SF's rising prices and changes: How are you coping?

[Ultrarunner]

Prop 13 is based on value at the time of transfer... not number of years owned.

I know plenty that paid big bucks and property taxes that bought in 2006 and 2007 and many walked away.

The people that bought the same homes in 2009-12 paid much less and correspondingly less in property tax...

[mayorhaggar]

Originally Posted by bmw335xi

South Korea is expensive, are you teaching English there?

Who told you it's expensive? Compared to the US and especially California, it's pretty cheap. Stuff like restaurants, public transportation, booze, and hotels are cheaper here. You can eat a big meal at a nice restaurant for $9, and a nice hotel that would be $200 in SF would be more like $80 in Seoul. Some stuff is stupidly expensive, like fruit--a single apple is $3 here, and a watermelon is $20!

It's definitely not as civilized as the US though--the plumbing system is very antiquated and smelly, everyone drives horribly and very dangerously here, and there's no garbage cans everywhere so everyone leaves their bagged-up garbage by the side of the road. So it kind of balances out the nice things here, but in general I enjoy living here.