
Castles That Are Cheaper Than an Apartment in San Francisco - jfaat
http://www.upout.com/blog/san-francisco-3/5-castles-that-are-cheaper-than-an-apartment-in-san-francisco
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foreigner
None of those examples are castles. If it's got windows on the ground floor
it's a palace, not a castle. It's a castle if a foot-soldier sees it coming
over a rise after trudging for hours through the freezing muck and thinks to
himself "Oh man, this is going to suck."

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regularfry
We don't really have an accurate translation of the word "chateau". It's a
superset of what we'd call anything from "fort", "castle", "mansion",
"palace", "manor house" and anything in between. That being said, the word
"chateau" comes from the exact same etymological root as our word "castle", so
it's not exactly unfair to use the word.

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azinman2
They're not apartments, either!

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Someone1234
As they say: Location, location, location.

You are paying for the land. While building might cost a little more in the
city due to permits, and labour's cost of living, in general it is mostly
land. All this article tells us is: If land is cheap, you can buy a lot of it
and built large structures on it.

This is why, to me, it is surprising that so few companies offer "remote only"
jobs. On the face of it there seems to be downsides (worse communication, VoIP
costs, etc) and few upsides. But just because you could employ people from
lower cost of living areas (who would accept lower pay), you'd save enough on
salaries to make the venture worth considering.

For example, let's say you're based out of NYC. You have to pay people in that
area in the $80K+ ballpark so they can even make rent. However if you remain
in NYC and employ people from Mississippi, Tennessee, or Idaho you could pay
people in the 60K range and they'd have the same or better living standard
than the 80K people in NYC.

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bsder
> This is why, to me, it is surprising that so few companies offer "remote
> only" jobs.

Politics. Politics. Politics.

How do you prove, as a manager, that you are doing your job when nobody can
see half of your employees?

As a side note, there are also good reasons to have your technical team co-
located. It's sometimes really hard to drill into difficult technical problems
without everybody standing in front of a whiteboard.

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baddox
> How do you prove, as a manager, that you are doing your job when nobody can
> see half of your employees?

I don't know if I buy it. How do you prove, as a manager, that you are doing
your job when everyone can see all your employees? I fail to see how the
visibility of you employees helps you prove that you're doing your job.

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JeremyMorgan
It's all perception. The manager talking with employees, having meetings with
them etc gives the appearance of "work". This same thing causes interruptions
to developers all day long. "Hands off" managers who hire people they trust to
do their job are far more productive, but not the middle of the curve.

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cgh
Reminds me of Crack Shack or Mansion, a game of sorts to show the
ridiculousness of real estate in Vancouver. These listings are several years
old - the situation is much worse now:

[http://www.crackshackormansion.com/](http://www.crackshackormansion.com/)

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adevine
Yeah, I prefer this one. I mean, some of those SF apartments, while of course
expensive, are pretty damn sweet. ALL of the houses in crackshackormansion are
shitty, and I'm amazed the lot value of these places is still 1+ million.

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cgh
Getting closer to $2,000,000 these days.

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acconrad
What a click-baity title. Yes, apartments are indeed expensive in San
Francisco, but 2 of the 5 listings aren't even apartments: one is a _mansion_
and the other is a 4,300+ sq ft home.

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BillTheCat
Very clickbait-y title. Only one of the "castles" is cheaper than an actual
apartment. The rest are houses.

Also does not factor in the cost of upkeep of a 200+ year-old castle. Yes, the
housing market in SF is crazy but this is a pretty spurious article.

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brixon
The lower cost castles tend to have a lot of delayed maintenance.

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rbanffy
That and they often cannot be rebuilt with modern materials and techniques.
And you may even go to jail if you try.

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pragone
Spoiler: Some apartments in SF are very expensive.

I'm sure I can find castles cheaper than other absurdly expensive apartments
in other places too. I thought this article was going to be about castles
cheaper than the cheapest apartment you can buy in SF.

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rco8786
Since when is a "studio" actually 5 offices and 3 apartments?

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joshrotenberg
Looking at the Zillow listing it has 5 offices with a dedicated kitchen and
bath and 3 apartments and is 8k sq/ft total with lots of updates. It isn't
"cheap", but for that amount of rentable space right in the middle of SF that
would be a pretty good investment.

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stronglikedan
It doesn't matter how much you can buy it for. What matters is how much you'll
pay for mortgage + property taxes + maintenance + insurance. A lesson that I
admittedly learned the hard way when purchasing my home.

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zamalek
> 3... Or this mansion in Alamo Square for $6,400,000.

Grew up in a 7+7 city house in Zimbabwe (5ha property). When we left it was
sold for less than US$100000 (current day value). Given that perspective I'd
have to venture a guess to the true meaning of the article: property values
vary wildly depending on location to _extreme_ scales.

 _9+9 is a mansion by modern standards? Bloody hell._

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martinshen
I'm the co-founder of UpOut and even I think this article is not super
relevant for HN.

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radnam
Besides other flaws, premise of this article assumes that castles are better
living quarters than apartments which I don't think is necessarily true.

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lwhalen
Yeah, but how's the internet connection at the castles compare to San Fran?

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yellowapple
"Win tix to unique SF events!"

How about no. <close tab>

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cowardlydragon
What is the earthquake insurance on these apartments?

