10 comments

[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 51.6 ms ] thread
Anecdotal but my neighbor (in SF) owns an apartment building, and he said he's renting units for ~$100-200 below pre-pandemic level which was $2,995 for a 1-bedroom and $3,995 for a 2-bedroom.
I'm in Redwood City (not far south of SF) and managed to knock $250/month off the rent of my current place when renewing the lease earlier this year just by asking.
$36,000 a year for rent.

Lol. That's the most I've ever made in a year... before taxes.

I guess it's affordable if you skip eating, healthcare, or other services like cellphone/internet.

Fuck it, might as well be homeless.

Any firm that opens up an HQ in San Francisco at this point is saying FUCK YOU to its employees (or prospects), and should be treated accordingly.
Yea imagine giving everyone thousands of free dollars and rent goes up.

You would almost think there were people on the margin that could not afford an apartment that now can?

As if we could have ever predicted this shocking turn of events.

I lived there for 5 years. Before that I was in Manhattan for 11. Sorry but San Francisco is a dump, really dirty. I would never move there again. Constant harassment by the homeless, violent crime everywhere.

I was assaulted at 2PM on a bus downtown. A homeless guy took a full 40oz bottle of beer and broke it over the back of my head with no warning. I wasn’t even looking at him. Apparently he was paranoid and thought I was following him. The bus driver and passengers just stared at me and did nothing. The nut walked off. My hands are covered in blood but I manage to call the police and an ambulance- and neither showed up! I walked dizzy and lightheaded to my office nearby and one of my coworkers got me an Uber to the hospital. One story of many actually. I’ve seen shootings and a stabbing and an overdose from fentanyl. Three people I knew died.

And the crowd, well of the professionals about 1/3 are the real deal, 1/3 are simply imposters as in sociopaths totally faking their skillset, and the final 1/3 are genuinely insane.

If you can afford San Francisco rent then go to Manhattan. Seriously SF is a huge mistake.

When did it used to be good? The 90s? The 00s?

I’ve never been (and have no intention to visit) but I remember we got a visit from some Cisco folks at a career fair and they were all super enthusiastic, engaged, what I assumed were hotshot engineers. Then one of them said “my roommates and I” and I realized that this guy, way more gregarious and successful than me, had to split a place with more than one person he wasn’t in a relationship with, dude looked mid-late 20s too…

Even Toronto prices intimidate me and those are pretty decent for the quality of city, though last time I visited the tent cities and human feces were getting worse…

Well I'm not sure what you mean by good. It's always been some level of crazy, but there used to be, late 80s/early 90s a trade-off between crazy and cheap rent. No idea what the attraction is now.
Any SF resident will tell you it depends on which neighborhood you're in... it's pretty nice over here in Noe - tons of young families pushing strollers and hanging out on the sidewalks in front of homes and cafes. Some parts of SF are a dump, but certainly not all of it.
This blog post says some numbers about rent

There is no data source specified

As for SF, I lived there 15 or so years ago

Was awesome

Tech-driven inequality def seemed to help degrade qol somewhat

But I'd be curious to get the opinion of a longtime resident who isn't hellbent on sticking to the SFISHELLONEARTH storyline

Ditto California and anybody else who dares live in a liberal town

ie most towns or at least most not-small towns