
Percentage of salary spent on rent near technology companies in SF - kaustin2440
http://blog.onradpad.com/sftechworkersrent/
======
danso
> _Uber is located in 1455 Market St., which also is home to Square. Asking
> prices for one bedroom apartments nearby are currently at $3,421. That is
> actually below the citywide San Francisco 1-BR median, which currently
> hovers close to $3,500. Interestingly enough, it’s also less than what
> potential employees of Uber can expect to pay to live nearby the company’s
> new Stanford research outpost ($3,595 /Month). Apartment finding in the Palo
> Alto area is pretty brutal as well!_

The advice I would give to me 2 years ago: do not attempt to live in Palo
Alto; same horrid cost of living as SF with the cultural/social opportunities
of a Midwest suburb. Except with worse street traffic.

Edit: And fewer dive bars.

~~~
minimaxir
For some added context, the apartment complex being described (next to
Uber/Square/Twitter) is likely the NEMA
([http://www.rentnema.com](http://www.rentnema.com)), which has received a bit
of infamy not because of the prices, but the explicit targeting of techies.

~~~
spitfire
Nice looking building. Looks like they throw a excellent Casino night/circus
night, I think I saw Gavin Belson there.

On a serious note I am scared for the 20-somethings I saw in the videos.
Downturns come with every upswing, and a lot of these people are going to wake
up and realize they'd been earning six figure salaries, but have nothing to
show for it.

Edit: Also, there's some truly terrible floor plans on the higher levels.

~~~
rconti
They can probably get by on the remaining $60k/year they take home after taxes
and rent.

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foota
You can't reasonably claim that an engineer paying 50% of their income after
tax for rent is similar to someone making minimum wage and paying 50% of their
income to rent.

~~~
falcolas
It's not the same, but fiscally they're not really in _that_ much of a better
place. Too much going to rent, and not enough towards other living expenses,
savings, and entertainment.

In either case, when the job is lost, they are both going to run out of money
at about the same time.

Our local HRDC will flat out decline any form of housing assistance to anyone
attempting to rent an apartment for over 30% their income.

~~~
foota
The problem is that the other things shouldn't be measured as a percentage. If
someone makes 150k and spends 70k of that on housing, they still have 80k left
for other expenses. If someone is making 30k and puts 15k towards housing they
only have 15k left for other expenses. So the person making 150k has 5 times
as much left for other expenses.

~~~
falcolas
If we make the assumption that they follow the generally accepted best
practice for managing money, and put aside 20% of their income for a year,
both people are homeless after 2 months.

Spending 50% of your income on a house is simply financially irresponsible, no
matter your income. That's at a minimum 20% of your income that is going into
a black hole that could be going into savings or investments.

~~~
foota
How do you figure they'd be homeless in 2 months? That doesn't seem to follow.

------
KeepTalking
While this threat is specific to the renting market, I digress to the general
housing market,as renting has steadily turned into a very expensive option for
most households in the bay.

We were in the market to buy a small home in the bay and were totally out
priced from the market despite being a 2 income high tech couple. While most
people talk about the hip SF and downtown areas, desirable homes in even more
middle of the road places like Fremont and South Bay(Milpitas, Sunnyvale and
Santa Clara) are over inflated. In one instance our offer was declined in East
Palo Alto / East MPark area even after being over 22% of list price.

While I am not for protectionist ideas, It might be worth considering a cap on
the number of foreign 'investors' in residential real estate -unless- they
actually live in the home or area. I have seen that a huge section of the
current price inflation is driven by overseas investors putting together a
safe home for future generations without actually living in the place. This
ensures that sufficient stock is available in the real east market.

Also all overseas cash home sales in the bay area above $'X' should be subject
to an IRS audit to prevent overseas ill-gotten gains, corruption money or
worse drug money being re-invested in US real estate.

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cylinder
Pittsburg, CA seems to be a 57 minute train ride to Uber HQ and has houses
rent for $1800. That kind of commute isn't shocking for any global city. You
could save a lot of money living there and nabbing one of these big salaries,
and ideally you'd only come into the office 3x a week.

I'm not from the Bay but seems you could hack together a much better situation
if your office is in SF vs Valley, due to BART and more land east of the Bay.

~~~
mahyarm
Your forgetting last mile times in that calculation. If you lived in
pittsburgh it's unlikely you'll be living by the BART station, which means an
extra 10-20m on your commute.

~~~
deathanatos
I Caltrain to work, and the "last mile" … on both ends … is the majority of my
commute.

------
iav
The story assumes everyone rents(not true) and no one's commutes from East Bay
or other city (not true).

~~~
stevesearer
Uber is also working on building a new office in Oakland:
[https://newsroom.uber.com/oakland/](https://newsroom.uber.com/oakland/)

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serge2k
> In fact, some of these workers joined 11 million Americans in spending more
> than half of their income on rent!

Difference is the other half is still more than most people make.

>
> [https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/2e1q1s/30_...](https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/2e1q1s/30_of_salary_towards_rent_before_taxes_or_take/)

Did someone really just reference /r/personalfinance as though it is fact?

I've always heard 30% of gross income. but whatever, it loses meaning when you
can spend 50% on rent and still walk away with thousands of dollars a month.

> one of Google’s software engineers is living in a van!

by choice.

> Last year we noted that technology workers looking for savings may want to
> consider heading south to Silicon Beach

Oh but who would I work for down south? Oh your company.

Gee, I wonder why they wrote this.

> the $995 rental price nearby its office means SpaceX employees have the
> largest percentage of take home income in their pockets after paying rent
> each month

True, but the difference after tax and everything else is a few hundred
dollars a month.

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temuze
Mirror:

[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OuAnC8s...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:OuAnC8sunLsJ:blog.onradpad.com/sftechworkersrent/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us)

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rconti
Wait, a tech company in a residential area (RadPad, Venice Beach) has
relatively cheaper housing within a 0.5 mile radius than tech companies in an
urban area? Stop the presses!

(granted, it's impressive that this holds true even so close to the beach)

~~~
danhak
Venice is one of the most expensive neighborhoods in L.A. right now and is no
less "urban" than anywhere else on the Westside.

~~~
rconti
But my point is that I'd call it less urban than SF.

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elteto
Can people who live/work in San Francisco chime in on how you deal with these
prices? Do you live farther away and commute, if so where do you live? Given
the high concentration of tech companies in SF (and California in general) I
feel sometimes the itch to move over there but with a baby on the way these
prices give me a serious pause every time I consider it. I'd be interested in
hearing about developers and people in general that have families who live and
work in the area.

~~~
mrpoptart
Spending 50% of your income on rent is only a big deal if the other 50% isn't
significant. Someone who makes 20k a month but spends 10k on rent still has
10k a month for other expenses.

That said, I am a developer and live with my family about 45min public
transit-only commute away. I've done the driving thing, I love reading too
much to give that time away. My kids and my wife much prefer not living in the
city and I get a 3+br for less than the 1br listed here.

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mahyarm
A bunch of them:

1\. Live with roommates.

2\. Commute from somewhere cheaper

3\. Have rent controlled apartments. Rent controlled apartments from even 2 or
3 years ago are significantly cheaper.

4\. Are dual high income couples

5\. Own a place already.

~~~
withdavidli
The roommate stoodout. Know very few people that has a place by themselves.
Also, doesn't look like they counted stock. Understandable for startups, but
they included Google in that, 170k should just be cash comp.

~~~
nojvek
It still baffles my how much google is paying compared to MSFT or Amazon in
Seattle. Some crazy numbers there.

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crispytx
When the tech companies move because the city won't let developers build more
housing units, the bubble will burst.

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markstos
The link is down right now, but I'm glad to hear Uber has the generosity to
give their drivers a 20% raise.

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nostromo
If only there were some way for Uber employees to commute to work from cheaper
parts of the city. Maybe an app or something.

~~~
WWKong
You mean using an app to hail a ride? Seems like a great startup idea right
there.

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_ao789
Rent is a real motherf###er

~~~
_ao789
I don't see why this was downvoted, as it is factually correct and is often a
large blocker when it comes to people living near tech/financial hubs around
the world. Hence having to commute for large lengths of time merely to sit in
a chair at some office for hours on end.

------
ProAm
"Youth is wasted on the young". Why not save a little for tomorrow, you might
be able to actually own if you do?

~~~
_ao789
I say: save while you can, when you start a family you will save a Lot less

~~~
cylinder
But no, we must experience "the city" at all costs...

~~~
WWKong
...and keep repeating that "the city" is the best place in the world, at every
opportunity, especially since no one outside gives a rat's ass.

~~~
serge2k
You care so little that you have to point how stupid they are for living
there.

~~~
WWKong
I live there

