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Comment by therealwill | Hacker News Reader

Here is the home: http://www.trulia.com/homes/California/San_Francisco/sold/71...

Taxes are 11,043 with a value of 904,085. $2145 looks like an EXTREMELY low rent for a house of this size in San Francisco. (half of the rent is just property taxes.) The landlord was likely losing money keeping it rented at $2145 even if he owned it free and clear.

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> 1 full bath, 1,900 sqft Single-Family Home

> a value of $904,085

I understand the nature of supply and demand and the appeal of living in an area full of like minded people, but as someone in a flyover state, this absolutely blows my mind.

Shoot, in the Midwest I have an apartment with about that much square footage, two full baths, and I think I'm getting ripped off at $1400/mo. Did I mention I moved in less than a year ago, and was the first resident in the building, so it's brand new?

I understand San Francisco is the home of technology, but get your stuff sorted out, seriously. Is it worth being in a city that absolutely hates you? A city that would do anything to make your lives miserable? I wonder what would happen if Apple and Google packed up and moved to, I dunno, Milwaukee?

It's a good question. It's clearly worth it for some. For me, I own a 1800 sq. ft. home on 4 acres outside of Cleveland valued at $170k, in an area with excellent schools. The career prospects in NY and SF are far better, but I'd have a really hard time giving this up.

I lived in Chicago before moving to SF a few years ago, and I can't imagine ever going back. There is an argument about jobs, people, and companies that's complex, but people pay so much for so little space because it really is that valuable. The weather is near perfect year round, the food/beer/wine is astounding, the landscape is glorious, and so on. Midwest winters, particularly as climate change is making them worse, would be enough to keep me here, but my quality of life has gone up in about every other way possible.

People pay the premium because it really is that good. If a big tech company decided to move to Milwaukee, every other tech company would just soak up all the people lost.

Is the weather, food/beer/wine, and landscape really that much better than Santa Cruz? Is it that much better than Raleigh? Or Austin? Or any other city that isn't San Francisco?

Besides the benefits you might get from SF, let's be realistic: the city doesn't want you. It doesn't want any of you. The only benefit you're getting is the people who moved there just like you, and the city doesn't want them, either. If they wanted you, they would let you build houses, or let you run buses without getting rocks thrown at you. They would welcome you and do what it takes to make your stay pleasant.

I don't live in SF, but I frequent HN so I hear all the stories. If half of what I hear here is true, you're a bunch of people living in a city where you have massively overstayed your welcome. And it seems like no one has realized it yet.

Please, tell me I'm wrong. Take a look at your rent, at your city policies, your Senator, and at the people around you (not the tech workers, but the other residents of SF), take a look at them and tell me I'm wrong. I don't want to be right, but that's the only impression I can get from stories like this.

A lot of what you are saying rings true, but you may be underestimating just how small San Francisco is and how large the tech entrepreneur population is here. The number of new companies being started here is what makes San Francisco feel special. There is no other city on earth where you can overhear someone's new business idea at the cafe, the bakery, a restaurant, and the subway. And the crazy thing is that no one rolls their eyes at these ideas like they would in Chicago. It's pretty bizarre, sometimes unsettling, sometimes wonderful. It wouldn't happen at this frequency in Santa Cruz or Raleigh, or even New York or Austin or Boulder.

I think it would. Is there something special about SF in particular, or is it just the people? If you moved the people to Chicago or even Detroit, I have a feeling it would be exactly the same. If it's an issue of city size relative to the number of tech workers, look at smaller cities like Knoxville, Grand Rapids, or Madison. These conversations don't happen there because the people holding them don't live there. San Fran is almost a million people. The last two cities I've lived in clocked in around 200k. I think you're underestimating just how big San Francisco is.

I would gladly live in Silicon Valley if it weren't in San Fransisco. I don't think I would have the stomach to live in a city where the local people and politicians were that hostile to me.

And I still haven't heard anyone say that the local population doesn't totally hate everyone who works in tech. All I'm hearing is "yeah they hate us but look at how good it is for me". That's pretty awful.

The population doesn't totally hate everyone who works in tech.

I've been here 25+ years, and it's only entitled millenials who 'hate everyone in tech'.

I think the people "that don't want you" are a small, although vocal, minority of San Francisco. Most San Franciscans prefer gentrification and tech workers to slums and everything that entails. The silent majority, is just that- silent. There is construction happening all over the city now, I think people are starting to "get it"- if you want lower rents, you have to build more hosing.

I've been in SF since I was 9 years old, so feel that I can comment as a near native.

What about the recent story here where the Mountain View politicians were saying they wouldn't build houses for Google employees because they didn't want Google employees voting in their city? And Dianne Feinstein is still your senator...

It's worth bearing in mind that there's a reasonable number of activists who campaign on the idea that building more housing makes everything worse.

I sometimes ask myself what planet they are from...

I think what he means is the cost and burden of daily life in SF demonstrates a place that doesn't want you - not so much that the long-time residents don't want you (though that's true in some cases).

Santa Cruz? Have you been there? It's definitely a love it or hate it kind of place. The food is better in SF. It's something like 78 miles down the coast, so the beer and wine are the same. The landscape is about the same. The big problem is going to be your commute over hwy 17. I did it for years and liked it, but it's not for the faint of heart or the skittish in car. Never been to Raleigh or Austin, but today was high 60's low 70's, and went for a walk on the beach. The weather will likely be the same in the dog days of summer. Can you say the same of the south/texas?

As for San Francisco not wanting people. It is over blown in my opinion. San Francisco did not want the gays, hippies, beats, Hispanics (even the one's who were originally living here), Chinese, Japanese or any other group who moved in to the city. Never stopped anyone and everyone gets over it eventually...

Yeah, Santa Cruz totally sucks. Don't waste your time.

Shhh. Stop talking about Santa Cruz. I'm retired there.

You're living with mono-culture blinders on, but okay.

The major issue with SF is the lack of new housing being built at the first rung of the property ladder. Plenty of 1 million dollar plus units being built, but nothing for first time buyers. Worse the developers actively resist building affordable housing even when the city bends over backwards to accommodate them. Even worse is the amount of new office space being built. There simply isn't enough housing in the Bay Area to cope with the number of new jobs the cities want to add.

At some point the bubble will burst. Companies will be forced to relocate away. But sadly there is enough crazy in the market to keep it going on for a while yet.

> Plenty of 1 million dollar plus units being built, but nothing for first time buyers.

What is affordable? I'm not in SF (or the U.S.), but as I understand salaries of $150k+ in tech are common. Mortgage repayments on a $1mm property work out to be ~$5,000 a month for a 35 year mortgage, which you can easily pay if you are earning that much.

Normally mortgage payments aren't allowed to be more than 38% of gross income for someone with no debt which works out to $4750 for $1M/yr, and you generally have to have a 20% down payment, and even then, it's still going to have to be a jumbo mortgage.

"$1M/yr" should have been "$150k/yr" there.

On what planet is 2/3 of your post tax income considered to be easy ?

(Also most of the units being built require HOA membership so tack on another 1k to your monthly outgoing)

That's in a somewhat out-of-the-way part of SF. More central/desirable neighborhoods are considerably more.

Examples:

http://www.trulia.com/property/3191871255-1097-Howard-St-302...

http://www.trulia.com/property/3006745092-2801-Jackson-St-30...

http://www.trulia.com/property/3191823695-425-1st-St-5005-Sa...

http://www.trulia.com/property/3190475980-2145-Powell-St-215...

> The landlord was likely losing money keeping it rented at $2145 even if he owned it free and clear.

This conveniently omits the fact that there used to be two units in that house, so the actual rent would certainly have been closer to double that amount.

Judging by the series of downvoted comments in this thread, are you surprised? Apparently circumventing rent control is OK amongst the HN crowd.

Cause libertarians.

Until their rent quadruples. I'd like to be there an here them say "Welp, free market dictates my rent going up 400% and that's okay!"

It also conveniently omitted any calculation about how the owner is 'losing money', despite there being a ~$14,000 positive difference between what the tenant is paying per year and the taxes due.

Losing, compared to what he could have been making.

    Nelson: Hey, look how much Skinner makes. 25,000 dollars a year!
    Bart: Lets see, he's 40 years old, times 25 grand.. woah! He's a millionaire!

Do you imply that someone should be able to be a millionaire, or even 'rich', solely by collecting rent on real property? Real property that is apparently not even properly maintained?

Talk about market inefficiencies.

It's a bit foolish to assume that a landlord's sole expense is property tax.

Looks like something worth exactly as much as a day's rental of bulldozers, excavators, and dump trucks. I'm not sure if San Franciscans are aware of how horribly they are being abused. Go somewhere else.

There are multiple units in the house.

Correction: were. (The fact that the landlord trashed the other unit is key to his shenanigans.)

Wow, what a dump. And I thought I was getting ripped off in NY...

A million dollars sure doesn't get you a lot these days.

http://www.upout.com/blog/san-francisco-3/5-castles-that-are...

That Italian villa/castle thing looks delicious. I wonder what's wrong with it?

Zillow has it going up in tax last year from $1,500 a year but it hasn't been sold since 1976. Either the sale is slow to show up or someone just inherited the house without a trust. In which case getting the renters out and selling is not surprising.

I'm not an expert on California law, but the property changed hands on 12/30/2014

Grantor: SHUKRY & VERA LAMA RVC LVG TR Grantee: LAMA NADIA V

Simply way around Prop 13. The property is owned by a company not a person. To sell the property you sell the company. As far as property tax was concerned the property hasn't changed hands. Profit.

Prop 13 was never about making sure Grandma didn't get taxed out of her home, it was about making sure corporations didn't pay property tax.

I live in a pretty expensive area and $2145 is high for a one bathroom, and if there are multiple units isn't that essentially a boarding house?

From the link (click see more on her post), this was a 2-unit house where the owners removed the second bathroom and claimed that they had converted the second unit into storage space, thus allowing them to say that the building was a single unit and exempt from rent control.

The property taxes are based on the price the owner bought the house for. Not the current value.

It was a multi unit building.

Also holy shit that place looks like a dump.

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