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San Francisco's Rent Hits a New Peak of $3,690, Highest in the US (cnet.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: The median rent for a one bedroom apartment in San Francisco has reached a new peak of $3,690, according to survey data from Zumper, a home and apartment rental app. That's also a rise of nearly 9 percent from the same time last year, the survey found. Not only are those figures high enough to make your bank account cringe, but they're also nearly 30 percent higher than New York City and more than double the prices in Miami. Seattle, home to Amazon and Microsoft, rang in at $1,970 and Washington, DC, hit $2,150.
Oh, and by the way, while San Francisco's prices rose, the median price of one bedroom apartments across the US dropped nearly half a percent during this same time. That means while San Francisco's prices climbed, the country's prices fell. "Though there may be a ton of cash flowing through the city and surrounding areas soon, many of these workers will not immediately invest in a home and may, instead, take their money to both travel and upgrade their rental situation," Zumper wrote in a blog post Thursday.
Oh, and by the way, while San Francisco's prices rose, the median price of one bedroom apartments across the US dropped nearly half a percent during this same time. That means while San Francisco's prices climbed, the country's prices fell. "Though there may be a ton of cash flowing through the city and surrounding areas soon, many of these workers will not immediately invest in a home and may, instead, take their money to both travel and upgrade their rental situation," Zumper wrote in a blog post Thursday.
This is not a case of free market failure. This is a case of local government putting restrictions on building affordable housing. You got the NIMBY part correct, though.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
If your tech company cannot support remote work in the year 2019, then you're working for the wrong damn tech company.
There's only one way you're going to get prices to revert to semi-reasonable levels in the Bay area; stop feeding that fucking stupidity.
If you live in California and pay rent you know what I mean. If I seriously have to consider downgrading my standard of living and look for a sublet somewhere and live out of a single room in someone else's house, then things have gone horribly wrong around here.
and thus people are being forced to live in an increasingly dire situation
No one is forcing tech employees to come to SF and compete with each other to push rents into the stratosphere. I'm not denying the role of SF government in the supply/demand disconnect, but rents would not be where they are if people simply refused to pay that much.
There is a difference. While the former can be just an indication of a healthy economy, the latter can be an indication of an imminent housing crisis.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
I live in Dallas, in a $3,500 square foot house that costs less than $2,000 / month.
As far as jobs go, there are a lot of big companies here. A lot of aerospace, technology, financial services ...
I'm not in management, I'm a techie, and earn well into six figures.
Of course, here in Dallas they build based on need. When prices went up for a few years 2014-2018, they built like crazy, which kept prices under control. You don't have local and state government saying nobody is allowed to build any housing.
NIMBY means there's not a free market; governments are preventing the market from operating.
As the rent goes up, it becomes a lucrative business deal to buy up properties, demolish what's there, and build housing. That's what a free market would lead to, but that's not allowed to happen.
Calling it "the government" just hides the blame. Existing property owners are blocking new construction. And no wonder: the value of their property skyrockets thereby.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
How is anyone forced to live there?
If you can afford that rent, you can afford a bus ticket out of there.
And that's EXACTLY what's happening. Folks are leaving both the cities AND the state because it's too expensive to live there. They are heading to places where the cost of living is lower. Places like Texas, Florida and other places where an $800K house isn't a two bedroom shack.
Wait, so people are moving away in droves, and prices continue to rise! That's crazy! It goes against pretty much everything written about supply and demand! Imagine how much apartments will cost when EVERYONE has moved away!
"SF is surrounded by water, Dallas is surrounded by shit. Shit is easier to build on."
Building "out" is hardly the only option for growth for a community. San Francisco has plenty of vertical space to build into. ...And before people claim "no" because of earthquakes, tall buildings can be safely built in earth quake zones. Japan and many other countries have a long, safe history of doing so.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
Cities really should be required to approve construction of a certain number of new housing units each year, before their residents are allowed to qualify for HUD low income housing assistance. Otherwise you're just making the problem worse - decreasing supply by awarding housing to someone who otherwise wouldn't have been able to afford a home in the city. Thereby squeezing everyone else into bidding on fewer housing units, driving their prices even higher. At a minimum, you need to construct as many new homes as you're awarding to low income people, just to maintain prices.
The free market puts the poors where they belong, at the far end of BART.
Nobody in their right mind builds new slums. You build new high end and existing inventory tinkles down. As always, sucks to be poor, sucks worse to be poor and be waiting for someone else to do something about it.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
And they can keep their significant economy.
What good is making more money than red states when 1 bedroom apartments costs $3,690? That is more than 3 times the cost of apartments in San Antonio. And no, your minimum wage is not 3 times higher than minimum wages in San Antonio.
This is a definitive failure on free market, NOT because of the restriction as you think, but because there is NO REASON whatsoever for the free market to invest in cheap condo for poor folk at a small ROI when they can have a huge ROI with expansive condo. And this is where the free market will always fail.
If you ask a developer whether he'd like to build cheap housing with a 20% ROI or expensive housing with a 30% ROI, his answer will be both. If both are clearly profitable businesses, then there's no reason in the world why developers shouldn't do both... except that there is: Artificial restrictions on the number of building permits.
The "market failure" you cite arises only because the city restricts the amount of building that can be done. Obviously, if the government says you can build only one building, you're going to build the most lucrative one you can. But without that restriction, the free market will build housing for all price points down to a floor that is dictated by natural limits (scarcity of land and cost of building higher). But clearly those natural limits are not creating the ultra-high cost in SFO, because other cities (e.g. NYC) are similarly constrained by the amount of available land, and have similar building costs, and yet have much lower rents.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Yup, both you and the parent are right. It IS out of whack. But in the US, we've collectively decided that we're a dog-eat-dog country, and we don't let the government intervene to help people (or even regions). It sucks, but wealth concentration is inevitable if you let capitalism go unchecked for long enough.
I think it's a terrible system (or lack of a system), so I vote to change it, and I'm going to continue to vote to change the system until I eventually leave the country for somewhere more civilized.
I don't respond to AC's.
And they can keep their significant economy.
What good is making more money than red states when 1 bedroom apartments costs $3,690? That is more than 3 times the cost of apartments in San Antonio. And no, your minimum wage is not 3 times higher than minimum wages in San Antonio.
Minimum wage is not enough to pay for a home in the most desirable part of any City. Typically only the most well off live in the most expensive areas. Plenty of Californians CAN afford their mortgage and rent with money left to spare, because the wages are higher (and/or they live out of the most expensive areas).
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Supply and demand. A lot of people want to live here. If you come to California, you will understand.
The median rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Decatur, Alabama is $599. If you go there, you will understand. As with everything in life, you get what you pay for.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Is that why California ranks almost dead-bottom for education and bottom for poverty level?
As much as I hate Cali: educational results can usually be explained by demographics, and Cali is no exception. This is especially true of states with a sizable ESL population: you're never going to get the same statistical educational outcomes from native English speakers and those who enter the educational system not speaking English.
Clearly the solution to this is to expand that ESL population via open borders.