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The SFBA's Continued Decline To 3rd World Status
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2013 Aug 21, 6:41am 36,438 views 92 comments
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Having recently vacationed in a "developing country", I would not exactly categorize bay area as "3rd world", but I do agree with the sentiment that the focus to succeed academically is astronomical here, especially amongst "tigers" and jewish ethnicities. However, we also have certain "hoods" where learning is not really emphasized at all. Additionally while housing/rents vary, for the most part I would say that approximately 80-85% of bay area prices don't comport with reality of what prices should be given the quality regardless or owning or renting. But yes, peninsula and SV are absolutely ridiculous in this regard.
Developers want very much to develop anywhere and everywhere that they can. The reason that they aren't isn't because of a lack of willingness on their part. It is because they simply can't due to 3rd parties with huge incentives to stop them.
Truer words are rarely spoken on this site. I just bought a house in Mountain View, and signed up for the mailing list for the neighborhood. I see two topics on that list - trying to get rid of used stuff, and forms of NIMBY busybody prattle. OMG, there's a development going up, we have to go complain to the city council.
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Well comrades, it looks like the landed gentry are still ramping up their rent seeking. The dated 2BR unit in a 10-plex that I am renting now for $1845 is going to be rented to the next tenant for $2295 if they want a 10 month lease, and more for shorter terms. They (management) are going to paint and clean the carpets. No in-unit laundry, no dish washer. I guess that's the price that one must pay to live in Hip and Cool Mountain View. All that money you save on gas with your shorter commute is now consumed by rent-seeking, and then some. My coworker wants the unit after I move out, so my apartment manager gave me the info to pass along to him. A 25% rent increase for NO reason, other than "market conditions" as she so eloquently put it. In the summer of 2011, this thing was going for $1475.
That's right tech-bitches, squeal. Pay because you can. Join the ranks of those living everywhere else in the world where a HUGE chunk of your disposable income gets consumed by basic living costs. Your neighbor is your enemy as much as the landlord is because your neighbor and people like him all want to live here and are willing to pay whatever is asked. Unsurprisingly, many of them are from places FAR worse than this (places that this on a direct trajectory to become). If you don't like it, you can sit in traffic for hours to save some coin, although your effectively hourly pay rate in "life" is going to remain about the same. You can't win because America is on its death bed. Go, recite the family prayer and dream of happier times. Times when the 0.1% existed but didn't have the political or social clout to skull-fuck the other 99.9%.
Mountain View has always been jealous of its neighbor to the north, Palo Alto, and it looks like MV is doing its best to mimic PA. Castro St has had a massive increase in tech hipster and FOB patronage in the last 15 months. All it needs now is an Apple store and its transformation to the dark side will be complete.
In all seriousness though, I was figuring that the landlord would up the rent a little bit, maybe to $1950 or something. But $2295....fuuuuuuuck. Capitalism at its finest, I guess.