from Hacker News

Is it a bad idea to move to San Francisco?

by brendanmc6 on 7/25/19, 9:01 PM with 11 comments

• by devm0de on 7/26/19, 5:05 AM

  Two decades in SF, moved here in my twenties and have moved a few times within the city and now have a family here.

  Ideally you find a rent controlled apartment, which is the majority of older homes and apartments, built prior to 1979. It’ll be very expensive initially (assuming the landlord raises the rent upon move in as they do) but less so over time. My family has been in ours for 8 years now and it’s now cheaper for us to stay in SF on my solo salary than to move to most other major cities. We invest money into other asset classes and property outside of SF since we’ll likely never afford a home in SF proper nor would we want to own one, for multiple reasons.

  We love it here, as a software dev I have LinkedIn opportunities knocking down my door, food, activists, weather all amazing imo. We might consider moving to a cheaper city at some point or if our kids end up in the lottery system of public schools.

  Homelessness, crime and drug abuse hasn’t improved imo. You take the good with the bad.

  Anecdotally I had a close friend leave SF for a year to travel and came back to SF last month after missing it. He stayed in an Airbnb in Bernal heights for a month and managed to find a shared rent control apartment in that time for a below market price. His trick was he accidentally emailed the wrong ad on Zillow that wasn’t listed under apartments for rent. And the home owner emailed him back saying he hadn’t considered renting the home but was interested, they met and he soon moved in.

  So as a renter thinking outside the box can pay off. But in general with house hunting be persistent, be early, act fast, have credit reports, references and the biggest paystubs you can procure and network like crazy.

  Also some companies will pay for relocation and/or have temporary housing, so maybe get an offer first then move out here.

• by verdverm on 7/26/19, 5:38 AM

  I came to SF from Denver for a month to work, now I'm skipping my plane ride home.

  This city is magical! I'm way happier, energetic, and alive.

• by throwaway3627 on 7/25/19, 9:27 PM

  Four decades Bay Area native here. Yes, unless the salary more than makes up for the extremely-unbalanced cost of living. Housing and everything in SF is obscenely expensive. It's been this way for many years, but still people try to migrate there like lemmings because "everyone else is doing it," only to later realize either they're stuck and can never retire except into poverty OR are forced to leave and find somewhere else more suitable for saving money, raising a family and/or maintaining one's sanity. Don't move there lightly without a definite plan and budget, or you may likely find yourself either wasting time and money, or in ruins.

• by sjg007 on 7/27/19, 4:53 PM

  Depends on what you want. You can make it work. If you eventually want a house, family etc... then you may have to leave.. depends on the IPO lottery etc... and what happens in the next 10 years due to the housing crisis. But there are tech jobs everywhere these days. There are also plenty of "midsize" companies where you can transition to a work remote job as well after a few years if you do find the Bay area out of reach.

• by bwb on 7/29/19, 6:40 PM

  Just chiming in on a small request, any chance I can hit you up for a 15 to 20 min customer dev interview? bwbbwb@gmail.com, trying to talk to eng/dev looking for jobs and how they filter down a list of companies. Would be much appreciated and happy to share about my time in SF too (although it was 4 years ago).

• by keiferski on 7/26/19, 11:20 AM

  See if the same companies are hiring in New York. Salaries will be roughly comparable but living in New York is vastly better in almost every way IMO.

• by greywolf on 7/25/19, 9:28 PM

  I work in the valley, not SF, but still the same. Sorry if this sounds bleak, but out of 45 engineers in my workplace none has been able to buy a place. You'd need probably a 300k/year salary and above to buy anything in SF, or hit it big in your company stocks. The options are a longer commute, you decide how much. Rent is extremely high in the area also