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I'm looking for a bit of insight (of the non-snarky variety, please) into why you love San Francisco (or don't, as the case may be). I'm originally from Northern California (the hot part), and have lived in Portland, OR for almost five years.
A job in my field has come up on the radar in San Francisco, and would represent a hefty rise in income for me. I would be making close to $70K (not including the roughly $20K I make yearly in freelance income), which I think might be enough to actually pay rent in SF, eat, and pay off my student loans.
I tried living in SF in 1998, and found it literally IMPOSSIBLE to find a place to live. Probably because I was only making $28K at the time? I was competing against kids who had law school transcripts, trust funds, and/or parental bank statements.
Anyway, though I've always loved San Francisco, after living in the green, squeaky-clean, bike-friendly, public-transit-heaven that is Portland, SF seems, well, sort of dirty and blah.
Anyway, as I try to figure out if it's worth it to deal with the hassle of either selling or renting my PDX house (at a loss) and return to California, I wondered:
1. what is the apartment search like these days? 1998 was a nightmare. Is it still as competitive? I'd be looking in Inner Sunset, Noe Valley, maybe Inner Richmond.
2. is SF still a great place to live in spite of the budget/economic woes of the state in general?
3. what do you love about SF? What do you hate about it?
4. public transportation; do you use it? What's your experience been? I love PDX's TriMet system and would want to use public transportation in SF as well.
You might be wondering why I would want to leave Portland if it's so great, right? Well, the type of job that I'm looking for exists here, but is incredibly difficult to 'break into' (lots of educated folks here vying for a place) and the salary and (most importantly) vacation time is less attractive than a similar position in California. Also, though I hate the heat of Northern California, and don't mind drizzly wet weather, there are about three months in the springtime when my California-native body is confused: shouldn't it be warmer? Sunnier? Less rainy?
Sorry for the long post! Again, I'd be happy to read your snark-free opinion!
I lived in San Francisco for 20 years before leaving for Seattle in 1998, and remember well the difficulty people had finding a place then. I returned to the Bay Area two years later, and traveled several times to Portland for business. I liked Portland on the first trip and liked it more on each successive visit. I live in San Francisco now.
The apartment search is no nearly as bad as it was. In the past year my own niece has searched for and successfully found apartments, and a good friend’s daughter is now undertaking a similar search. The stock is of a better quality and much more varied than it was in 1998-99. Competition still exists in some of the more desirable places – Noe Valley, the Inner Sunset and Inner Richmond all exhibit that. But those neighborhoods have undergone some significant improvements during that time as well.
The San Francisco I returned to was a better place to live than the San Francisco I left. The dot-com boom had a lot to do with that, as did the mayoralty of Willie Brown. Like it or not, those two events were the impetus of a rapid gentrification which had the benefit of improved public spaces, infrastructure improvements, an increase in the housing stock and upgrades and improvements to existing stock for those who took advantage of it. There are still many free cultural events in the city; it is still easy to get about on public transit, and it’s relatively easy to get about by bicycle, but keep in mind it is a dense city with lots of hills. Dining can be very cheap if you just look around, and even grocery shopping is not bad – the Chinese produce markets in the Mission, the Richmond and in Chinatown itself beats Safeway by a significant amount.
I love my four-mile bicycle commute to downtown, and that I can take a single streetcar on the same route when it rains. I love the variety of food and the really good restaurants. I love walking the neighborhoods and the unique views. The many places for live music. Crissy Field and the Presidio. Hanging out at the Farmer’s Market Saturday morning at the Ferry building. Checking out a baseball game for free at the Giants’ AT&T Park. The summertime vibe in Union Square. I hate that it isn’t warmer. That the streets are in such bad condition. That persistent homelessness is tolerated. That the city lacks the political will to aggressively improve public transit. The cost of small businesses to do business (yes, you will notice it ).
I do use public transportation, including the commuter and historic streetcars, the buses, cable cars, BART, the interurban train. I use all of these at least once every month, sometimes multiple times a day, and every time it rains or when I can’t ride my bike. People complain a lot when the system isn't on time or breaks down, but the city is probably second only to New York in having public transportation alternatives just a few blocks away from wherever you happen to be stuck. My niece has it so easy. She has the iPhone app (available for your Droid and even Blackberry) to plan routes, check arrival times, and generally get you where you’re going.
Based on the stories of two friends with situations similar to yours, I suggest keeping and renting your house in Portland.
I hope this helps!
Last edited by Chrysopylae; 01-24-2011 at 12:54 AM..
Reason: Get rid of control characters
I dunno, either you like SF or you don't. I like that the weather is very mild most of the time and it's very very walkable. I don't like that it's pretty dirty and noisy and smelly and everywhere that is worth going to shop or to eat at is always really crowded. I've never been to Portland but I don't think I'd like the weather there and that it's a smaller place with less to do and it seems like it would be more spread out.
Guess I'll answer your Q's...
1. I haven't looked for an apartment in SF for a few years, it can be very competitive. Last time I looked was in 2007 for a cheap studio and it was almost impossible, lots of people at every viewing which made it hard to find a place because the landlords were swamped with applications. Some people here have said looking for a place recently in SF was hard, other people said it was pretty easy. Just be prepared to be a little pushy and prepared I guess.
2. the statewide budget woes don't really affect the Bay Area much, it's still a very wealthy and economically vibrant area. The job market has really gone to pot though, in the good years it's very easy to get a job here. You might see various services get cut though, like the Oakland library has horribly pared-down hours and Muni in SF has cut its service once or twice. BART has reduced service a bit and Caltrain keeps cutting service all the time.
3. kinda already answered that
4. Muni covers pretty much all of SF so it's nice that it has wide coverage, but it's worse than it should be. The Metro light rail is frustrating to ride because the trains break down a lot or they don't run enough of them or they run too many and they get stuck behind one another in the tunnel. Muni buses are unpredictable in frequency, they stop every other block so they move really slowly, and they're usually crowded. Some lines are really reliable and run a lot of buses but other lines run buses way too rarely so you end up avoiding whatever part of town they would take you to. BART is pretty reliable and very fast and runs a lot of trains but it only has one line through SF, in the burbs it breaks up into different lines so it runs less frequently in the burbs.
Overall if you don't like SF you could always move to the East Bay, it's 20 minutes from downtown SF on BART. It's sunnier and rents are cheaper, though it's also more spread out (though there are a lot of walkable areas) and there's not as much public transit.
On the public transportation issue: depends on where your job is. MUNI isn't that great. It covers the city, but it can be very, very slow. We lived in SF without a car and had no problems, but we also found it a big hassle to go to some areas of the city. You will want to choose your neighborhood with that in mind. BART is great, but it's really not that useful for the city itself. You could also supplement with a car-share option.
For what it's worth, we lived in the central Richmond. My husband had a very easy bus commute to the financial district, and we loved the neighborhood. It was a hassle to get to, say, Noe Valley, but on the plus side we had pretty much everything we could want right there within walking distance, and it was just an easy bus ride to downtown or the Marina. We had thought about Noe Valley and Inner Sunset, too, but were very happy we went with the Richmond. It could be inconvenient if you spend a lot of time in the Mission or want to take Caltrain on a regular basis, though. Life would have been much easier if a BART line had come out our direction!
Just my two cents are that it sounds like that things are going pretty well for you in Portland. The fact that you managed to buy a house there puts you well ahead of most people in the Bay Area.
I don't live in SF but have lived in the Bay Area for 12 years. I moved here from TN. From that perspective the cost of living in the Bay Area in general makes life far more difficult than the other places I've lived. We make a fairly good income but even so if we were to try and buy a house it would use up way more of our income than would seem smart.
Even after the housing bust and recession the cost of living doesn't seem to be going down. If anything its still going up and it seems like every little pocket of the area is slowly but surely becoming gentrified. I've never exactly been a fan of this but it does have its advantages. You'll have a lot of great food options for example.
We're actually making plans to move out of the area- mainly because the overall quality of life in my opinion isn't that great.
Quality of life is better in the urban Bay Area if you want to live in a walkable area with usable (if spotty) public transit with a lot of things to do and places to eat, etcetera. It's not very good if you want to be able to buy a house with a yard in a nice suburb without being a millionaire, though there are more opportunities to get a job that makes a lot of money here than most places if you're lucky and have the right kinds of skills/experience.
At $70,000 you'd probably be looking at living in a small 1 bedroom or even a studio in SF, though in Oakland you could probably get a 1br or even a 2br. If your freelance income comes through I guess you could get a decent 1br in SF for around $1600 or so. Getting a house anywhere in the Bay Area is pretty much out of the question on that salary though unless you had a lot of money from selling in PDX.
It's up to you if you would be comfortable living in a small apartment in a city you're not crazy about compared with living in a house in a city you do like, just because of work.
Thanks so much for all of your thoughtful posts, everyone! Your honest and friendly answers have been extremely helpful to me. I think I'm going to apply for this job and see what happens. . .
Portland has a lot going for it, but I am in a dead-end job so when this position in SF opened up it was intriguing. If I keep my house here, at least I would have the option to return fairly easily if I wanted to.
I have always known that I would never be able to own real estate in the Bay Area (even the outlying areas are a bit too spendy for me). I owned a house in NorCal before I left the state, and sold it three years after I purchased it for much more than I paid - during the boom. Now I own an underwater house in Portland - I'm chalking it up to karma! (-: I'm not sure owning in SF is really a goal of mine anyway, even if I could somehow afford it. I'm beginning to realize that I'm not the type of person who will live on one place for the rest of her life.
I know I wouldn't be happy in the cheaper East Bay or South SF; I'm really more interested in a compact, public-transit friendly place where I could park my 15 year old beater, only driving it for the requisite trips to visit family or buy loads of groceries I can't get elsewhere. I lived in Marin briefly in 1995 and 1998 and while it's pretty (and sunny!), I would still be too dependent on my car.
Anyway! Thanks again; who knows what will happen. Perhaps nothing, but we'll see!
Well I live in Rockridge and I don't have a car. Rockridge is really walkable, I'm 35 minutes from my job in downtown SF, and I can get around by bike really easy in the flat areas around Oakland and Berkeley which is good exercise.
If you had a car in SF you'd constantly be moving it due to street cleaning, though definitely you'd have less of a need for it there than in Oakland.
From a recent apartment search in SF and the Peninsula, I can vouch that rentals are more expensive than ever here and demand is huge. It is sadly the landlord's market as of end of 2010. Probably fewer people able to afford buying houses/condos these days. People I know have had to resort to the Tenderloin neighborhood and Oakland in order to find something affordable. Not good.
On the public transportation issue: depends on where your job is. MUNI isn't that great. It covers the city, but it can be very, very slow. We lived in SF without a car and had no problems, but we also found it a big hassle to go to some areas of the city. You will want to choose your neighborhood with that in mind. BART is great, but it's really not that useful for the city itself. You could also supplement with a car-share option.
For what it's worth, we lived in the central Richmond. My husband had a very easy bus commute to the financial district, and we loved the neighborhood. It was a hassle to get to, say, Noe Valley, but on the plus side we had pretty much everything we could want right there within walking distance, and it was just an easy bus ride to downtown or the Marina. We had thought about Noe Valley and Inner Sunset, too, but were very happy we went with the Richmond. It could be inconvenient if you spend a lot of time in the Mission or want to take Caltrain on a regular basis, though. Life would have been much easier if a BART line had come out our direction!
People in Portland complain about their city bus service/MAX train and how its run so lousy, but in a world class city like SF, it just shows how even things here can be very imperfect as well as Chicagos transit in which many say is filthy despite the fact it runs well..
Portlands runs till 2 in the morning.. pretty damn good for a smaller not so world class city like say SF or Chicago/NY/Boston etc..
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Stay in Portland or move to SF?
