suitable for anything but a teenager or young adult still living with their parents. Shocking.
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If only there were more choices.
Re: The problem isn't the tech workers (Score:2)
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The problem is still mostly the tech workers. Real estate rent-seekers or not, the tech workers can afford to roll into town and drop winning cash offers on any property they see (or just walk up to owners and ask them to name a price) and if rent-seeking middlemen inflate the prices, that just hastens the progress of the disease. They can afford to keep that property idle for a large part of the year as a second home - which gets to how runaway inequality is the main cause of runaway real estate appreciati
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Bullshit. Too much money pouring into a market with limited product (in this case: land) will drive up prices no matter what kind of middlemen get involved. Supply, demand, and availability of capital all affect prices. If there's strong demand and limited supply with all available buyers being unable to pay much more than the current market price for land, land prices will not go up by simple virtue of the fact that prospective buyers won't be able to move the peg. Put extra money in their pockets and
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We really need to get away from the idea of homes being sources of income or investments and back to them being somewhere to live, something everyone needs. Letting residential property should be mostly a philanthropic thing, done for the benefit of the community rather than profit. Usually that means local government being the landlord.
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It's not "philanthropic" for local governments to provide. Land ownership by governments dates back to the first written histories, and doubtless pre-dates them. It's a vital aspect of _being_ a government.
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I'm the UK we used to have "council houses". Built by local government and rented out cheaply. They took advantage of low interest rates and put the income back into building more houses.
The next 6-12 months will be interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
I’ll be curious to see who wins - the tech workers who’ve shown they can work from anywhere, versus the middle managers who are going to try clawing all those people back into the office.
Re:The next 6-12 months will be interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
I’ll be curious to see who wins - the tech workers who’ve shown they can work from anywhere, versus the middle managers who are going to try clawing all those people back into the office.
You have to wonder how many of those middle managers you actually need, when all the employees are working remotely...
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Hence the desperate push to get people back in the office so "managers" can justify their positions (and their headcount.)
If you can't justify the real estate and the headcount, someone else trying to climb the corporate ladder will eagerly reap your budget in exchange for a bonus for cutting costs...
Arithmetic says (Score:2)
Office space in Silicon Valley is expensive.
Figure $9,650 per month per employee.
If everyone was just as effective working from home, management would LOVE to save that money. Plus employers who offer work from home rather than demanding a commute could get the same employees at a slightly lower salary. Management would friggin love to avoid all that expense and have so much more delicious profit.
The reality is, some people do just about as well working from home, a very few do better, and many don't do so
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More bullshit. Perhaps that amount per year, but not per month (and yes, I know the cost for the office in which I used to work, pre-pandemic).
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> More bullshit. Perhaps that amount per year, but not per month (and yes, I know the cost for the office in which I used to work, pre-pandemic).
Its not $1000 a month. yet another arsehole who doesnt see the big picture. Offices need to be cleaned, they need electricity, they need security, they also need equipment. Those things all add up. Toilets cost money, every now and then they require plumbing work etc. IWhen you cost somethiung its not just the im
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Perhaps not. But it's not near $9,650 per month per employee.
Insults don't make your post more accurate.
Included in the rent for most small offices. Also repairs, like plumbing.
It depends on how you lease the space. Most small offices are leased with utilities, repairs, etc, all included. Complete buildings will probably not be leased wit
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> Perhaps not. But it's not near $9,650 per month per employee.
But it is, because you dont see the full cost. You just see rent, you dont see ALL the other costs. Got an office well that meas you need a receptionist at the front, and prolly a secretary for each manager, and theres also some receptionist on each floor. If you actually count their wages you will see the figures are very different.
> Included in the rent for most small offices. Also repairs, like plum
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But it is, because you dont see the full cost. You just see rent, you dont see ALL the other costs. Got an office well that meas you need a receptionist at the front, and prolly a secretary for each manager, and theres also some receptionist on each floor. If you actually count their wages you will see the figures are very different.
I don't have our numbers now but I'll try to check on monday. But this can't possibly add up to 10k/month.
Our office of maybe 1000 if not more people has like 4 receptionists and that's only because they're in two different wings. (Our corporate HQ with maybe 10k+ employees also has like 4-6 receptionists because there are only a few customer-accessible areas.) So around $200/employee/month, let's say $500 after taxes and benefits etc. Table and chair are let's say $1k each, or $30/month over 5 years. Add a
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> I don't have our numbers now but I'll try to check on monday. But this can't possibly add up to 10k/month.
Let me help you with my way of thinking. Say your off
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Let me help you with my way of thinking. Say your office has 20 people, for this exercise im going to forget the rental cost im going to explain the other costs. That 20 odd people prolly has a person on the front desk, and the twoish managers have a secretary each. Thats three people that are not necessary if people work from home. Three people cost about $50k each and im being very simple here, three extras for 20 is being very conservative i coudl very easily argue 4 or 5 people.
For 20 actual workers and not support staff thats 150k for the extras, thats already 7500 of cost for those 20.
Oooff, I certainly don't want to dismiss your experience if that's how you came up with these estimates. It's really surprising to me though that
* A front-line manager of 10 people would have a secretary
* Those secretaries are "needed" in the office but not when WFH
* The number of receptionists will scale linearly from 1/20
I really haven't been in a place that's ran like this, seems more like a stereotipical 60s office but I'm certainly not an office surveyor or something.
You are being very self centered, that maybe true in YOUR office but thats not typical in MOST offices. WHat im describing above in this response is what its like in most offices. I also find it hard to believe theres only 4 receptionists in a building of 1000 people. I find it hard to believe you dont have at least one receptionist per floor. I also find it hard to believe that many of your manager types dont have each secretaries or other useless floor staff.
PLease tell me how many other building support staff (lets call them that to have a reference) only exist because of the building. Pretty sure your office would have at least a dozen security people, and dozens more running around fixing computers, cables, desks, replacing keyboards and all that type of buillshit that odesnt happen if people work from home.
Obviously I'm generalizing from wha
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Not
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Well a retail bank branch isn't exactly the same as the typical office of an IT company that I think we're mostly talkign about here.
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Of course they are different, but the fact is the travelling by both is stsupid and can be improved and time saved in many ways.
Please grow a brain and try and be creative and not a brain damaged drone that cant see the problems in the current system of travelling and what a glorious wast eof time it is for everyone.
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You apparently don’t understand “Full service gross” rent terms. $10k/year in Santa Clara County would be a bit high; $6k is closer to reality.
Middle managers do want badly to get back to the office. Some of them are correct in thinking it is best for the business... and some are not. My company will do an A/B schedule (40% office time) for the remainder of 2021, and re-evaluate in 2022. Our employees need to be able to commute to client sites with little notice though, so I doubt they
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You also didnt fact that an office needs a receptionist and other nonsense, that all has a cost.
> Middle managers do want badly to get back to the office.
Of course they do, because without the office and their wanker meetings with their other wanker mates, what else can they say they do ?
> Our employees need to be able to commut
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Everyone is far more productive from home and even working 4 day weeks. there are plenty ofstudies that show this the problem is managers who well need to justify their position. Without
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No all of us are "far more productive from home". Some of us appreciate and benefit from seeing other people, and are healthier with the work-related social life and getting out of our homes daily.
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Well guess what you can walk around your local neighbour hood as well. Are you that stupid you couldnt figure that out ?
> and are healthier with the work-related social life and getting out of our homes daily.
THeres nothing stopping you from walking the dog, walking down to the shops for lunch or buying a coffee, walking the kids to school etc.
YOu must be really pathetic if you
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> > No all of us are "far more productive from home".
> > Some of us appreciate and benefit from seeing other people,
> Well guess what you can walk around your local neighbour hood as well. Are you that stupid you couldnt figure that out ?
If only there wasn't a pandemic that causes many people to react quite poorly if you try to chat with them.
Re: Arithmetic says (Score:2)
Everyone is far more productive from home
If I was single and living alone, sure. But I have a wife who, despite being quite intelligent, just can't grasp the idea that I'm working, so leave me alone. And kids who don't understand it either.
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There's management and then there is management. Top-level management would love to save the expense, middle management just sees their reason for being evaporating with remote work. Top-level management doesn't know how to middle manage, hence the death of quality middle managers and the reason they are kept around. Middle level management doesn't understand how to do top-level management and the roster of open positions is usually quite small, hence they are stuck in the middle.
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No, you are forgetting about training (and less admirably “culture”). That is 80% of the reason companies need people in the office.
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The middle managers. As soon as Jon Hipster realizes that Karen Gogetter is in the office every day at six am polishing Gary PHB's um, door knob, he's going to be right back in the office showing his face and going for that promotion.
Joe Independent, who actually, unironically, likes living in a cabin the woods won't care, but he'll just be the weird nerd in the dark closet office, just like he was before.
Re:The next 6-12 months will be interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
I’ll be curious to see who wins - the tech workers who’ve shown they can work from anywhere, versus the middle managers who are going to try clawing all those people back into the office.
Neither. It will be the stockholders who replace the Zoom-enabled remote tech workers with much cheaper offshore tech workers. No need to get visas for workers who Zoom in from Shiva knows where.
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I’ll be curious to see who wins - the tech workers who’ve shown they can work from anywhere, versus the middle managers who are going to try clawing all those people back into the office.
Neither. It will be the stockholders who replace the Zoom-enabled remote tech workers with much cheaper offshore tech workers. No need to get visas for workers who Zoom in from Shiva knows where.
Are you always so cheerful? But I digress.
So the stockholders will have learned NOTHING from the job great offshoring of 2000. The economy was in the tank and companies were looking to cut costs.
"Send the jobs overseas. They're cheap! We can get 4 there for the cost of 1 here." was the rallying cry. But it wasn't. Code quality was crap, NDAs were routinely ignored and tech/customer support was a joke. For software, overall costs were higher when taking into account time to fix the code.
"But it's
Re:The next 6-12 months will be interesting (Score:4, Insightful)
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Good middle management is really, really hard to find.
Tranformed (Score:2, Funny)
progressive property taxes? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if you could get away with making property taxes progressive. A small single-family home on a 1/2-acre lot which is valued at $100,000 would be taxed at $1,000 a year, let's say, whereas a $50,000,000 mansion on a 20-acre lot bordering the lake would pay $1,000,000 a year. That would allow the tax burden to be kept low for people with modest homes, while still allowing the town to collect enough money to pay for police, fire and road maintenance.
You might also need subsidies for builders who build affordable housing and landlords who keep rental prices down.
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I see no reason you couldn't make property taxes progressive. They already are somewhat (de facto), because of a fairly high untaxed initial part (it's not called a deductible, but it's whatever it is where you don't pay taxes on the first XXX,XXX dollars wroth)
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I see no reason you couldn't make property taxes progressive. They already are somewhat (de facto), because of a fairly high untaxed initial part (it's not called a deductible, but it's whatever it is where you don't pay taxes on the first XXX,XXX dollars wroth)
I am not familiar with not paying taxes on the first XX dollars of your property. Is this a Nevada thing? In New Hampshire we are taxed on every dollar of the fair market value of our property.
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It's a fairly common thing. NH is particularly stingy (although if you're a veteran, disabled or widowed you should apply for it.). Nevada turns out to be too. The list of which state allows what is about midway down [smartasset.com]. Some are income based, some universal.
NH, like CA, does that thing where your property isn't reassessed ever. So that's nice, your tax bill stays the same in dollars every year, which means it should get cheaper over time.
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It's a fairly common thing. NH is particularly stingy (although if you're a veteran, disabled or widowed you should apply for it.). Nevada turns out to be too. The list of which state allows what is about midway down [smartasset.com]. Some are income based, some universal.
New Hampshire lets you knock $100 off your property tax if you are elderly but you also have to have little income. I haven't bothered to apply for it since I am on Social Security.
NH, like CA, does that thing where your property isn't reassessed ever. So that's nice, your tax bill stays the same in dollars every year, which means it should get cheaper over time.
Actually, New Hamphsire towns reassesses property every five years, and can adjust values in between based on comparable sales. Even without reassessment the tax bill can vary, since it is based on the town and school budget.
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It already is. The property tax is based upon the assessed value of the property. The only kink is that the if there is rapid inflation, the annual increase is capped by Prop. 13 so that fixed income people that bought their house decades ago don't loose their home. The assessed value resets at the time of sale so these millionaires moving in will pay the much higher tax.
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It already is. The property tax is based upon the assessed value of the property. The only kink is that the if there is rapid inflation, the annual increase is capped by Prop. 13 so that fixed income people that bought their house decades ago don't loose their home. The assessed value resets at the time of sale so these millionaires moving in will pay the much higher tax.
Lake Tahoe is smack on the California-Nevada border. Properties on the west side would be subject to prop 13, but not those on the east side.
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That isn't 'progressive.' Most California property tax is a fixed percentage of purchase price. Above post seems to be suggesting tax percentage increases as value increases, so that much more expensive properties pay a larger percentage of value. Seems like an interesting idea. Loopholes would need to be closed like large single property having multiple smaller tax registrations. Or multiple apartment units converted into single residence but still listed as separate tax registrations.
I think those loopholes can be dealt with. Bulding a big comdominium building and selling each condo to a separate resident wouldn't be a problem: each resident would pay a low tax. The reverse would be a problem, where someone buys all the condos in a building and then renovates it into a mansion. In such a case the town can go to court to force the individual properties into one.
Re:progressive property taxes? (Score:4, Informative)
That isn't 'progressive.'
Indeed. Long-term residents who reap the benefits of Prop 13 tend to be far wealthier than the young newcomers hit with much higher tax rates.
Regressive property taxes are one reason that California has high levels of inequality [wikipedia.org].
Most California property tax is a fixed percentage of purchase price.
I live in California. My house value is reappraised every year.
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Not really. Property is priced on Total Cost of Ownership. Lower the interest rate and the asking price goes up. The constant is the monthly outlay. Property taxes are just one part of the TCO. If they go up, that will just depress the sales price.
I don't know how things work in California or Nevada. But in Washington State, assessed property values are based on nearby comparable sales prices. So if you knock the price of one sale on the block down, everyone's assessment and taxes go down.
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The problem is that people with capital buy all the affordable houses and slap huge rents on them. You need to address that problem first and foremost.
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The problem is that people with capital buy all the affordable houses and slap huge rents on them. You need to address that problem first and foremost.
I suggest the town provide subsidies for landlords who keep rental prices affordable. The money can come from taxes on those who don't.
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If prefer if most renting just went away and the subsidies went to helping people buy homes.
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If prefer if most renting just went away and the subsidies went to helping people buy homes.
But single-family detached homes are expensive. It should be possible for people who cannot afford such a home to still live in the community. One way to do this is with condomimiums and apartments. Someone who does not have the capital or credit to be able to buy an apartment should be able to rent instead, don't you think?
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If they can afford rent then they can afford a mortgage. The problem with mortgages is that they require a big deposit and better credit history than renting, which is where subsidy can help.
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If they can afford rent then they can afford a mortgage. The problem with mortgages is that they require a big deposit and better credit history than renting, which is where subsidy can help.
If the problems of big deposit and good credit history are dealt with, what is the difference between mortgage and renting? With a mortgage you technically own the property but if you stop paying you lose it. With a mortgage if you pay more than the interest you will eventually own the property free and clear, but a rent-to-own plan can accomplish the same thing.
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The difference is that every mortgage payments buy you more equity in a home until you eventually own it, meaning you have an asset in return for your money. Renting just gives money to a landlord and at the end you have nothing to show for it.
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The difference is that every mortgage payments buy you more equity in a home until you eventually own it, meaning you have an asset in return for your money. Renting just gives money to a landlord and at the end you have nothing to show for it.
A mortgage will build no equity if you can only afford to pay the interest. Conversely, a rent-to-own system would give you ownership of your apartment after a specified number of years.
Limited resources (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually "artificially" limited resources causes all this mess.
Here in Bay Area, which is the native tech-town to say, the housing supply is short by about 1,000,000 units. Yes, we need to build 1 million more houses to meet the demand, and we build about 15,000 each year. So at roughly 1,5%, we will finally meet the housing demand in only 67 years.
And don't put the blame on the tech companies. They actually do want to build housing near their campus:
https://sf.streetsblog.org/201... [streetsblog.org]
But cities would rather like those "techies" rent their run down 60 year old homes at $4,000/month. Buying is not an option for many. Even with tech salaries, amassing the down payments, which can run up to $400,000 is not easy. Yes people can buy houses outright with down payment money here.
And that is exactly what happened. Lots of young people who "almost" made down payments for over-inflated houses were free to move anywhere. Of course they chose nicer towns with access to nature and *with cheaper prices*.
This will only get worse, not better. As long as Bay Area does not somehow magically allow 1,000,000 new housing permits in a few short years we will continue to see *exodus* en masse.
Re:Limited resources (Score:4, Insightful)
Here in Bay Area, which is the native tech-town to say, the housing supply is short by about 1,000,000 units.
Nonsense. By the same token you can say that London City needs 4 million units. Part of the appeal of SF (and Bay Area in general) is that it does not have urban slums.
Re:Limited resources (Score:4, Informative)
it does not have urban slums.
Wut? [localnewsmatters.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Part of the appeal of SF (and Bay Area in general) is that it does not have urban slums.
Wow, have you ever been to the Tenderloin? Also north of where Candlestick used to be, there's a reason for the bars on the windows. Then plenty of Oakland and San Jose, and a lot of Hayward are urban slums.
Re: (Score:2)
One of the mitigating factors I see is the example of Detroit and the huge tracts of vacant buildings, etc. There's still an awful lot of old-timers in SFO who view the tech bubble as a mining town problem. Build a million new units, tear down historic neighborhoods, etc for bland econo boxes to house temp workers who will leave as soon as they make their millions, to watch the VC dry up and move to Austin, Bend, Denver, etc. So in some fit of stubborness they're willing this future into existence by slow r
Re: (Score:2)
[replying to multiple questions].
The houses are not for upcoming people, we need room for those who are already living in the area, in pretty miserable condition.
If you have left any of the suburbs, you will see a human suffering on every corner:
- Lots of homeless people. In San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and everywhere else
- Lucky people living in vans in the streets of Mountain View, San Jose and others
- Even luckier people living in overcrowded RV camps
- People renting couches on living rooms, crawl sp
Growth is the problem. (Score:2)
People want to live in areas where gross overpopulation will destroy quality of life until it actually DOES destroy quality of life.
The solution is DISPERSION not clustering. They can move elsewhere instead of crowding in place.
Exodus from the Bay Area should not be seen as a problem. It will remain rich and attractive, not desolate. Dense housing is much worse because living densely is unpleasant and the only reason people live densely is to make money. Remote work can remove that necessity.
Re: (Score:2)
This. This country has so much area, in so many different and nice places. why try and shove everyone. The Bay Area media outlets coordinated coverage on the homelessness topic a couple years back. One of the stories that stood out to me was a single mother, who was living in her car with her two kids. They went to some crappy school, the mother was trying to get by on a low paying job to stay in the Bay Area. A placement agency found her an apartment and a job in Las Vegas, NV, and the news time fol
Lol (Score:2)
Yeah that cheap area to live in known as Lake Tahoe.
This problem repeats itself constantly.... (Score:2)
It's nothing new or unique. People with the financial means get the idea that it would be trendy/cool/desirable to congregate in a given area, and then the competition for a limited number of suitable properties for them causes price inflation. At some point, it always drives out everyone else who can't afford to hang around anymore, or who see the opportunity to sell out while the land/property they own will sell for that much money.
Then, those new residents sit around and complain about the lack of worker
Re: (Score:2)
Quality of life is of course subjective. Some people like free and open spaces, some people like having many interesting things going on around them. Population density permits, for example, far more diverse businesses. As a completely made up example, consider an "indy movie theater" (replace your favorite niche business here). Let's say as an example that this attracts 1 in 100 people per month. A town of 10,000 would give just 100 customers / month - not remotely viable. A town of 1,000,000 could give 10
#MyTownToo (Score:3)
There is, however, one glaring issue with all this rapid, high-priced growth: the people who actually make a mountain town run — the ski instructors and patrollers, lift operators and shuttle drivers, housekeepers and snowcat mechanics, cooks and servers — can no longer afford to live there.
This is exactly what has happened here (northern AZ). Not a ski town, but we are popular with tourists for other outdoors-related reasons and for the last six weeks they have been back. But this year, the above-listed service workers can no longer afford to live here.
Nothing new at all (Score:2)
No one is entitled to community stasis merely because they got there first but I can't blame them for trying all means fair or foul to maintain it.
If you REALLY want rural life WITHOUT change you don't pick the most desirable locations, but choose carefully in an area of very slow growth that comes towards you from a distance and gives time to permit selling out and relocating if the money is right.
I did and barring some truly bizarre event like someone hallucinating my state has an educated workforce I'll
Re: (Score:2)
Change happens faster now though. It scares me that Fairbanks, AK is bordering on a metropolis. Ok, maybe not today... but once all the coal-fired power plants in town are... well, maybe not in my lifetime...
Welcome To Vancouver BC (Score:2)
Canadian real-estate market better for foreign investors than locals, admits [federal government] housing secretary
https [vancouversun.com]
Pity, Really (Score:2)
I fondly remember visiting that place in Feb '69. Didn't have much money to waste, but it didn't matter: the place was a ghost town, found a cheap motel, all was well. Lots of snow too.
Re: (Score:2)
Occam's razor applies very much... (Score:2)
Your Visa 3-D Secure issues are due to machine-learning flagging your purchases as suspect. This is a normal part of how banks protect people against fraud. Just don't use a VPN when bu