Well, we’ve had an eye opening experience this weekend! In preparation for our move to San Francisco to join the practice of Dr. Donald Brown, my wife and I came to San Francisco, with the support of my mother-in-law, to find a place to live. I kinda always assumed rent was most expensive in New York City but I was wrong.
I’m not looking for sympathy as a plastic surgeon shocked by high rent but regardless of your background or potential income, the cost of rent here is shocking nonetheless. If you know anything about San Francisco (and if you don’t you’re about to learn something!), San Francisco is made up of many enclaves/neighborhoods that have their own personality and level of rent. See the image below that compares the neighborhoods and their average rent.
So why is San Francisco so expensive? I can summarize briefly why this is but for a more extensive discussion, read this excellent article. Consider New York City: there’s a high demand to live there so with increasing demand, price goes up. But with New York, there are many high rises to accommodate all of the people flocking there to fulfill their dreams. Then shift to San Francisco. You may have a piece of land in San Francisco that is comparable to a piece of land in New York City, but in San Francisco, the building and coding regulations favor the building or preservation of a Victorian home, not a high rise like you might see in New York. So what you have is either a Victorian home on a 1/2 acre of land that can house 2 to 3 families versus a high rise apartment building on a 1/2 acre of land in New York that can house 500 families! You quickly see that, while they are beautiful and give San Francisco their distinctive flavor, Victorian homes are very inefficient at housing a large number of people and therefore, the supply of apartments doesn’t meet the demand in San Francisco. And when supply doesn’t meet demand, it’s a renter’s market (not the rentee)! In other words, astronomically high rent, and a solution doesn’t appear to be anywhere in sight!
So we’re having a garage sale with a great collection of plates from the Franklin Mint on the block! Starting the bidding at $30!
