There’s actually a fair amount of tech scattered along the 95 corridor. Burlington for example has Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) and iRobot. If we’re talking “the Greater Boston Area” not Boston itself.
I think they could find space, and the housing prices would be ok.
That’s great for the tiny percent of people that get it. The rest are screwed.
Means testing is the way to go about fairly regulating rent control. An old lady on a low fixed income should be able to stay but a rich tenant should not be able to hold onto a cheap apartment. Fair is fair.
Still won’t solve the fact there’s not enough rent controlled places. You’re sounding like the NYC mayor. Let the government own everything and decide who lives where and what fair rent is based on income. Of course he doesn’t explain how he’d make up for fair rent not covering the cost of the buildings. Probably figures the rich can just pay more income taxes on top of higher rents. California has a shortage of 1.4M affordable housing units,a nod they cost almost $1M each to build. Good luck on that math.
If you want rent control, go live in Cuba or North Korea.
If you want “fair” equal life for everyone, go to the same place.
Well, in theory, if rent control were more fair to the owners, more owners would then be willing to open up some of those vacant units that they purposed kept from the market due to rent control in the first place. I know for a fact that some of my Chinatown neighbors have done exactly that. They own the building free and clear and are willing to leave say their parent’s old unit vacant to avoid the hassles of rent controlled tenants. Imagine this happening all over the city.
HSR and import workers from Stockton. 
Do you realize what rent workers making $15/hr could afford. That’s $30k/yr. Even if they paid half their pre-tax income to rent (which is insane), that’s $15k/yr. That’s barely over $1000/mo. Even if you get two people splitting a 2bd as roommates, that’s barely over $2k/mo. What landlord would be ok accepting that in SF?
Landlords with multi room inlaw units…
Let’s be honest, due to the high pricing of SFHs here this kind of strategy where the owner rents out by the room is blowing up. My buddy told me a house that just sold down his block was rented to multiple students. Way more than what one would expect (by the number of rooms, etc). The private sale home I am considering is the same. Owner renting out by the room to multiple tenants. Making a decent amount in totality but imagine the headaches.
1 person per bedroom? Or more?
You can also rent to a master tenant and allow subletting
How would rent control apply to that building then?
Assuming all renters are on equal footing, all would be subject to rent control if a rent control area. That home happens to be in a non rent controlled area/city so yes I would have to make each tenant move out after giving notice or maybe just raising the rent so high that they voluntarily leave on their own.
I thought rent control only applied to MFH built before a certain year?
The renting room works for young, single people. There are people marriage and having kids age working those jobs too. Renting a room isn’t going to work for them, and there’s zero chance they can afford the bay area.
One person making $15/hour can’t afford rent in SF, but 2 working adults can. That’s over 60K a year and they can rent a 2BR apartment in Daly City or so. SF also has a small amount of public housing, in addition to rent control.
Well, one effective changes perhaps a SFH into a MFH at least with respect to rent control laws. That is why our Fearless Leader is adamant about not doing inlaw units in the Fab 7x7. I prefer to make money and deal with it as it comes. No illegally or cut up unsafe dwellings for me though.
Zero science behind a limited sample size of office discussion:
Employees surely favor no state income tax 
but Austin didn’t want to give good tax deals 
Don’t know much of Houston and Dallas, Austin has plenty of entertainment (strip clubs , music scene, many fine restaurants) + tons of outdoor activities. Two rock solid downtowns (The Domain is hot especially at night 
)
Away from downtown and West Lake Hills, plenty of neighborhoods with unique vibes, lake views, mountain views, etc that are priced between $200k to $800k, plenty of choices to suit your taste.
If the majority here agree that Bay area is out of consideration(for Amazon) doesn’t it mean that Bay Area is too expensive already even for high tech businesses???
It seems that even Seattle is too expensive for Amazon.
What does this mean for real estate prices long term for these areas?
Seattle housing is 30-40% cheaper than bay area, and there’s no 9%+ state income tax. I don’t think Seattle has room. I don’t think people realize how much 8M sq ft of space is. There’s 33 buildings in Seattle and most are a square block and at least 8+ stories tall. That’s why I think very few cities will have the space to do it. The next largest amount of sq ft by a company in a single city is Citi with 3.7M in NYC. Seattle area is almost 4M people and Amazon has 20% of the office space. That’s crazy.
To extend this question, where ever amazon chooses to go by virtue of its size and scale will end up becoming Seattle 2.0 (ignoring msft’s contribution to seattle ;)). So companies will no doubt follow suit.