[spdrun]

AN —
(1) I’ve been in the situation of sharing a bathroom with my older sister — she learned not to hog when I learned to pop the lock and pee anyway if she was spending 45 min in the shower.
(2) My point is that SF has an entire half of a state that’s sparsely populated to the north. You can essentially be out of the “city” in 5 min if you drive across the Golden Gate. Try that trick in any other major metropolis.

[spdrun]

SF does have a decent amount of culture (in the old sense) and a good tech scene. The latter is the reason for being there, if you’re in the right frame of mind.

It’s also the gateway to Northern California, and you can be out of the city in some truly beautiful places in a relatively short time if you head north. In SD you get TJ, Hell Ay, or some mountains and then a whole lot of desert depending on which way you go.

[spdrun]

I’m arguing that given the ability to have only one home, I’d prefer to raise a family in a 3/1 apartment in a nicer part of NYC over a 4/3 house in San Diego or a suburb. I guess I prefer the “proximity” aspect of standard-of-living to the number of loos and floor area to sweep.

As far as the teen daughters, if they know from birth that bathroom time is limited, they’ll learn not to take their sweet time in the bathroom. Making every sane guy that they date 10 years down the line very happy 🙂

[spdrun]

My point is that living standard is much more than number of bedrooms and porcelain thrones in your abode of choice. Access to interesting people (in real life, not over the intarwebs), places to go, cultural events, etc. For a computer-tech person, the human aspect of living in the SF area and the contacts made can be a career-advancing g-dsend.

Personally, it not for me, since I love NYC and I’m not a tech-startup jockey (rather a services provider and small time investor), but I can definitely see the attraction for a certain type of individual.

[spdrun]

Again, housing expectations are purely local. Yeah, you will get a 3/1 or 3/2 for $600k instead of a 4/3 on more land. That doesn’t make it a worse place to live, just a DIFFERENT place to live.

How about 3/1+ in SF proper under $650k? 🙂
clicky

[spdrun]

Housing expectations are purely local. You can also buy 30 acres of farmland and a 4 bedroom house for the same price in a small-town 60 miles west of Washington, DC 🙂 Several hundred acres even in central Michigan.

You don’t need a 2000 sf 4/3 house to raise a family of four. I know plenty of people who grew up in a 3/1 apartment or small house and turned out just fine.

Modify your criteria to grab anything that’s 3/1+ and > 1000 sf, and you get quite a few more listings in your area.

[spdrun]

flyer —
It’s not a question of dying broke or not for me. It’s a question of being able to tell any person I work with “Go SCREW YOURSELF you bastard (or b–ch), I don’t need your $!” and walk out. Not that I’d want to do that to most people I know, but it’s sure nice to know I have the option. It’s much easier to like someone when you’re not dependent on them. Dependency breeds impotent rage and the desire to spit in the face of the person upon whom you depend.

AN —
Ever thought that many of those companies started in Palo Alto precisely because it was cheaper than SF? And tech companies aren’t the only people who hire software types… Bearishgurl mentioned SF not Palo Alto, so a fair comparison would include SF salaries.

[spdrun]

Palo Alto isn’t SF… That’s like comparing a suburban town in NJ to Manhattan salary-wise.

[spdrun]

Apples to oranges. That’s like comparing Shoprite to a hypermarket (think WalMart, Costco, Tarzhay except with significantly better-quality merchandise).

[spdrun]

If the garage in SD is making enough money to support the owner and his employees, why would it want to expand? Not everyone wants the tsuris of managing many employees.

[spdrun]

If the business sells nationally, then it should be irrelevant revenue-wise unless:
(1) the business is heavily dependent on shipping and needs an ocean port close by
(2) the prestige factor comes into play
(3) skilled workers that can’t be found outside of certain areas (read: biotech or IT) aren’t easy to find in OK

[spdrun]

If I were firing in the general timeframe, I’d have waited till after the election to do the deed as well. Regardless of which candidate won, just to send a big “vaffa” to the winner. I dislike 99% of politicians, so any opportunity to spit in a politician’s eye is worth while.

Besides, watching the conspiracy theorists yapp away is worth it of its own right.

[spdrun]

Which is why I’m looking at (inland parts of) NJ now. It became very cheap even before the hurricane, which will probably depress prices even in unaffected towns in the short term. In the medium term, there’ll be a slight housing shortage till people rebuild. Long term, prices will probably rise due to inflation. Most buyers don’t look beyond the near-term though, and another storm hitting on the eve of a full moon is unlikely in the next 25 years.

(If I buy something in the next month or two, I’d be tempted to rent units at cost for the next year to affected families, then turn a profit a year down the line.)

Regarding Bay Area: Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Tech Bubble 2.0! Greater than Manhattan-level rents in SF are not sustainable for the long-term.

[spdrun]

This should be a state-level problem. Or just legalize methedrine, manufacture it under controlled conditions to avoid the environmental problems attendant to illegal drug labs, and give it away to registered addicts in pharmacies (after taking their kids away). Hopefully most of them will kick off and die after a few years of hard living — kind of like the “crack scourge” solved itself in the 80s.

People who are so stupid as to get involved with hard drugs don’t deserve much in my book. And certainly we should spend as little as possible attempting to save them from themselves.

And if you want to save people from themselves, subsidizing treatment is a lot cheaper than spending massive $ on law enforcement campaigns that fail in the end.

[spdrun]

How picky are the aforementioned buyers, AS IS, or with a lot of conditions? I’m still seeing condos that fetch ~7% on the dollar when rented selling in the 80-150k range. But the offers must be nearly immediate and ideally in cash.

(Example: $95k for a 1/1 condo in Mission Valley that rents for $900 and costs $250 for carrying and insurance = 7% after property taxes).

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