
Cities Where Job Growth Is Outpacing New Homes - luu
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2019/09/affordable-home-jobs-building-employment/595195/
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Grzegrzolka
Same thing happens in Poland. There are only 4-5 rather small cities with good
jobs + shitload of skilled and unskilled Ukrainian immigrants (like really,
there are days when I walk through town and 80% people I pass by speak
Ukrainian) + Airbnb craziness + no regulations + shitty politicians = it
became impossible to rent or buy even small apartment if you are not highly
skilled or not willing to share room with someone you don't know. It all
happend in last 4-5 years. I was born in one of these towns (Krakow) and it
just hurts me to see huge division in society, clearly there are lots of rich
people that are getting richer every month, buying multiple houses and
renting, and there are shitload of (some of them university educated) people
living in tiny old Soviet era apartments (imagine whole family and dog in
400-450sqft). Actually many people don't even dream about own place. Both my
parents and my grandparents were able to buy apartment without having any sort
of education, today if I wasn't Software Dev I would be homeless. We are
talking Poland here, can't imagine how much worse it must be in other actually
real countries.

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TrackerFF
I worked on a project here in Norway, and I'd say that about 60%-70% of all
construction worker on active projects here are Polish workers. Everyone said
that buying an apartment or house is just too expensive on Polish salaries,
but doable on the salaries they were making here.

The Poles here are extremely aggressive when it comes to work. They will
gladly work 7 days a week, 12 hour days, if they get the chance. And many will
share apartments with 3-5 other guys, to minimize living costs.

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durnygbur
What else they can do in a depressing dark cold exorbitantly expensive place?
Such foreigner is quite literally feeling paralyzed. Use all available time to
exchange it for money. Any place to stay they get will be an overcrowded
shithole anyway, which is yet another motivation to stay in work.

Meanwhile young Scandinavians flood Polish coastal cities for binges with
cheap and freely available alcohol, and staying at airbnb at prices ridiculous
for Polish salaries.

We build your stuff, you cover our streets with vomit. Yet you still feel
superior.

~~~
oblio
> Yet you still feel superior.

$$$.

I'm Romanian so I'm kind of in the same boat regarding your situation. Might
makes right. Make more money and prove them wrong.

Well, money's just a summary: get a better education, better living
conditions, etc. Money well spent earns you respect.

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csunbird
There is a housing problem in Berlin now, because there are a lot of tech
workers are immigrating from India, Turkey, Russia and many other countries
for work and the rents are over the roof.

~~~
yulaow
I am not sure about Berlin, but for example in Milan (Italy) there are
nonsensic prices for homes (London level prices with salaries of about half of
the half of what you get in London) and they are driven up just by the
movement of other italians from other (poorer) regions, or even other close
cities, looking for jobs.

The main problem is that most high level - high skilled jobs are now in 2-3 of
the biggest cities in Italy, and now everyone is trying to move there and so
even more companies try to move their HQs there, and so on. I think a similar
problem is happening also in others EU states.

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durnygbur
Italian economy is so miserable and few opportunity hubs so competitive that
most Italians in their 20s and 30s end up in Germany and UK. Meantime rich
Europeans visit Italy each summer searching for _dolce vita_ and forgetting
that 60s and 70s are long time gone. What an absurd.

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TrackerFF
I live in such a city here in Norway. There are many reasons, but here are
some:

\- Decades long centralizing policies, which have effectively removed gov /
state jobs from more rural areas and districts, and centralized them to a
select few larger towns. Lots of smaller towns and areas are dying, while
everyone's emigrating to the same cities.

\- Explosion on college education. Our local University has a 10%-15% growth
rate, every year. Students in turn need to live somewhere, and there aren't
being built nearly enough student housing / dorms.

\- More tourism; We've had a boom in tourism, especially among Asian tourists.
This has lead to expansions of hotels, and more people renting out their
apartments etc. to airbnb

\- Other economic growth in private industries, which means more workers

\- Construction workers that need places to stay - we have thousands of
construction workers coming here every year, none of them which own - or plan
to own - housing themselves.

When I moved here, rent was around $400 for a small studio apartment. 10 years
later, the same studio apartment is rented out for $1200...it's grotesque.

The lucky people are either those who's owned units since the 80s, or those
that bought right after the last recession. I know so many people that have
made hundreds of thousands, just because they bought at the right time - no
renovations needed.

Edit: Just to give an example; In the city where I now live, a decent house
will cost you around $600k-$700k. A "starter" apartment will cost you minimum
$180k-$200k.

If you drive 1 hour away, the prices will be cut in half. If you move 1-2 hr
flight time away, you'll probably pay 20% of those prices. And we have 15%
down-payment here in Norway! Lots of young people will spend a solid 3-5 years
just saving up for the down-payment.

One "life-hack" among fresh grads is to simply move somewhere rural if you can
get a relevant job, save aggressively for a couple of years, and then move
back to the city.

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glloydell
Correct me if I'm wrong, but this methodology seems flawed. Using building
permits per 1000 residents only provides an accurate comparison metric if the
density of the housing is the same.

If the move is (as it seems to be) towards large multi-unit housing complexes,
shouldn't we be looking at residential units created?

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chrisweekly
Based on title alone, sounds like cities where remote work is going to play a
prominent role.

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blisterpeanuts
Yes it's interesting that the SF area has such high demand for technology
workers yet almost no space to actually house them (let alone all the down-
and-out people living in parks & alleyways).

Sounds like kind of a disconnect between the business community and the
government as well as the geographic realities of a city crowded onto a little
peninsula, albeit of course with many suburban towns nearby but very heavily
developed already.

I couldn't imagine being lured to the bay area for a job even for double my
current salary (standard software engineer very low 6 figs). I have maybe
$210K of equity in my current home; how much of a house is that going to get
me there? I'd never afford a million dollar mortgage. Would have to be full
time remote.

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xienze
> I'd never afford a million dollar mortgage.

Well if HN is to be believed, $350K of total compensation isn’t out of the
ordinary for FAANG, so that would get you in a million dollar house.

Never seems to occur to anyone that crazy high salaries might be driving crazy
high housing prices, not the other way around, though...

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lotsofpulp
>Never seems to occur to anyone that crazy high salaries might be driving
crazy high housing prices

It's the only logical conclusion. Married couples, each making well over
$100k, competing with each other will obviously result in higher home prices,
unless you increase the supply of the homes that those married couples desire.
If you look at a map of recent home sale prices on Redfin or the real estate
websites, you can easily see where all the doctors/programmers/business owners
live in a town.

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garyrichardson
It’s never one thing. Also consider crazy low interest rates and lax borrowing
controls making it easy to borrow large amounts of money. This makes it easy
to invest/fund companies, easy to pay more to your employees and easier for
the employees to borrow more or pay higher rents.

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baybal2
I ask the honourable HN readers, how much are you into all that real estate
talks? I feel that second to computer stuff, the biggest interest of the tech
people is property market.

Is it such a big concern even for so highly paid people?

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CalRobert
Yes, because we're competing with each other. If there's 5 houses and 6 well-
paid developers bidding on them you still have a problem.

(Pity the poor teacher, nurse, etc. who's just SOL)

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mtrovo
Not just with each other but if landlords and real estate companies far more
wealthier then us, which inflate the demand to a level that doesn’t make any
sense. That’s why even earning a top 5% salary you still can’t afford a home
close to city centers.

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CalRobert
I don't really see how I'm competing with real estate companies and landlords,
though. How exactly do they inflate demand for housing?

I mean, if there's 5 properties for rent instead of sale in the example I gave
you still have the same core problem.

If 100 people need homes and you only have 50, then the people with the most
money they can/want to spend on housing will get it.

It's attenuated by the willingness of people to have roommates, move in with
family (if around) etc. so there can be more latent demand than is immediately
present. Even if you have no homeless but a whole city is 4 rich tech workers
per 3 bed apartment, there's still plenty of demand.

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ciceryadam
They don't inflate demand, they inflate pricing. To buy a house you are
competing with all the peope + all the companies that see it as an investment
opportunity.

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bb123
Cities Where Job Growth Is Outpacing New Homes *(In the US)

