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Comment by baron816 | Hacker News Reader

Alternate experience: I just moved into SF a week ago from elsewhere in the Bay.

I was able to get a large, modern, luxury 1BR in a decent location for under $3K + almost a 1 month concession and no deposit.

Being a single, young(ish) guy, it still makes sense to be in a city. I have more space than I need now, and I can afford the rent. Maybe things aren’t that nice right now, but I’m hoping they’ll get back to semi-normality in a few months. Plus, I’m still banking on there being more opportunity to level up in my career much more here.

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> I was able to get a large, modern, luxury 1BR in a decent location for under $3K

This sounds like a joke about just how absurd SF rents are.

Assuming the 1BR is 700+ sqft and the location is something like SOMA or Hayes Valley this would be a good deal.

Yes SF rents are generally insane.

820sf and right between those two neighborhoods.

And for reference, a Hayes Valley 1bd would still be right above $3k. Or right below with concessions.

Luxury studios are going to $2400 already though.

Expecting further drops.

Yes, there are many people in Central Valley who can now afford to live out their dream of being in "the city".

A change of scenery is a change of scenery. I've met suddenly unencumbered East Coasters that roadtripped across during Phase 1 Shelter in Place, and they are content with the new environment.

I don't see these as demand drivers, as the replacements are not the economic powerhouses that were here: subsidized college kids and tech workers. So its nice if the city gets a diverse culture again, but in the topic of rent and housing prices, I wouldn't expect a rebound so optimistically.

Luxury studios were about that much 10 years ago. I don’t expect drops to be much further. The exodus is already decelerating according to Zestimates I’ve been following closely. I expect prices to drop further for a little bit longer then start to creep back up. Anyone who wants to live in the best weather in the continental USA should lock in their price now.

I also think $2400 is a floor here, but I also think the spread between unit types will get much closer. Instead of a 1bd being $2900, maybe it will be $2490. I've seen this curve compress in a lot of different combinations over the last 3 months.

But the other factor, which I think everyone is still neglecting, is that the exodus was only voluntarily exits. Evictions and foreclosures aren't happening and there is a massive backlog when they do. So with only the current date, November - January is when the fireworks start.

Best weather in continental USA? You mean in Orange County? I lived in Irvine for 6 years and it was essentially an average of 72 all year and mostly sunny days and barely any rain at all. Versus SF which gets way more cloudy and rainy days and isn't as warm.

I've left now but I miss the SoCal weather badly.

It’s subjective of course. I find Orange County far too hot for my own tastes.

What is not subjective is from summer to winter, SF has the least variance in average temperature due to its unique geography.

So that would be, cold and foggy to cold and foggy? San Francisco weather is not usually touted as "good" by most common measures. I'll grant you that it is consistent, but most people appreciate seeing the sun now and then.

the mission is not cold and foggy. took me a while (1.5 aggravating years) to figure out which microclimates were conducive to me.

> right between those two neighborhoods

So, in the tenderloin? Suddenly not a great deal.

A large luxurious modern SRO.

Not quite the Tenderloin. It’s technically Civic Center. Yes, there’s plenty of homeless around, but that’s just SF, right?

> but that’s just SF, right?

No absolutely not. It's literally only a problem in Civic Center/Downtown/SOMA.

Closer to Golden Gate Park / Pac Heights is gorgeous.

That's not really true. I've lived in the Inner Sunset for 2 years, and I've actually noticed an increase in the local homeless population over that time. Obviously not concentrated/encamped in the way they are in the neighborhoods you mention, but still, they're much more present than in equivalent quiet residential neighborhoods I've lived in in NYC or Chicago.

Pac Heights is still great. So are most of the areas surrounding GG.

It varies. There were multiple encampments in the Richmond. 24th and Anza, 20th and Geary, and 16th and Geary for example. The city cleaned them up recently and posted signs about no lodging, but they were there for months before.

Don’t listen to everyone being so negative. I lived in Civic Center for several years. Fine place because it’s so central and easy to get anywhere. Probably not a good place to raise a family but otherwise fine. You got a great deal on rent.

Oh no... I barely tolerate driving through civic center, nevermind walking there. I avoid waking or biking through the filth in the civic center at all costs. I'm not being facetious, I wish you a good time with no ill events, that's definitely a good deal on the rent.

> Yes, there’s plenty of homeless around, but that’s just SF, right?

Not most of the city, no. You moved right into its epicenter.

You're literally in the worst of it.

You're probably at Argenta, Fox Plaza, NEMA or 100 Van Ness. It's a fine place very central to most cool spots. Keep your wits about you and it shouldn't be a problem. I find 4th to 8th St to be the worst of it.

That's a good deal.

Only because of how insane housing in SF is.

For comparison I own a 2br apartment in Melbourne, Australia. It takes about 15 minutes to walk from here to the heart of the city. My mortgage repayments (including interest) are about $700usd/month.

Better coffee and no human excrement on the sidewalks too.

I live in SF and no excrement on the sidewalk where I live.

Problem with SF is some neighborhoods are being neglected. There’s no penalty for lawless vagrancy, not even a “shoo shoo”. I’ve seen portapotties set up next to tent camps. I guess that’s better than street shitting but it’s a major disappointment to see tent cities encouraged.

> My mortgage repayments (including interest) are about $700usd/month.

Melbourne is not cheap, there must be more to this story. The average house price in Melbourne is $855,428. A $600k unit, 20% deposit, 25y mortgage, cheap 2% rate is $1.4k or USD 1k. + strata fees

Yeah, this person lives in a shoebox in the outer suburbs. We pay double that for a 1920s apartment (so very spacious, but cheap) in a suburb walking distance from the CBD, right next to a tram line.

No I don’t. I’m not in the sticks - it’s a ~20 minute walk to southern cross station from here. I’m not saying how much I paid but it was noticeably less than $600k. My apartment is small for a 2br (It would be uncomfortable with a family) but I live alone and it’s great. It’s bigger than any studio apartment you’d find in SF for $3k/month.

The numbers work out because I had a decent deposit when I bought - which I should have mentioned above since it certainly brings the repayments down. And (I think) let my mortgage broker negotiate for better rates.

30 Yr Mortgage would be 2.75%-3.1% with very good credit right now

Right, I think the parent was quoting an absurdly low rate to point out that even with unrealistically ideal financing, the monthly payment would still be higher than the grandparent's claim.

I'm calling BS on this. I lived in Melbourne for the past 5 years (left 8 month ago) and never saw any 2br apartment that would be that cheap with a standard P+I loan with 10% down.

I guess it's possible if you took out an interest-only loan for only a fraction of the purchase price, but then you've painted a highly misleading picture.

To clarify they don't live "in Melbourne", they live in the outer suburbs. Sure, you can buy a 2BR apartment in Dandenong. Do you really want to?

Guy spends about 150 % of my net income just on rent.

That’s a deal, it’s not much higher than it was ten years ago (oddly enough, when it was already insanely high)

Really? I was living in a nice not-rent-controlled ~800sqft 1BR in a decent part of the western addition in 2010, for $1700/mo.

$3k might have been common at the high end, but I don't think that was typical.

Only if you don't know how many more jobs there are in SF that pay well enough to afford that than there are in other places.

If salaries don't need to reflect local cost of living, it seems that salaries will be subject to change. Fairly soon?

that's an excellent point!!

You're assuming that salaries are not also impacted by the immense amount of wealth being generated by the Silicon Valley economy, though. And you're also assuming that housing prices will radically change, which I don't think is guaranteed even in the medium-term.

That's not what this article and others are saying. That is, people are leaving and housing is falling. Also, much of the appeal comes from bars, restaurants, boutiques, and such. Those too are falling off the map.

I'm not assuming anything.

I actually re-read the comment to see if he said 3BR. Was disappointed to find that it was 3k for 1BR, absolutely not imaginable in my salary.

Six figure salaries are the norm for software engineers in SF. Hard not to be able to afford a 3k rent as a software engineer.

Damn. That’s a lot of money.

You can rent-to-own a 6br house on a 6k+ sqft lot with a detached garage in NJ with a ~1hr commute to Manhattan for $3,500/month in NJ. $3k/month on an apartment gets you a luxury huge 2 to 3 bedroom with in unit w/d and bowling/swimming in the basement or something in Hoboken with a <25min commute to Manhattan.

Thinking 36k/year (more then the total comp of many workers in America) is cheap housing is a Bay-area distortion.

who wants that long of a commute? It's all relative and the salaries here more than make up for it. I'm sure someone in the texas exurb would think you're nuts for paying that much in hoboken.

I think it's nuts too. I'd rather work from home and live in the middle of nowhere. 3k/month is a mansion in most parts of the world.

As someone who grew up in NJ about an hour south of Manhattan, that sounds like a living situation that would make me very unhappy as an adult (don't get me wrong; I had a great childhood). But I have some dear friends who lived in San Jose for several years and then ended up moving back to rural South Jersey, so, clearly, to each their own.

Even the 25min commute from Hoboken would make me sad. I want to be able to walk or take local transit to where I want to hang out.

> Thinking 36k/year is cheap housing is a Bay-area distortion.

I don't think anyone's making that claim?

>I have some dear friends who lived in San Jose for several years and then ended up moving back to rural South Jersey

That's a hell of a jump. What about rural South Jersey appealed to them?

Ive lived in San Jose and I can assure you that besides jobs, San Jose kind of sucks as a place to live. It's mostly just strip malls and good weather, imho. Campbell was a little nicer and had some cute shops.

Mostly proximity to extended family, and in general just indifference toward many of the trade offs between city and rural living. Those trade offs matter a lot to me, but not to them.

I live in the area and I think this is a bit exaggerated. I dont think the commute is 1hr door to door either. It's almost 1hr d2d from Harrison and I know you arent talking about Jersey City / Newark / Harrison / Bayonne

> Being a single, young(ish) guy, it still makes sense to be in a city.

A city, yes. SF? No. By far it's the worst place for this I've ever seen.

> By far it's the worst place for this I've ever seen.

San Jose is worse. As was the suburb I just moved from. But, yes, point taken.

There are far worse places than SF. But yeah SF needs better leadership. Our current incognito mayor needs to be thrown out.

Depends on sexual orientation.

Beijing would be worse.

What's a good US city to live in?

For a single guy? New York. DC.

New York for sure before the pandemic, but now?

Manhattan renter here. NYC's slowly coming back alive. Hoping the commercial rents on storefronts go down a bit and we see some more novel shops open and some of the chain banks and fast food joints disappear.

Also, you can... pretty much, walk around town with a "to go" beer now which is really nice. It reminds me of Europe and taking a nice long walk, and then grabbing a bevvy is a nice change of pace from sitting at a bar in the before times.

A lot of stuff is still really empty, bike traffic is booming, the subways are surprisingly enjoyable to ride on due to the decreased numbers, and the beach is fantastic.

I don't have too many worries about the recovery here. Especially since the populace seems pretty good about masks. Hoping my rent drops a bit though!

Other things that I hope remain post COVID are some of the streets being closed off to traffic with lots of tables in the roads.

At the community board meetings they're already discussing whether or not they'll take a lot of the office space around me and end up converting it to residential. I think it's a bit premature for that but the city seems ready to adapt and thrive.

If you want to safely live in a city, now more than ever. The nation watched in horror as the pandemic hit NYC, hard, early on, so while other parts of the country still can't get their act together and wear a mask, NYC's experienced the shock and horror first hand and is likely to open back up sooner, even without a vaccine, simply due to more people believing in the guidelines. Conversely with only 69 deaths in San Francisco county attributed to COVID-19, SF's simply tired of being inside.

> I was able to get a large, modern, luxury 1BR in a decent location for under $3K + almost a 1 month concession and no deposit.

After being in my 1br in the Tendernob for 10 years ($1675/mo), I upgraded to a larger (similar layout) apt for just over $2K in Nob Hill. I received two-months concession for a 15-month lease.

I'm long past wanting to blow $200+ a night on bars and restaurants every day and because I love being in SF, I'm really happy.

But you're just renting... won't the price skyrocket when things go back to normal?

who cares? live your dream for 1 or 2 years and move on, or cross your fingers that new opportunities present itself in the denser environment that let you keep up with the rent. If you don't make new friends that you want to be roommates with for lower individual rent, then you end up moving on anyway.

Almost all apartments in SF are rent controlled. The landlord can only raise the rent by some tiny nominal percentage mandated by the rent board every year.

This isn't really true... it only applies to units that were built before a certain year (1979). If you are in any kind of modern unit / luxury unit as noted by GP, then this won't hold.

However, most landlords in non-managed buildings are fairly reasonable about only raising rent 2-5% a year. Your mileage may vary.

That still applies to ~170k rental units, which constitute ~70% of the entire SF rental market.

https://www.spur.org/sites/default/files/publications_pdfs/S...

I think rent control laws recently changed, in the last two years; in SF units older than 2005 now fall under standard rent control rules of ~2% per year or CPI increase, whichever is less. Values of properties built in 2005 recently dropped as a result. A couple years ago, rent controlled units were much older.

Source? Is it not 5%+CPI or 10% whichever is lower [0]?

[0] https://sfrb.org/article/summary-ab-1482-california-tenant-p...

Then great news, SF has built almost nothing since 1979, so you’re more likely than not to be covered!

Maybe I was being a cheapskate for keeping my rent under $2k per month when I lived there, but I never lived in an apartment that wasn’t rent controlled.

Last stat is read is 30% of units in SF aren’t under rent control. Don’t forget that condos (single unit) aren’t rent controlled even if older than 1979.

For better or worse, landlords have figured out they can renovate the unit (at considerable expense) in order to need get a new certificate of occupancy, which has the upside of considering it to be a 'new' unit for rent-control reasons.

> won't the price skyrocket when things go back to normal?

California adopted statewide rent control as of 1 January 2020. [0] If not already under rent control, rental units older than 15 years are now under rent control.

[0] https://la.curbed.com/2019/9/24/20868937/california-rent-con...

Limited to 5% plus rental inflation, and I'm not sure concessions count towards the rate, so they could still go up substantially within a few years.

What’s the decent location? Even without parking rent that seems extremely low for sf. Also luxury?

Rent is extremely low in SF compared to what it a year ago. 9-25% off. Yeah, wide range.

Luxury buildings are the primary ones offering more 1-2 month concessions, which really means rent has dropped another 18% than what is listed.

And this is without evictions on tenants, or foreclosures on homeowners. Both of which can't really get started until November or January due to local regulations and now backlog. This is with purely voluntary departures.

For comparison: When I was apartment shopping in late February and early march in northern Virginia (limited to walking distance to the office and nice restaurants) One place I looked at was a luxury 1BR at $2k + 1 month concession, I went with a cheaper "studio" in the same building though (the 1BR had carpet and the studio had hardwood floor and wasn't much smaller.)

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