Techies/Hipsters/Chinese Millionaires have destroyed the Bay Area's soul. (San Jose: rentals, how much)

[Perma Bear]

Originally Posted by boulder2015

Also its not transplants demanding large towers. It is the market itself trying to meet the demand throughout the area for more housing. There are many longtime locals demanding this as well as more housing will bring down the cost. You are looking for scapegoats when these are really large, objective forces. That is what makes them so hard and scary for so many people to understand.

Also, for those saying things like "why dont companies move to detroit, they can use help", well, social development and "helping people" are not what companies are about. The bottom line is all that matters and currently they have found that the most appealing place for young talent is STILL the Bay. States like kansas think they can just toss corporate subsidies and tax breaks around and the 'tech will come". But they dont realize that kansas doesnt have the appealing lifestyle of sf and millenials have little to no desire to live there. Also keep in mind, many sf techies are fleeing the heat, humidity that characterize america east of the 100th meridian and the snow that blankets the northeast. So not only are they finding good jobs in the bay, they are addicted to the weather as well.

The company could sell their bay area real estate and buy a far larger lot and still make a massive profit. Sounds like that would be better for the bottom line. The millennials will follow the jobs no matter where they go.

[boulder2015]

Originally Posted by Perma Bear

Why don't you move to another state? I could live here even if rents became 10,000 a month.

Ok, troll....lol. ive spotted you, hope you had your fun! It was a very nicely written parody of "entitled bay area millenial who wants forces of supply and demand to alter just for him". Dont want more housing built, want everything cheaper, and only wants "cool natives" to be allowed to stay. Ive heard millenials say this stuff in real life, so you captured their naivete exquisitely...

[boulder2015]

Originally Posted by Perma Bear

The company could sell their bay area real estate and buy a far larger lot and still make a massive profit. Sounds like that would be better for the bottom line. The millennials will follow the jobs no matter where they go.

Do you honestly think that companies dont have buildings full of beancounters who KNOW exactly where their bottom line is? Yet you know better than them? Yes their lots may be worth, 60 million for example. But some of these tech companies have HUNDREDS of billions in market cap, the profit from real estate sales is meaningless. And it would take them away from stanford, berkeley, and the associated thinktanks and institutes that feed them talent. Eventually comm RE will hit the point that starting up in bay area isnt worth it. Remember after the dotcom bust how there were empty office buildings lining 880? We just arent at that point yet. However, clinging on to a downturn is foolish. During the big downturns, i watched waitresses, gov folks, metal fabricators, housepainters suffer plenty... while a lot of techies had enough savings to ride out the downturn.

[boulder2015]

Originally Posted by HockeyMac18

Because we're underbuilt in the hundreds of thousands of units region wide. Throwing a few hundred, or even a couple thousand, of units into the mix isn't going to do anything to dent the demand facing the region.

There are really only two possible trajectories that the Bay Area is faced with in my opinion. Resist any new development and stay (and become even more) unaffordable (preserving the entire region as it is now); or embrace growth and try to bring down demand (and housing prices) as much as possible.

We can't have it both ways here.

Obviously we're going for option 1 overall here as a region... So you're getting what you want really. Growth is painfully slow here, and when we get it, it's far too little to make any real impact (as you correctly point out).

I will say that not all growth has to be bad/evil (and I personally don't like all growth, especially growth built in sprawly ways). If we stop pretending we live in some small town (as many communities in the Bay Area want to pretend), we can really start to embrace smart growth.

What I mean by smart growth is building densely (very densely) in the urban areas and around transit hubs throughout the region. By doing this we would actually be able to preserve much of the development as it is now (exactly what you want!) and also preserve open space land (something I care very deeply about as a huge backpacker/hiker). But we do have to embrace this as a region (something we're not doing) and take advantage of new opportunities to build when we get it.

Unfortunately, we fail to build smartly when do...a great example of a missed opportunity is the Bay Meadows project in San Mateo. Instead of building densely, they threw up a bunch of 3-4 story condos/townhouses. While any new development is better than nothing, that was such a missed opportunity for smart dense development right at a major transit station.

Bingo. Great post. This thread was making me lose faith in human intelligence.

[Perma Bear]

Originally Posted by boulder2015

Do you honestly think that companies dont have buildings full of beancounters who KNOW exactly where their bottom line is? Yet you know better than them? Yes their lots may be worth, 60 million for example. But some of these tech companies have HUNDREDS of billions in market cap, the profit from real estate sales is meaningless. And it would take them away from stanford, berkeley, and the associated thinktanks and institutes that feed them talent. Eventually comm RE will hit the point that starting up in bay area isnt worth it. Remember after the dotcom bust how there were empty office buildings lining 880? We just arent at that point yet. However, clinging on to a downturn is foolish. During the big downturns, i watched waitresses, gov folks, metal fabricators, housepainters suffer plenty... while a lot of techies had enough savings to ride out the downturn.

gov folks have nothing to worry about.

[boulder2015]

Originally Posted by Perma Bear

gov folks have nothing to worry about.

Yeah, less than private sector, but where do you think the tax revenues that support you come from? Also it may behoove you to read up on cali's pension funding and budgetary problems...at some point those chickens will come home to roost...

[ayoitzrimz]

Originally Posted by SkySofiaLila

I'm not sure why tech companies won't open or relocate HQs to places like Detroit, for instance. The Detroit, MI area could really use a lot of growth. Or, why not open in another metro area that is low cost and is trying to attract talent? Why does every other company open up in the SF Bay Area / Silicon Valley? There's no more room to build homes, either!

They are, they've been moving to Denver and Boulder (the only example I am personally familiar with, the other one being NYC which has always been expensive) and guess what? RE prices skyrocketed in Denver as well (Boulder's RE prices were high before the tech movement).

High income = high spending power. The prices will rise or fall to whatever level people are willing to pay. It's an unfortunate reality.

[jade408]

Originally Posted by bodyforlife99

I find it interesting also, Perma Bear. You see all the complaints about Techies, Chinese Millionaires, and the evil "NIMBY"s (sounds like something out of Star Wars). But rarely do you see people on these boards complain about the transplants that come here and instead of acclimating themselves to the area, they insist that everything must change to their liking. I'm sorry, but I have no desire to see downtown turned into 40 skyscrapers. How about you?

I do complain about people not adapting. That's not what this thread is about. People who move and live here who decided since they have their plot it can't change at all are the problem. Adding hundreds of thousands of jobs and 10s of thousand housing units makes not sense.

Downtown SF, Oakland and San Jose can and should be denser and taller than they are. 3-6 story condo buildings are not going to "change the character" of downtown Lafayette or Palo Alto or Mountain View. Downtown San Mateo can add a couple 10-12 story buildings along El Camino. If all these cities want to attract employers they need to have a place to live too.

[HockeyMac18]

Originally Posted by Perma Bear

Maybe you should give up and move to a different region.

What are you taking about? This post was not about me. I'm perfectly fine here - it's other people (including natives, such as my gurlfriend's SF-native family) that I'm wanting to help with my ideas of smart growth (smart growth doesn't mean building everywhere or knocking down old buildings constantly for new ones).

Did you even read my post???


It was simple. You want to preserve your ranchers from 1950? That's totally fine. But you can't do that AND have an affordable region. Sorry, the world doesn't work that way. I don't know how else to explain it.

[jw2]

Originally Posted by Perma Bear

Why don't you move to another state? I could live here even if rents became 10,000 a month.

You can't even afford it now. What would you do if mommy and daddy told you to find a place of your own? Quit talking so tough until you have to deal with real world problems.