In Oakland, a Sign of Some Very High Times | Hacker News Reader

In Oakland, a Sign of Some Very High Times

techcrunch.com

47 pointsot52 comments

What a bizarre article. It's about the real estate crunch, but they spend so much time at the beginning talking about the weed store and the gardening sensor startup (not to mention the clever use of "high times" in the headline) that I was thoroughly confused about the point they were trying to make for a while. The relevant part of the example is basically, "SF tech startup finds relatively cheap office space in a long-vacant storefront in Oakland."

It is quite a weird read. A lot of these articles feel like the realizations of people who previously were too blinkered to even notice Oakland's existence. It will be bad for Oakland when such people start flooding over here.

We are definitely past peak Journalism.

Yeah, probably the longest TC article I have ever read.

Oh boy, you must have missed Kim-Mai's last major article and one or two of my own :D

I have a startup in a solar accelerator program in downtown Oakland. Our building right around the corner from a BART stop. When I have a meeting in SF, it's only 15 minutes to get to Embarcadero. It takes my co-founder longer to get from North Beach to that stop.

Also, Oakland is pretty flat, so riding your bike around is super fast and easy. You don't need a car at all to have an active social life. I constantly go to meetups all over the bay area, and the only time I drive is when something is in the peninsula. Heck, San Jose is easily accessible via BART + express bus.

If only they would make BART 24/7 like NYC...

Nice, it seems like you've found a good transit solution that works (which is rare in the Bay Area) and I'm happy. A couple of questions came to mind, and I mean them in the nicest way --

1. Do you live in the same place that the accelerator is -- in Downtown Oakland? Is that considered a safe neighborhood? You compare that with your founder commuting from North Beach, which is not a business district, so he likely lives there. North Beach is good neighborhood that lacks an underground lightrail but is otherwise a desirable neighborhood -- plenty of bars/restaurants, walkable from downtown, close to the bay, less crime, etc. I think it is unfair to compare commuting from Downtown<->Downtown with Community<->Downtown.

2. There are many commonly biked routes in SF that have no gradient, failing which, one can always walk, muni, or ride-share over to the destination. Owning a car is pretty unnecessary in SF (like it is in Oakland).

3. As someone who has done the BART + 181 journey more times than I wanted, in my experience it takes 1:30+ reach downtown San Jose from east bay. Which is kinda acceptable if your destination is in downtown San Jose. Even a few miles out (N 1st St., Cupertino, Mtv., or Sunnyvale) and you're in for a 2:30 + hour one way commute using the public transit. What I realized was that nothing beats a car in South Bay. Why do you say that San Jose is more easily accessible from Oakland than from SF when SF has a < 1 hr bullet Caltrain that reaches all South Bay cities' downtown?

Right downtown it's not too dangerous, and there are some good housing options. And downtown is an easy bike ride from Temescal, Rockridge, the Piedmont Avenue area, the Grand Avenue/Lake Merrit area, or Piedmont (city), all of which are reasonably safe places to live (certainly on the same level of "safe" as you'd find in San Francisco -- Piedmont is probably safer, in fact). And all of those destinations are predominantly flat gradients to downtown (well, at least compared to San Francisco hills; it's not Kansas).

San Jose, on the other hand, does suck to get to from the East Bay. Best plan is to avoid going to the South Bay, or to hope that your destination is within striking distance of the Amtrak station. Or to hope that they finally finish the Bart connection. I agree that Caltrain gives you better South Bay access; I'd be tempted to Bart in to Millbrae and transfer to Caltrain if I still lived in the area and didn't feel like driving.

When I lived in the East Bay, I would end up in San Jose only 2-4 times per year, and I'd usually drive. On the other hand, I worked in San Francisco for over three years, and I never drove to the City once during that time; a mix of Bart and ferry trips (depending on where I lived at the time) handled my commute nicely.

There's also a great start-up incubator (or at least there was) in downtown Oakland; a start-up that I joined moved in there for a year or so, and that made for an even easier commute.

Downtown Oakland is pretty safe. It's still a city, so you should have your wits about you, but it's not bad.

24/7 BART is one of the carrots they are dangling with measure BB.

I accepted a good job offer in San Francisco, starting when I graduate next June. It seems like everything I've read about the Bay Area has has been the same: "The expenses are insane. They are getting worse. Turn back now."

Articles like this make me wonder what I've gotten myself into.

Since you're a developer out of a good university, you will be fine living in the city. I'm assuming you're making at least $100k at the very minimum, and have no dependents. There are still good deals to be had in SF, you just have to know what neighborhoods are overpriced and which are underpriced.

You should be able to get a good-sized studio for under $2500/month, which is a reasonable portion of your salary. If you're cool with roommates, you can get a nicer room in a more convenient part of the city.

> ...100k at the very minimum...

If its a big corporation sure, but not at a startup.

That said, he could also live in one of the various co-ops in SoMa for not too much money (if he's fine sharing a room). And the inner-Richmond does have cheap rent as well (~$750-1000 per single room)

Maybe at an unfunded startup. But at a funded startup, you should be expecting wages a little bit higher than bigcorp wages, due to the risk profile.

Where's the risk if you're getting paid above market? Time was people joined a startup in order to make their equity valuable. If all these funded startups are paying above market a large number of potentially viable ones will go belly up in an implosion of Roaring Teens opulent overspending.

The risk is that you don't get the bonuses and stock grants that you would at a big corporation.

Wait, sharing a room??? What the hell?

Even though this isn't quite on the topic of Bay Area rent, room and apartment sharing is pretty prevalent in Beijing as well, with similarily ballooning rent prices. Whilst I was living there, I shared an apartment with 3 other people, the landlord and 2 other chinese guys which were sharing their room. In fact, most of the younger foreigners I happend to hang around with shared apartments, and I wouldn't be suprised at some of them sharing rooms either. The only guy under 25 where I'm certain that he had his own flat to live in had a mother who used to work in real estate. Proably the most cramped situation that was described to me by an expat involved a girl that i met in one of the cities posher nightclubs who came to Beijing to find a modeling job, who was sharing an apartment with 5 other girls. Presumably, they did share rooms. And this is foreigners that came to Beijing despite of that. I cannot imagine how cramped some of the BeiPiao (Chinese migrants coming to Beijing) are willing to live just in order to stay in the city.

So if you're young, unmarried and you're not incredibly fussy about living together with other people, I think you should absolutely go for it. Having to share a room isn't some kind of ungodly indignity, especially if you get along with your roommates.

There's a large gulf between sharing flats and sharing rooms though. Sharing flats is common all over the world for obvious reasons, sharing rooms seems like a good time to question why you're in a certain place.

Its fairly common now. I know a lot of people that have rented out their living rooms. And one friend of mine has even rented out the porch (not sure on how that works).

So.. where's a good place to live in SF?

If I were looking again now, I'd check Glen Park, Twin Peaks / Noe Valley, and Inner Richmond. All 3 are pretty close to the happening parts of the city, relatively reasonably priced, and have their own merits. Glen Park is quiet and has Bart access, Twin Peaks has views, Noe Valley is very conveniently next to the Mission and the Castro, and Inner Richmond has some of the best food in the city.

Tip: you don't have to go to Tartine every morning.

Doesn't hurt to try it out! That's what I'm doing (been here for 3 months now). If you ever get nervous or have any last-minute questions feel free to ping me!

Thanks for the kind words. I might take you up on that.

I'm assuming it's some kind of tech job. Keep in mind there are thousands of people living in the city who make minimum wage. You're going to be doing substantially better than them.

Find a share house with people with similar interests, get a studio in the Tenderloin or (potentially) move to the East Bay.

Either way you're going to have a blast. :)

Most of those people aren't starting to rent a place now. Someone I know moved to SF about 7 years ago. If he were to move, rent for something comparable is more than 2x what he's paying.

Why don't their landlords do anything about this shortfall?

http://www.sftu.org/rentcontrol.html

San Francisco has excellent (for long term tenants) rent control.

Thanks for the information!

I guess that leads to `excellent' non-upgrading of houses that have long term tenants in them.

I think "strong rent control" is the uncontroversial phrasing.

If the owner refuses to do maintenance, you can stop paying rent altogether until they do it.

Yes. But they won't upgrade anything.

If you're not paying rent, you can probably afford to upgrade it yourself...

you can live basically anywhere in the east bay for pretty cheap and hop bart into the city btw. source: first 22 years of my life.

Have you tried to rent in the east bay lately?

Still cheaper than SF.

I recently moved to the East Bay from Los Angeles - I gave up on even trying to find a place to live in SF. I'm paying 2X the rent I had in Silver Lake (which is a relatively expensive part of LA) and competition was so tough I had to go to over 10 open houses just to find something decent a landlord would rent to me. Even the East Bay is pretty insane right now.

Bah, get yourself some roommates and enjoy the ride of a lifetime.

Sydney is worse. Rent is about the same, everything else is more expensive.

If they want people to live/work in Oakland, they're gonna need to convince the BART folks to run past midnight. That is probably the biggest thing holding Oakland back.

How about sane working hours?

People like to go out after work, especially on weekends. BART ending at midnight makes that really tough.

There is nightlife and such in the east bay...

You could stand in Oakland and say the exact same sentence about SF.

So here's a question for the readers: would you rather live/work in the Berkeley/Oakland area or in the south bay?

Berkeley/Oakland if your single, the south bay if you want suburbia.

But what about santana row? ... Just kidding.

I like the South Bay personally, but I also don't drink or party. To each their own.

Even if you don't drink or party, just on an available woman basis.

There are also some great, affordable restaurants in downtown Oakland. Highly recommend it to startups looking for space.

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