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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.
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.
I suspect a bubble or two will pop and rents will be almost normal again. For example, the revenue received by AI companies does not justify the investment money pouring into them compared to other industry returns. Either they will start spewing forth great products soon, or investors will get a clue and pop the bubble. We are overdue for a general market and economy correction anyhow, AI aside.
Table-ized A.I.
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.
I love this little nugget from the article:
>>Add in the fact that there isn't enough housing to go around, and prices have naturally skyrocketed. The federal Department of Housing and Urban Development said last year that a family of four earning up to $117,400 qualified as "low income" in the city.
You got to be kidding me!! That town needs to slide into the ocean. That is nuts! SMH
You're messin' with my Zen Thing, man.....
Remember the guy who ran for NYC mayor on the sole platform of "The rent is too damn high!" Perhaps he should move San Francisco?
... the true scarce resource.
Same thing here in Germany. Prices are rising and there seems no end to it. I expect this to get worse with climate change.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I work in IT in California and pay $1300 a month on my 4 bedroom house.
California is a big state of which San Francisco is only a small part.
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.
"This is how it's _supposed_ to work."
No it's not. How it is supposed to work is that when rental prices start to spike in a community developers see the increasing profit potential of an area and increase development. It's classic supply and demand economics and is literally how all of our major cities formed.
What is happening in San Francisco (and in many parts of California) is that supply isn't being allowed to increase or increase fast enough by local government. The biggest offender is the valley but their problem has become so severe (with a modest single family homes selling for over a million) that it's spilling over and exacerbating already existing problems in places like San Francisco and beyond.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
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!
There's a desperate need in some circles to make California sound like a third world country. I think it's a bit of the good-old fashioned penis envy. California is one of the largest economies on the planet, and folks living in a lot of Red States just have never been able to deal with the fact that a state can by and large be democrat and liberal, and actually have an economy of such significance that it outguns most of the Red States combined.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
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