<story><title>Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring</title><url>http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/20/san-jose-san-francisco-oakland-job-losses-hammer-bay-area-employers-slash-thousands-of-jobs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>latencyloser</author><text>Seattle is quickly becoming &amp;#x27;bay area&amp;#x27;-ish from what I can tell. Housing is certainly becoming difficult at incredible rates. Here in Bellevue, a colleague of mine bought a house for ~400k, it&amp;#x27;s now worth well over ~500k only a year later. Many houses in that area also sell for at least 700k+ assuming you can even get an offer in before a cash buyer grabs it. Don&amp;#x27;t even get me started on the traffic. I run as many of my errands before 8am as possible.&lt;p&gt;I personally know I will never be able to afford housing close to work based on how things are now. Currently I&amp;#x27;m just saving my pennies and hoping I can move to another job with a lower cost of living somewhere else in a few years.&lt;p&gt;Edit: For reference, I am just a just above &amp;#x27;entry level&amp;#x27; engineer at Microsoft. I&amp;#x27;m paid well, but not well enough for the housing around here.</text></item><item><author>davidw</author><text>&amp;gt; where will they go&lt;p&gt;Other tech hubs.  Portland, Seattle - even little Bend has plenty of people from California who are attracted by the (for them) low housing prices.  They, in turn, put pressure on housing prices for &amp;#x27;ordinary&amp;#x27; people here.&lt;p&gt;California&amp;#x27;s housing crisis has repercussions all up and down the west coast.</text></item><item><author>robbrit</author><text>A fourth category: people who have lived here for a long time, and were able to buy property back before it became unaffordable. These are typically the managers or senior employees.&lt;p&gt;It makes me wonder that as the young rockstars and H1B recipients age, where will they go? They certainly can&amp;#x27;t afford to buy a house. I imagine as time goes on, companies in the Bay Area will be awash with young junior talent but will struggle to attract more senior folks.</text></item><item><author>nimbius</author><text>Most of the bay area employees are divided into 3 categories from anecdotal experience:  young rockstars that are willing to live in relative squalor for a chance to prove themselves, 
vested and moneyed elites (CEO&amp;#x27;s, presidents, VC funded overlords) who are so out of touch with the average employee its best they not show up to the office that frequently,
and H1B visa recipients that endure the soul-crushing San Jose or beyond commute every day because their job represents something more than just the sum of their skills, its a ticket to citizenship and a better life for their family.&lt;p&gt;Ive turned down more bay jobs than I can count because at some age you begin to accept the fact that SFBay isnt that great.  Rising levels of increasingly aggressive homeless, the inability to afford any housing, and the price of food and public transportation in general are just a few factors that led me to say no.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>RickS</author><text>&amp;gt; I personally know I will never be able to afford housing close to work based on how things are now. Currently I&amp;#x27;m just saving my pennies and hoping I can move to another job with a lower cost of living somewhere else in a few years.&lt;p&gt;This is exactly my situation as well. The neighbor to my left bought his house 3 years ago for 320. The neighbor to my right just bought an equivalent house for 570. No can do.&lt;p&gt;Unlike SF, however, the balance here does seem &amp;quot;worth it&amp;quot;. I looked at the job market were I to return to Virginia right now, and while the land is cheap and plentiful, it took some digging to even find a posted role that felt promising. Tech hub job markets are no joke.</text></comment>
<story><title>Bay Area hammered by loss of jobs: Lack of affordable housing strangles hiring</title><url>http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/10/20/san-jose-san-francisco-oakland-job-losses-hammer-bay-area-employers-slash-thousands-of-jobs/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>latencyloser</author><text>Seattle is quickly becoming &amp;#x27;bay area&amp;#x27;-ish from what I can tell. Housing is certainly becoming difficult at incredible rates. Here in Bellevue, a colleague of mine bought a house for ~400k, it&amp;#x27;s now worth well over ~500k only a year later. Many houses in that area also sell for at least 700k+ assuming you can even get an offer in before a cash buyer grabs it. Don&amp;#x27;t even get me started on the traffic. I run as many of my errands before 8am as possible.&lt;p&gt;I personally know I will never be able to afford housing close to work based on how things are now. Currently I&amp;#x27;m just saving my pennies and hoping I can move to another job with a lower cost of living somewhere else in a few years.&lt;p&gt;Edit: For reference, I am just a just above &amp;#x27;entry level&amp;#x27; engineer at Microsoft. I&amp;#x27;m paid well, but not well enough for the housing around here.</text></item><item><author>davidw</author><text>&amp;gt; where will they go&lt;p&gt;Other tech hubs.  Portland, Seattle - even little Bend has plenty of people from California who are attracted by the (for them) low housing prices.  They, in turn, put pressure on housing prices for &amp;#x27;ordinary&amp;#x27; people here.&lt;p&gt;California&amp;#x27;s housing crisis has repercussions all up and down the west coast.</text></item><item><author>robbrit</author><text>A fourth category: people who have lived here for a long time, and were able to buy property back before it became unaffordable. These are typically the managers or senior employees.&lt;p&gt;It makes me wonder that as the young rockstars and H1B recipients age, where will they go? They certainly can&amp;#x27;t afford to buy a house. I imagine as time goes on, companies in the Bay Area will be awash with young junior talent but will struggle to attract more senior folks.</text></item><item><author>nimbius</author><text>Most of the bay area employees are divided into 3 categories from anecdotal experience:  young rockstars that are willing to live in relative squalor for a chance to prove themselves, 
vested and moneyed elites (CEO&amp;#x27;s, presidents, VC funded overlords) who are so out of touch with the average employee its best they not show up to the office that frequently,
and H1B visa recipients that endure the soul-crushing San Jose or beyond commute every day because their job represents something more than just the sum of their skills, its a ticket to citizenship and a better life for their family.&lt;p&gt;Ive turned down more bay jobs than I can count because at some age you begin to accept the fact that SFBay isnt that great.  Rising levels of increasingly aggressive homeless, the inability to afford any housing, and the price of food and public transportation in general are just a few factors that led me to say no.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>irrational</author><text>Same in Portland. A house down the street was purchased for 180k 2 years ago and recently sold for 520k. And that isn&amp;#x27;t some outlier. It seems all anyone wants to talk about is how quickly home prices have inflated.</text></comment>