San Francisco’s rent prices have never returned to pre-2020 levels
sfchronicle.com
sfchronicle.com
However the neighborhoods are dreamy, as good as ever. The city lost population during the pandemic but it has been gaining and in 2023, it is the fastest growing in the state.
I've been in tech for years here and it is the best job market, most lucrative, and most advanced. It's an opportunity to work here. Just don't live in the tenderloin.
I never got this. I lived in a “good” neighborhood, but still the TL issues (drug addicts, unhoused mentally ill people, dirty sidewalks, needles) still crept in. What neighborhoods are immune to this?
I've haven't driven past that area before nor after, but it really made me feel like long-term it would be a nice place to reside in SF away from the classic SF problems you've described.
It's historically been a working class Pinoy, Latino, Canto, and Black neighborhood.
It used to be very rough in the gangbanger kinda way.
It's kind of like how East San Jose is fairly clean, but it's good to be careful where you are depending on the time of night.
Sunnyvale and RWC used to be similar in that sense as well 15-20 years ago too.
I am not familiar with the history of some of the other planned tracts there but this map seems to suggest that area is mostly composed of master planned communities. https://sfrichmondreview.com/2023/01/10/local-author-and-his...
school allocation is not based on location in SF
Most parents who need to drive their kids across the city are doing it because the alternative (their kid goes to the nearest school) is, in some way, worse.
We lived in those neighborhoods cuz they were cheap and there were community services to fall back on. Once our parents could afford it, they would move out as soon as they could.
Gorehs/Gweilo are weird.
It blows my mind that people are so uncaring about their kids' daily experience (mobility, independence, access to interesting activities, ...) as to move to typical American suburbs with their kids. The benefit of the suburbs is a bigger amount of personal space at home for the same price, but everything outside the house kind of sucks, especially for kids.
We're not necessarily the "techie family" you are imagining though; I spent about a quarter of my childhood in a medium-poor city in Mexico, and my wife grew up in China. Personally I really appreciate having a quite diverse cast of neighbors.
Hard to judge an international city using only American standards.
Is there a racism issue or is it that ethnicity based gangs exist?
Homicides per 100k (from a couple of years ago):
San Francisco: 4.5
US: 6.3
UK/France/Germany: 0.8-1.2
Living in the Mission there are a handful of shootings per year. But it's a pretty dense neighbourhood so per population it's probably pretty normal for the US. The level of street homelessness is shocking but not as bad as downtown and you get used to that after a while too. Petty crime is definitely a problem.
Personally I worry more about being hit by a car crossing the road since cars are allowed to drive through the pedestrian crossing even when there is a walk signal.
note, I also live in the Mission District and it's a shit hole to me. Gangs hanging out at 20th and Mission fronting for each other. Illegal markets all up and down the street selling stolen goods. Traffic signs and laws being ignored. Valdalism everywhere. Homeless under my window. Mentally ill screaming at 3 am. People drag racing at 2am
I generally feel significantly safer in cities with relatively walkable sidewalks, relatively narrow streets, and lots of pedestrian/bike traffic than I do in typical American suburbs full of strip malls and 6-lane roads. The latter are in my opinion horrendous places to raise children.
I've never forgotten a quote by some one who offered to help a homeless woman who smelled rather horrible. Offered things like soap or a safe place to clean up, the woman responded that the smell actually helped reduce sexual advances towards her.
Aside from one well-dressed dude who let his dog shit on leaves on a sidewalk and just kept walking. But that’s not what you called out.
Also, have had nothing but great parking. Left my car in a no-bump spot now for a couple days (an isolated space, no cars in front or behind).
On the flip side, I can’t imagine being a runner and living in the Mission. The amount of streets you would have to cross every day just to get a few miles in is stressful to think about
SF is a block by block affair though, there’s a few sketchy blocks in all of those neighborhoods, you just have to know the social topology of the city.
As awful as it is that's the trade off: if you can't conveniently walk up the hill, criminals and homeless people usually won't bother either.
For example the poor public transit available to developed places such as West Sydney, or Bijlmer in Amsterdam have lead to increases in crime rates
Poor physical mobility for the lower classes leads to decreased social mobility which results in increased crime rates for the larger metropolitan areas as a whole
This is first or second year Urban planning mate
The elite ones who don't let random people in.
I agree that it is mostly downtown that is dead but the rest of your comment seems hyperbolic to me. Hayes Valley, Valencia, Polk was way more lively when I was there.
> best job market
The hundreds in SF laid off this year may disagree
> most lucrative
yes, incomes and stocks do generally increase yoy. Tautology.
> and most advanced
as does technology
It just sucks people are forced to make a these difficult choices for rent.
So I’d say yes.
To be a _good_ founder you should also be capable of starting a tractor dealership in Iowa or taking over an accounting firm in Dallas. You have leadership, entrepreneurship, and decision making skills.
Silicon Valley has enough tide to lift all boats that mediocre people like you describe can still have a chance at success and being heralded as mold breaking visionaries.
I quite prefer the valley environments ability to take deep domain experts and turn them into the best managers of their own technology.
Technically not needed, but turns out it is really beneficial to be with likeminded people with common goals.
Or Bayview-Hunters Point, apparently that one is even worse... /watch?v=FXLD6wn2VBQ
This number must be dragged down by rent-controlled. It seems too low. At apartments.com, there are 1777 listings for one bedroom apartments in SF. There are only 112 apartments listed for below $2200.
I lived in a rent controlled apartment in SF for a year. What was frustrating was realizing that I was paying significantly more rent than other tenants in similar units.
How did you end up paying more than comp with a rent controlled unit? That doesn’t make much sense.
If the other renters had been there for many years, they'd still be paying market rate (plus a bit) from years earlier. That could be a lot less than market rate now.
That's why renters in rent-controlled units tend not to move as much - as market rates go up, your rent gets relatively cheaper over time and that's an incentive to stay put.
The rent controlled landlords struggled, and didn't have much, or any, wiggle room for upkeep. (Just look at the Parkmerced saga. The place was a dump, but politics prevented them from fixing it.)
I moved into my rent controlled apartment because it was a good deal; the non-rent-control apartments actually cost more at the time.
I've seen "low" rents there, but you get to live in a rough looking neighborhood and its not very clean or safe.
To be fair, if you're making 170-240k base you can easily afford 3-4k per month rent to live in a nicer building. People who are in relationships can stretch this even further, not to mention the RSUs/options.
Also, people live all the way down to SJ and then up the east bay. Rents in SJ are like 2500/mo for a single bedroom in a newer building, but its not that great of an area tbh. In mid-peninsula its comparable to SF rents because it is really nice, safe, and you get a lot more families. There are no homeless and barely any crime there, and SF is just 20-30 min away.
Schools are better. Most techies are Asian or Eastern European immigrants, so school rankings matter.
That's why a house in San Ramon is much more expensive than a house in Walnut Creek despite WC being better connected by public transit.
Personally I find the peninsula to be the best in terms of opportunities/quality of life/cost.
Most listings are posted on the Property Owner's website (eg. Gaetani, RentSF, etc), not on apartments.com, Zillow, or Craigslist. Those are where us townies fleece transplants.
Before the pandemic, I had a 1 bedroom in Nob Hill for around that much before upgrading to Mission Bay.
Streeteasy has a data dashboard and is showing that % of rentals offering concessions is at an all time high (excluding the covid anomaly)
>50% of renters in SF are on rent control.
This points to a localized impact that is not explained by broader trends in inflation, housing, etc.
Where is this suburb that's an 8th the cost? 8 hours of travel away?
I would say just about anywhere in the Bay Area would be nicer than SF. Cupertino, Campbell, southern San Jose, Palo Alto, Mountain View, Santa Cruz (not quite Silicon Valley but sort of), Alameda, Gilroy, etc. I'd say the only place I'd avoid more than SF is Oakland.
Do you really think that telling one person on Hacker News about a nice spot is going to make that spot stop being nice?
Maybe this whole thread is a mislead and someone has their eyes on the peninsula ;)
I moved to the Tenderloin in SF and I was much happier, it was very lively indeed.
You can very easily live in areas of the city without a car and I have done so. Plenty of places on the Northside - but those places will be somewhat expensive compared to the city average. The good news of course is that Chicago is generally far cheaper than other large cities, so most folks posting on HN can probably find something that fits the bill.
Vast swaths of residential neighborhoods are simply not well serviced by public transit. Especially on the south and west sides where to be blunt, most folks on HN will never visit. These areas look much like the post-WWII suburbs I grew up in elsewhere in the midwest, just slightly more density due to lot lines being closer together.
It really is a tale of two cities here. If you can afford to, you can easily live in one of the most walkable and transit friendly cities in the nation. I posit it's only behind NYC for that. However, if you live just 5 miles away in the "wrong" neighborhood your options will be car or relatively poor bus service.
Of course your definition may be different than mine. My father considers places like St. Louis livable without a car - but I totally disagree. Sure you can make it work, but at ridiculous expense to your time and lifestyle.
I personally bought a place specifically in relation to how close it was to functional rapid transit. I'm privileged enough to do so, but many friends and family simply couldn't afford to live in such areas of the city - if they moved here they would certainly be daily car drivers.
- SF rents have been falling
- There is not enough housing in SF
This is because SF is still a very expensive place to live. If there were more affordable housing, a lot more people would still choose to live there.
It ends up messing with the local housing market, as the Californians come in with a ton of money for housing (as housing is so expensive where they're from) and all the prices are super low in the new location. Since they have enough money to pay for it, prices go sky-high. Not good for locals (unless you want to sell your house).
You can buy 2 equal sized, equivalent location, equal desirability houses in North Carolina (or insert most other states) and California and end up paying double or triple in California.
This argument doesn't make any sense, it isn't like Californians come and think "Wow let me pay 200k over asking price because this is such a good deal compared to the Bay!", they see the same prices you see. I don't see how Californians are distinguishable from any other demographic that migrates to somewhere like e.g. Austin, this just seems like an unwarranted reason to hate on people from Cali
I think that logic ties in with the theme of the article as well. Supply and demand regulates markets in a subtle way, it's not a binary input like "people want to live in SF or not". Maybe it's enough that 1/10 of the people who wants to move there changes their minds when they see the housing market.
Supply and demand is the market.
A cash offer doesn't have that risk, so all else being equal sellers will choose them over mortgage offers. This has the effect of raising prices faster than they might otherwise go, because the appraisal system normally serves as a bit of inertia in the system.
The fact that you can just go downstairs and get fresh and near authentic Com Tam, Shiumai, or Tandoori for cheap is hard to beat, and the community is much stronger and better represented.
Not to say NYC is bad - it's an amazing city - but, to quote Ali Wong, SF is absolutely an Asian Wakanda
I can speak as someone of South and Central Asian descent though. There are options for that in NYC, but I'd need to commute over an hour to New Jersey, Midwood, or Brighton Beach. Meanwhile I can get Aush or Charsi Kebab within at most a 40 minute BART ride from SF, and have 4-5 different options.
If I want to get HK Cha Chaan Teng style Yu Char Kway I have like 8-9 options within 3 miles of me within SF, or if I want to try some cool Thai Chinese style crepes there are 4 options in SF alone.
If I ever want to find a specific Asian sub-ethnic group's food - I will always find 3-4 options for that in the Bay Area, but it's difficult even in NYC
Furthermore, Asian and Latino culture is extremely normalized in California compared to NY. The same way a New Yorker is a fanatic for an Italian sub is the same way a Californian is for their Banh Mi
And finally, it's hard to discount the representation all over California. In the east coast you will feel like the other - people absolutely do look at you weird if you ain't white or black - but in the West no one bats an eye.
Basically, imagine if you were an Italian New Yorker. Italians have been well represented politically, culturally, and socially. You're basically the top dog. In NYC you can try every single type of ethnic Italian cuisine at every single price point. For Asian ethnic groups, that's most of California (and the West in general).
The rest of your story's anecdotes are about twenty years out of date. NYC for Italian subs? Really? There's like six Italians left east of the Husdon and three of them speak Spanish at home.
Top dog ethnicity btw is a hilarious (and dangerous) way of looking at things.
Numerically, not proportionally. The Bay Area has been a hub for Asian Americans for a long time.
> Fort Lee has its own contribution here
Fort Lee is mostly Korean.
I gave an examples of Pakhtun and Cantonese food - one a niche community in the US and the other a large diaspora in the US.
That's the thing - us Asians aren't a monolith. We're a fucking continent with hundreds of different ethnicities.
Just about every South Asian, Chinese, and Southeast Asian community is represented in the Bay, with a well represented Central Asian and East Asian community as well.
I can get Liti Chokha (Bhojpuri), Laghman (Hui-Uyghur fusion), Horse Kumis (Mongolian), Banh Mi Xiu Mai (Highland Vietnamese), etc within the core Bay Area via public transit alone. With driving it would be even faster
That almost isn't a thing in NYC. Hell, there's only one Laghman joint in NYC and they completely butchered their Samosa compared to Mrs Khan, Kusan, or Nursel. Farida is decent, but half their family and staffed moved to the Bay Area to open restaurants like Halal Dastarkhan.
Every small Asian ethnic group is well represented in the Bay irrespective of size.
If you're a numerically large ethnic group like Korean or Cantonese it might not matter as much, but it does to us who are from smaller ethnic groups. My ethnic group has only 3 million people at most, and most of them only reside in South and Central Asia with no diaspora.
I don't want to lose my cultural background. And this is the same for plenty of other smaller communities.
> NYC for Italian subs?
It's an example of cultural assimilation to highlight how ingrained Asian ethnic groups have become in California.
There is surprisingly poor Vietnamese and Indian food in New York, although that’s slowly changing. But for lots of asian cuisines there’s fantastic diversity and quality.
And most other communities aren't well represented in general. Even Chinese ones, compared to the Bay. Like I think there are only 2 Guilin style restaurants in the NYC area (please correct me if wrong - I'd love recommendations).
For smaller Asian ethnic groups, we are well represented in the Bay Area due to the existing large Asian community (and to a lesser extent in most other West Coast cities)
This isn't a think in NYC. Nor is there convenience. The same way a New Yorker can go downstairs and get a Pizza Slice, I can get a Banh Mi or Jiaozi in SF.
NYC has options, but it's a minority. That's a very real thing - it's a MINORITY. This simply isn't as common an experience in California.
If you're a numerically large ethnic group like Korean or Cantonese it might not matter as much, but it does to us who are from smaller ethnic groups. My ethnic group has only 3 million people at most, and most of them only reside in South and Central Asia with no diaspora.
Public transit is better in NYC, but that's a side effect of density.
2023: The rent isn’t going up, SF is dying.
What if, maybe, SF actually has found a period of relative price stability as a very expensive place but no longer the most expensive place.
Seems like a totally reasonable situation to me.
(Bias warning: I rented in SF for 7+ years, just bought in SF, so my normal is SF normal)
That doesn't sound right: US-wide inflation since 2019 is less than 30% (more like 19%), in which case I don't see how to square your claim with the article's headline.
"The city’s typical rent in November 2023 was 16.4% lower than the $2,620 in November 2019."
https://sftreasurer.org/business/taxes-fees/empty-homes-tax-...
Businesses have left the city, removing a reason to pay higher rent to live there.
iirc, inflation actually matched that after a while.
I'm mulling moving (back) to the SF Bay area. I am at a senior position at work(AI). Pay is a factor but more about wanting to be at the cutting edge, and change of scene. Issue is I have two kids under 10. I was doing the math for south bay area but this thread makes me wonder if SF is doable (living/employment). Suggestions about feasibility/lifestyle compromises/something else to factor in?
Oh .. spouse is not in tech :(
Ask for no less than 200, preferably 250+ base. Live close to work, transit in the Bay ranges between somewhat tolerable to nonexistent. Check family health insurance costs carefully. Do not assume you will be able to work remote, return to office is very real. Several Peninsula cities are only about half an hour from SF, might be a good starting point that lets you explore up and down the bay and decide where you would want to settle in for the long term.
There are plenty of crazy homed people. There are plenty of homed people committing crimes. Most people who are homeless are totally normal people who hit a bad patch, and it's very difficult to get back on your feet when no one will give you a job.
Yes, some homeless are dangerous. But the simple truth is that there are still way more crazy homed people who are dangerous. Yes, that is obviously partly because there are way more people who are homed than homeless. That is part of my point - the homeless issue is magnified by fear. I'm not saying it's made up.
0 - https://abcnews.go.com/US/116-people-died-gun-violence-day-u...
It is not a lawless hellhole. There is a lot of property crime, but it's not because we don't have enough cops. The weather is very good. Excellent restaurants.
The government is ridiculous.
[0] https://www.redfin.com/city/16163/WA/Seattle/housing-market
Barring a significant disaster, the land itself will have value enough to provide you shelter, and in most cases a decent living.
The etymology of the phrase has little to do with the modern day.
Does land in the Bay Area have a significant value? Certainly! But if there's a durable change in the supply/demand balance (which it's far from proven that there is), that value can become less (not zero, just less), and trying to finesse it back to its peak value just won't work if there is a significant durable change.
Is person A who has a plot of real estate in a valuable location likely better off than person B who is exactly like person A, but has no real estate? Well, like... no duh, dude. Real estate has positive value, and nobody has ever suggested otherwise.
Is person A who has a plot of real estate in a valuable location likely better off than person B who is exactly like person A, but instead they have a non-real estate asset that has the same nominal value as person A's real estate? Maybe, maybe not! It is not a law of nature that real estate outperforms other assets.
It is, over long time windows. This is the core point I am making here.
Nothing will come anywhere close.
Some of them have been basically good investments. Others have been iffy. You do of course accrue rents from them, but there are also costs. There is no law of nature that they outperform other investments.
Why the hell do they push this so hard? Is it just some ponzi scheme to prop up the housing market or something?
The fact that rents are still higher than that is pretty good evidence that a large number of people continue to opt in.
It’s the same situation as in New York.
Plenty of landlords can afford keeping their prices high hoping for the eventual bite. If they lower their prices further they do a bigger damage to their portfolio for years to come once you factor in rent control.
They hope to ride out the lows.
EDIT: of course if you mess up, that mistake is now set in stone and backed by legal resource of your city, so it’s not risk free.
this assumes the returns set out by the rent control is appropriate in all future situations. Even with the allowance for increases, there are still situations where such an increase is insufficient.
Unfortunately, the proverbial cat is out of the bag and we will likely see repeats of such “subsidies”. It’s unclear how it will change the calculations long-term. Short-term, it has already driven the unlucky small landlords out of business and forced surviving to keep greater reserves. This increased reserves need will definitely hamper future development and probably will drive rents up even more due to lack of supply. Large corporate landlords tend to focus on the higher end of the market, but the shortage is in the more affordable price range…
I didn't read the article, and assumed the opposite of its actual conclusions.
Rents are way down from pre-2020 times.
Which makes it even more fun to read the responses that argue rents will not drop even when demand declines.
Demand for some things is elastic only down to a point. That's the point where customers are hostages.
People stop getting papers delivered in favor of online news, so prices have to go up to cover fixed costs, pushing more people to stop getting papers delivered and so on.
I notice, walking around the 'hood, that some people still get the San Jose Mercury-News delivered. Why?
I think they just have to get a morning paper, and if it's getting shittier by the year, well, so be it. You're right, lots of readers have already cancelled, but there's a core of readers who won't. The Merc can raise the price and they'll just pay it.
The rent being higher feels more like collusion than actual demand.
And if you dig into the data you'll also notice that there's "asking rent" and "effective rent" (rent after concessions)
That is a very odd choice. I get that the bay has a crime/homeless/CoL problem but fleeing to a place with much of the same issues in its own cities while also being one of the worst parts of the country culturally outside of then isn’t any better, IMO.
Like I’m not even sure what language you’re supposed to use.
Economic migrant, most of the people 'fleeing' venezuela are elites, not people who were actually victims of the economy collapsing.
FWIW, I’ve lived in 8 states - TN, MS, GA, AK, CO, NY, NJ, and FL. Every one of them has pros and cons, and you find all sorts of people everywhere. This idea that a particular state is somehow culturally worse, reflects a lack of either depth or life experience.
You have never lived there, if I understand correctly. Why wouldn't you move there? Is there some experience you have with it? Housing prices? Internet rumors?
1. Get a full time nanny.
2. Buy a home at a desirable neighbourhood.
I wouldn't mind being there as opposed to this winter in the bay...
Do what?
wot?
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-08-09/minneapol...
"San Francisco rents continue to drop, and they probably haven’t hit bottom."