Blog

Short blog posts, journal entries, and random thoughts. Topics include a mix of personal and the world at large.

Independence finally?

With most people that have the privilege of work-from-home are currently working from home, the conventional wisdom that’s been going around is that this drastic change in the way we work going to cause a mini paradigm shift in how companies operate going forward, especially in the tech sector. If this somewhat coerced exercise proves that it’s possible for a company to operate just fine with a remote workforce, then it makes no logical sense to continue to rent real estate simply so that everyone can be in the same room. Especially so in the San Francisco Bay Area, where rent is utterly astronomical.

It’s being theorized the shift to working from home permanently will have further downstream affects, namely workers moving away from ultra expensive city centers and towards other parts of the country where a dollar goes way farther. Much like it doesn’t make sense for companies to keep paying rent, there’s no reason for employees to live in areas where four-figure rents would only net you a single room, if they are able to literally be anywhere in the world with an Internet connection and still work. Smart folk are predicting there will be an exodus of sorts of workers moving to the cheaper parts of the country.

And that is quite okay with me, speaking as a native San Franciscan. The downward pressure on housing demand, should the prediction of masses of people leaving the area comes true, means I’ll finally be able to comfortably afford the rent in the city I grew up in. It would be a lovely thing indeed to finally be able to move out of my parents place and attempt the independent life for the very first time. I did not skip town for university, so I lack the momentary emancipation that most of my peers experienced during our college days. I think the time is right for such a move.

If me and my family are lucky to make it out to the other side of this coronavirus mess healthy and employed, I’ll take a serious look at moving out of the house. The externalities of the virus have perversely created a situation where it actually make sense now. We shall see!

Housing in Guangzhou is just as bad

As I’ve said many times on this blog, barring any drastic changes - like a recession or a dramatic construction boom - to the housing market in San Francisco, it is impossible for me to buy a home in the city I grew up in. At this point it’s not even sad anymore, simply an accepted reality. It’s the reason why I have a Porsche 911 GT3 to play around with, representing a portion of my savings that would otherwise go towards downpayment on a house.

It seems my original hometown of Guangzhou, China, have a similar housing problem to San Francisco: it’s practically unaffordable for the typical middle-class earner. This is really surprising, because unlike the zoning quagmire we have here in the Bay Area, cities in Asia have no issues building super tall and dense apartments. So it’s difficult to understand how Guangzhou would have high housing costs, given that developers can build apartments as tall as the earth would hold a building upright (in theory, at least).

One condition I didn’t account for is the enormous population that resides in greater Guangzhou area, some 12 million. Therefore, though it looks like there should be enough supply for everyone, the demand is as overwhelming as it is here in San Francisco. Especially so in Guangzhou’s core that surrounds the Pear River on both shores: the high-paying jobs are mostly within that area, and who wouldn’t want to live closer to their work? Keep in mind that people work longer hours in Asia compared to our typical 40-hour weeks; a long commute would obliterate any spare personal time.

Due to these conditions, even my family’s many decades old apartment building, in what used to be a rather crap part of old Guangzhou, is now worth quite a significant sum. The city have developed far beyond what we could’ve imagined before immigrating to the States, and because our place lies inside the city’s core, its location is very desirable. My aunt receives soliciting calls constantly, asking if our apartment is for sale.

I guess I take some misery-loves-company points in knowing that Chinese people my age have the same problem with housing affordability. However, at least they can apply for government assistance - pseudo communist country, after all - I’ve got nothing but my proverbial boot-straps.

The RV life of San Francisco

In the surrounding area near the university where I work are a few long boulevards where usually students park their cars. In recent years, a tiny armada of RVs have popped up, establishing semi-permanent residence on those same streets, only moving during days of street cleaning on a particular side. Personally I take the bus to work so I’m not antagonistic towards these RVs folks taking up precious parking space with their overly lengthy vehicles; though I’m slightly curious what students have to say about these people setting up de-facto homes on the side of the road.

That said, I’m definitely not amongst the camp of people wishing these RV campers to go away and find home in appropriate trailer lots, rather than squatting on public streets. I’m innately familiar with how batshit insane housing costs are in the San Francisco Bay Area; if I didn’t live at home with my parents (thank god for being Asian so this isn’t frowned upon culturally), there’d be no freaking possibility I can reasonably afford to rent a quaint place, much less buying a house here. The people in the RVs face the same difficulties, and these essentially mobile homes costing magnitudes less are their only option to continue on living and working in the city.

The present housing situation is such that either you have to already own a home for years ago, or make enough (read: a lot) money to comfortable rent or buy. The rest of us have to get by some way somehow.

Honestly, as long as these people in the RVs are not disturbing the public or making a mess (and I haven’t noticed or read anything that they were), I don’t see any issues with them setting up shop on these long boulevards. These behemoths can’t fit in a typical residential street parking space anyways, so the RVs are relatively separated and contained. It is all a bit unsightly? Yes, but the situation in San Francisco is that desperate. Sadly, the city is clamping down on these so called vagrants: most long streets with ample length already have signage forbidding large vehicle parking from midnight to 6 AM. I’m afraid the two near our university will see the same fate sooner or later.

And it would indeed be a tragedy; this entire housing situation is. San Francisco is turning into Monte Carlo, a place for the rich and already have. Starting a family here with a middle-class income is at the moment not a reality. I remain positive for the future, though that’s likely just stubbornness in holding on to the slim hope that I will be able to remain living in the city I grew up in for decades to come.

San Francisco is kicking me out

There’s been a lot of chatter lately about how San Francisco is a hell-scape for the poor and middle class, and that thanks to the tech boom and concurrent chronic lack of housing, the city have turned into a province for the rich only, in a Monte Carlo sort of way. While it can’t rival the tax-friendliness of the Principality - in fact it’s the precise exact opposite - I’ve been viewing my hometown as a facsimile of Monaco for a quite bit now, and it’s low-key weighing on me these days.

Indeed you need at least a six-figure salary to even entertain the notion of building a life in San Francisco. On my daily commute I’m reminded of this when I see adverts for newly online condos, with the basest of units costs more per month than my entire take-home pay. On a macro level I am making slightly more than the median U.S. household income (and I consider myself lucky to be in a position to do so), but put that in perspective of the insane SF housing market, I’m downright in relative poverty.

As I transition into my thirties and having thoughts of marriage and family starting, I am coming hard to face with the reality that I cannot do those things in the city I grew up in - and love. Unless I marry someone who earns well into the six-figures, even with dual income it’d be supremely difficult to rent an appropriate amount of rooms to raise a family, much less outright purchasing a house. Even if somehow I manage to scrounge up large enough of a down-payment to mitigate somewhat the monthly outlay, the hefty California property tax alone renders it prohibitive.

Of course, there’s legions of people in a similar position who instead bought property way out in the inland suburbs, and every day they have to endure a two-hour commute slog just to get back into San Francisco proper for work. That’s not an option for me because I believe the stress and anguish that comes from a long commute is not conducive to good health, and no house is worth the tradeoff for that. If I were to move out of the city, I’d rather take the full plunge and skip out of California entirely.

A friend of mine shared an article that listed what $200,000 worth of home looks like in each of the 50 States, and no surprise the worst of them all in terms of amount of space for the money is California. On the other end of the spectrum, in States such as Montana and the Dakotas, 200 grand can buy you multiple rooms and multiple baths in a house with sizable yards front and back. We joked that San Francisco natives like us who aren’t fortunate enough to collect on the tech prosperity should look to move to those places. We wouldn’t even need to earn as much money as we do now because the cost of living is drastically cheaper.

Besides, I am confident that as long as I have an Internet connection, I can generate income however which way.

So that is something to seriously think about in the next few years; if San Francisco maintains its current trajectory, it just may force my hand. I still have hope it wouldn’t, but recently it’s been tough to find the optimism.

For excellent Texas-style BBQ in Dallas, go to Pecan Lodge.

Why would you want to move here?

My work is hiring and I got selected to be on the search committee, therefore I get the pleasure of sorting through all the incoming resumes. It’s always surprising when I get an applicant that isn’t from the Bay Area, because the immediate question becomes:

Why do you want to move here?

Here, to San Francisco, which by many measures is the richest city in the world and has the most expensive housing cost in these United States. A metropolitan area where countless hours of productivity gets utterly forsaken due to endless traffic. The minimum wage just went up in July to $15 so that gourmet non-GMO grass-fed burger is going to cost a pretty penny.

And you want to move here?

I hope these applicants have read the job description thoroughly and understands that as an employee of the State of California you are not going to be paid anywhere near sufficient to live in San Francisco. I most certainly don’t. I am however native to the area so that allows me to offset the absurd rental prices by not paying them at all and instead live with my parents.

Needless to say I am fortunate to be of a culture that don’t tend to kick offsprings out of the house once they’ve matured into adulthood.

Because housing cost is the crux of the affordability issue. If rents were at sane levels I would’ve move out long ago, and I wouldn’t be questioning why someone would want to move here whose job prospect isn’t with a tech company with salary deep into six figures.

If I didn’t live here already and were choosing a city to move to, San Francisco Bay Area wouldn’t even be on the list.