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Comment by clivestaples | Hacker News Reader

Sometimes I wonder how long "permanent" will be for these decisions. Off topic, but if the permanent work-from-home trend continues, I cannot imagine what is going to happen to commercial real estate. Convert to residential? Is this equilibrium needed for overheated housing markets?

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I have been crowing about this for years now. WFH by default could easily relieve pressure from the housing market at least in places where there are lots of people who have a job where they can WFH.

I would absolutely live 2 hours from an office if I only had to go in once every week or two. I'd live further if it was once a month.

Gonna be great when you get a pay cut according to your new housing costs.

pull the 'ol Gitlab tactic

Some commercial real estate will be leased out as individual offices to people who have WFH jobs but want to have an office (don't have space at home, etc.).

WeWork will rise again

That's an interesting point, I would guess they'd have no choice but to switch to condos or flats.

But then if everyone is working anywhere why on earth would you live in SF.

And why would companies hire in SF if they can pick up comparable talent at a fractional price from Romania.

Lots of questions!

If the glaring problems with SF were fixed, this is still one of the best places in the world to live quality-of-life wise. Weather, accessibility to some of the best nature in the world, great food, entertainment, etc.

Yeah fair enough, but if my job let me live anywhere I think I could find a reasonable approximation for a significant CoL reduction somewhere else.

Sure, not denying that, but I think it's uncharitable to question why anyone would want to live here. There are many reasons. You personally may not strike that ideal cost-value balance but it's certainly there for many people, especially if the biggest reasons why people leave SF are gone -- cost, homelessness, and possibly politics (mostly related to homelessness and cost).

SF anywhere near Market or Mission is a 3rd world country. I just moved to Seattle. The QoL difference is striking.

Yeah, it sucks. From my few visits to Seattle, it seemed similar in parts but I haven't spent enough time there to make a confident assertion.

It might just be the current situation but I have seen maybe 4 homeless in 3 weeks in my day to day and I take a lot of walks. Could just be looking in the wrong spots but there were literally 20 tents on my block near Bart in the Mission so its an upgrade.

Found this: https://www.seattle.gov/homelessness/unauthorized-encampment...

I do recall some Seattlites mentioning one specific area that is particularly bad by name but don't recall that name.

I think I heard Pioneer Square is bad, just walked there the other day and it's not anything like SFs bad areas. There could just be better options for homeless during the shutdown here than SF though. I will reserve full judgement until things are back open.

People are going to be surprised by the state of the FiDi in SF when things open back up. Many tents have gone up there with everyone gone and WFH. Going to be interesting when people go back to the office there.

This varies block-to-block. It's fine by Embarcadero, OK around Powell, sketchy as fuck at 6th.

Definitely true, also the anything near 16th Street Mission Bart is out of control. There are definitely nice parts of SF, usually on a hill, but the bad parts are BAD.

I think you might see companies considering hiring people who live in Bakersfield, Sacramento, maybe even Nevada instead of San Francisco, but there's a vast difference between "usually working from home", and "Needs an international flight to get to the office" and "Literally works in a time zone that doesn't share any office hours with their boss".

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