74 New Montgomery
A plugged-in resident tipster reports on The Montgomery (74 New Montgomery):

I’ve noticed a lot more people in the lobby, elevators, halls etc. the last two weeks then saw [they’re now 80% sold]…so between their price adjustments and/or the aggressive commissions they’ve moved a lot of units in the last month or two.

Up from 50% sold in early April, so we’ll call it roughly 10 net new units sold (assuming all the contracts close) per month over the past three with roughly 25 condos to go.
74 New Montgomery: Half Sold (And Still Buying Some Agent Love) [SocketSite]
A Plugged-In Reader’s Perspective On The Montgomery And Its Cuts [SocketSite]

71 thoughts on “74 New Montgomery Update: 80% Sold And Feeling A Bit More Lively”
  1. So how much did they reduce the price per sq ft down to ?
    I was looking for a studio back in 2008 when they had their launch party, but it was over 1000 $ per sq ft i think….

  2. well there’s a studio listed for 330K @ 489 square feet. the problem as usual is the $600 HOA fee which excludes parking. i’m considering living a car-less life in SOMA, but i wonder how i’d get in and out of my building after dark, as Market, Mission, 4th-10th St, all generally not very safe at night. this is better being near 2nd st, but there are not a lot of “safe routes” i can think of if i had to leave or come back to the building at night, by foot or public transit.

  3. It’s a pretty safe location by SF standards – right next to the Palace hotel and the Montgomery BART/Muni station is a half block up the street.
    BTW, one of the reasons for the higher HOAs (besides the fact they have a 24-hr attendant) is that they didn’t try to sucker people in with a low HOA fee initially and then have to raise it the next time any major maintenance needed to be done.
    In homeowner’s meetings they’ve pointed out that we have sizeable reserves and barring some disaster it will be a stable HOA assessment for each unit for the foreseeable future.

  4. They are asking $750k to $950k on remaining 2 brs with hardly a view and the 2nd br suitable only for an office. I have no idea why anybody would want to pay that when you can pay $2100/mo to look down on them, way down.

  5. That studio has been listed for 30 days at that price, $675 psft. It looks like they’ve been trying to sell it for about a year.
    I assume you can probably get it for something between $630 and $650 psft, and it’s upgraded, so it’s about 40% off?
    It has a gas range? I thought those weren’t allowed in a studio.

  6. I Like this building and the curb appeal! Not surprised it’s 80% sold once they started to cut prices. Great location. One of my favorite new developments!

  7. No gas ranges in the studios … they have the glasstop electric. If the listing stated gas in the studio then it’s wrong.

  8. condoshopper, new montgomery and 2nd street are plenty safe. we walk it at night all the time with no problems. lots of academy of art students milling around, smoking outside. usually avoid 1st and the area under the bus ramps at night because it smells like piss under the transbay terminal, but 2nd and new montgomery are totally fine.

  9. For the $600+ HOA fee, does the attendant also valet your car to and from your $250/month parking spot down the block?

  10. i agree this seems to be one of the safer spots in the general region, if there ever was one. i am more concerned about the surrounding blocks, if i need to leave or come home at night w/o a car.

  11. My wife and I live near here (2nd & Folsom) and feel quite safe in the entire area. We are out early and/or late often to walk the dog. Good location for going car-less too. Zipcar office a block away so they have tons of cars with 2 blocks of this building.

  12. “For the $600+ HOA fee, does the attendant also valet your car to and from your $250/month parking spot down the block?”
    If the HOA does not include parking, that $850 per month in total fees, plus having to walk down the street for your car. Not a big deal unless you are carrying a week’s worth of groceries. Still, this would exceed the fee structure at ORH, Brannan and Infinity, buildings that all have far superior amenities and parking/valet parking in the building.

  13. condoshopper, if you want to try soma living for a year, to get the flavor of the area to see if you’d want to stay long term before you buy, there are tons of rentals available on craigslist. try metropolitan, 199 new montgomery, 246 2nd, one rincon hill, etc, and practically all are still FAR cheaper than buying a place at today’s prices. just make sure your landlord is solvent LOL. you can get a real 1 bedroom (i.e. 700-800sq ft) with parking for low to mid 2000s per month.

  14. Condoshopper – outside of the “flank,” that is, the area north of Folsom between fifth and seventh, SOMA is fine. There are some pockets of odd characters, but it is safe, and the SF Crime maps bear that out. Sure, there’s the occassional assault outside of a club at 2:30am, but that’s drunken stupidity. You just cannot mistake a transient population for danger.

  15. I had seriously considered this place back in ’07 but the decline in condo prices in San Francisco particularly in the SOMA-south beach area has created far better options. The location is fine. Just be aware a lot of shops serving the financial district close early. The lack of deeded parking for the smaller units should reduce the value of each unit by $100k. The entire side facing the small alley is very dark even on a sunny day and you are no more than 20 feet away from a flat wall. There is also significant traffic noise. I agree I cannot see why one would pay the same or more to buy here instead of at ORH, SF BLU or The Infinity all are better properties in many ways.

  16. terry et al, thanks for the suggestion and comments. i’m familiar with the whole area during the daytime but seldom go there at night, so maybe it’s a good idea to drive around at night to get a feel.

  17. “Not a big deal unless you are carrying a week’s worth of groceries. Still, this would exceed the fee structure at ORH, Brannan and Infinity, buildings that all have far superior amenities and parking/valet parking in the building.”
    But these buildings are further away from the Financial District & most SOMA attractions.
    Also you can park by the side entrance to drop off groceries and other large loads. Did you forget about this possibility in your weak attempt at spin?

  18. “Also you can park by the side entrance to drop off groceries and other large loads. Did you forget about this possibility in your weak attempt at spin?”
    Let’s see, drop off your groceries at the side exit, then drive your car down the block, park it, hurry back and get your groceries (hope the ice cream hasn’t melted and the sea bass isn’t wafting an odor) and cart them upstairs. One gets to do this Benny Hill routine weekly for $850 in total monthly fees? Sounds like luxury to me – where do I sign up?

  19. If you expect suburb lifestyle, then this is inconvenient…but then, how did people in other cities (outside US) handle it? After all, people in Europe and Asia are quite happy living in small apartments in crowded cities with small cars (or no cars!)
    Answer – people buy smaller and fresher loads instead of loading up a week’s supply at Safeway or a month’s supply at Costco. People walk more, buy from small grocery stores at the corner. People use taxi.
    The lifestyle is different. City living is not for suburb lifestyle (surprise). But then, some people like the city living. Each has its pro and cons. So to live there, you have to like the lifestyle already.
    But again, remember Europeans and Asian are quite happy with the non-suburb lifestyle, so maybe you should try it. You may just like it.

  20. If you expect suburb lifestyle, then this is inconvenient…but then, how did people in other cities (outside US) handle it?
    Heh. People handle it because wages are sufficiently compressed that owners can afford to live near their work and/or take public transit. They also work fewer hours. They have social benefits that allow parents to take a long time off — with pay — when a young child is born. They also have subsidized day care centers and good schools within walking distance.
    One consequence of high prices is that there are few jobs in the entire bay area that pay enough for owners. So, the prospects of being able to work in the city are slim — particularly in a city with such a low wage/price ratio — i.e. purchase prices are much higher here than is justified by local salaries, so the owner pool is drawn from the highest salaries of the entire bay area. Hence 2/3 of new owners commute to work by driving alone. They are not driving from the Sunset to their high paying Finance jobs — they drive down 101 to high paying tech or biotech jobs.
    Even though SF is a jobs exporter (i.e. there are about 100K more jobs here than the local labor pool), what ends up happening is that hordes of people who can’t afford to live here commute into the city to work, while the majority of new owners who can afford to buy here work elsewhere (where wages are higher). Hence the gentrification of housing near freeways to higher paying jobs in the south.
    This forces a lot of driving around, looking for parking, congestion, etc. If prices were to fall, by, say, 1/2, then local wages would be high enough so that the top 1/3 of local salaries would be able to afford to buy here, and the majority would not need a car. Only at that point does not owning a car become a legitimate choice for owners. This is ignoring issues such as poor muni service, working more hours, public safety issues, school issues, etc.
    So, this finger wagging about the city lifestyle and whatnot is ill-informed. Par for the course for public policy discussions here, but again, the delusion about actual economic realities and life-style drivers is astounding. This is not europe. This is not even the south of europe. We are integrated into a larger bay area in which jobs are scattered about, and most of the high wage jobs are not in the city, but distributed throughout this large area with poor transit options. Those that do have high paying jobs work long hours, and both spouses are likely to work long hours.
    Same thing for various city ordinances discouraging the construction of parking spaces — either prices fall in half, or the buildings remain vacant, or you get a lot of congestion due to people circling. Supporters of these proposals are bent on making life harder for people in order to conform to some delusion about this being a low cost social democracy. SF is just a fingertip of a larger web of regional and national trends relating to income distribution, hours worked, health care delivery, education and density — people’s choices are constrained by these trends, regardless of fairy tales about city lifestyles.

  21. Hello- When does one structure the contract with a re agent to take the 2% commission credit into consideration? I have been with the same agent since 2004. However, she was not able to help me get the place I wanted in SF. I have found a flat in SOMA myself. All my agent did was to make an appointment with the developer to show me the unit. Though I like the unit, I don’t want to pay full price for one of the SOMA flats in this market. What can I negotiate for? Don’t want to be a dumb buyer in this market? Got any tip?

  22. “Let’s see, drop off your groceries at the side exit, then drive your car down the block, park it, hurry back and get your groceries (hope the ice cream hasn’t melted and the sea bass isn’t wafting an odor) and cart them upstairs. One gets to do this Benny Hill routine weekly for $850 in total monthly fees? Sounds like luxury to me – where do I sign up?”
    Again, weak attempt at spin. You can put your groceries away while you are parked at the side. You have no idea what it is like living here, and your comments reflect that.

  23. Robert said:
    “Heh. People handle it because wages are sufficiently compressed that owners can afford to live near their work and/or take public transit. They also work fewer hours. They have social benefits that allow parents to take a long time off — with pay — when a young child is born. They also have subsidized day care centers and good schools within walking distance.”
    You never lived in a real city (outside US), have you?
    You are dreaming if you think all countries get all of that. For one, in China, people work as much as in US, social benefits is no better and parents do not take a long time off with pay, and not all daycare centers and good schools are within walking distance.
    So, your assumption is fundamentally wrong, so there is no point getting into the rest of your post.
    Living in the city is a lifestyle. It has little to do with the social and economic condition of the country. Cities have existed since thousands of years ago (way before automobiles), in rich countries and poor and everything in between, in socialist welfare countries (Northern Europe) to purest Capitalist you can find (Hong Kong).
    So looking for excuses why you don’t like city living.

  24. John, are you joking? I emigrated from europe and most likely spent much more time in Asia than most posters on here.
    So, your assumption is fundamentally wrong, so there is no point getting into the rest of your post.
    So this is where reading comprehension comes into play (and, frankly, the ability to think and weigh arguments). I did not make one assumption, I described trends that constrain choices. Those constraints are very real. You did not argue against any of these constraints, or their effects, but merely made a statement that in Hong Kong and China people don’t drive as much.
    Well, that’s a deep insight, John — congratulations on your analysis. I wonder why that is — can you think of some reasons?
    Re-read my post and you’ll see that I’ve already outlined those reasons. Look at the comments about density, wage-compression, commuting distance, incomes, and think about it for a bit. Use a paper and pencil if it’s too much logic to keep track of, and do this before launching into the stereotypes.
    While you are doing this, just consider how a two wage-earner household in which both earners need to make 150K+ a year can reasonably expect to be able to work in San Francisco, and therefore not need a car to commute. What if they need to make 200K each a year, for many of the house in “real SF”. And how could this be the case for, say, 2/3 of new owners, given the distribution of wages in this city. Look up some data and think some more. Then, you might come to the conclusion that high house prices constrain choices about city life-styles for new owners.
    So looking for excuses why you don’t like city living.
    Or, you can just avoid thinking and repeat shibboleths.

  25. The HOA fees really should be taken into account when calculating the price of these condos. Comparing $/sf is totally meaningless when HOA fees are so high.
    Plus, new developments *always* low-ball the HOA fees since they are based on estimates by the developer rather than real experience. This is like the difference between mark-to-market and mark-to-myth in finance. HOA fees will go up, possibly a lot in the near future once the developer has sold all the units and is out of there.
    If you owned a unit in a small building or a SFH, you’d also have to put aside $ each month for maintenance, but it wouldn’t approach $600.

  26. I own a 1 BR condo here and also own a 4 BR house in Sacramento. I pay $649/mo in HOA fees for the condo which covers water, garbage, gas (for range and heated water), bldg insurance, public areas maintenance (incl the roof deck w/ stainless gas BBQ) and 24 hr attendant (which is also FT security and handles dry cleaning, packages, etc).
    At the house, my collective costs for those items is easily $400-500/mo BEFORE maintenance costs factored (keep in mind that in Sac have homeowner’s and flood insurance, gas bill for appliances and water heater, monthly alarm service, yard maintenance costs, and pest control costs, plus water and garbage) plus an additional $100/mo for my neighborhood’s HOA. So at least in my case the costs covered in my condo HOA are pretty comparable to what I’m spending at the house for similar services or benefits (and the elec bill at the house avgs about $200/mo – my condo elec bill has never exceeded $30 in 18 mos).
    As for parking, I chose this bldg for its location, curb appeal, interior finishes, “character,” proximity to public transportation, and fact it is only a 107-unit bldg.
    I do have a car but park it at my office 2 blocks away and rent out the Paramount space provided to residents (for 3 yrs) for $275/mo. If this was my main/only home deeded parking might have been more of a priority; many of the people we have met in this building work in SF but have homes in Sac area, So Calif etc (and the unit across the hall from us is owned by John Cleese, who shows up 2-3X a year).
    My wife and I bought the place with the idea of keeping it for life and leaving it to our now 4 yr old son one day … so long-term location and quality were critical to us, not short-term investment value.

  27. Robert, you completely ignore the 2/3rds of San Francisco residents who rent. It is very easy to afford to live in San Francisco and work here as a renter. In fact, your dismissal of this fact makes your entire argument suspect.

  28. No, my argument is apropos to this thread, which is about condos, and whether or not owners should be driving or working. If you read the comments in this thread, you would see the arguments that I responded to. Of course, renters are a different matter, although there are issues there as well.

  29. oops, I meant driving or taking public transportation, although the latter may seem like work 🙂
    As for the renter issue, which I touched upon briefly, if you think about it, you’ll understand that it is precisely because people like the urban lifestyle that they must drive. They choose to live in the city to enjoy this lifestyle, but their avocation is elsewhere. SF has no real universities (the medical school excepted, of course), and is approximately 15% of the population of the bay area — the best jobs are not here, in most fields. So all of my grad student friends move to SF and commute to Stanford or Berkeley. Berkeley is doable via Bart depending on where you are, but you still need a car. A tourist economy such as SF doesn’t have enough within it so that you can avoid leaving it on a regular basis and continue your professional pursuits. Although many do manage to limit themselves to SF only, which is why posters such as John equate SF to entire countries or cities with 20 million people.
    Once you decide to “live urban” and move up here, you need a car. This is why most of my european/Israeli friends immediately get a car on arriving here. It’s not because they are looking for excuses to avoid living the “city” lifestyle, but rather precisely because they want to live the city lifestyle, and must therefore commute from this small bubble to their jobs in order to enjoy it. This applies to renters as well. Most people aren’t going to quit their jobs and become a barista or cabbie in order to work here.
    Finding a local job in your field in this city is not easy to do, and most don’t succeed, given the career opportunities here. Some do, of course, but not most. This is all available in black and white from an inspection of the SF economy available from cal-finance or the census. You can do your own research, or just ignore the facts, but the issue is real. No town of 700,000 will be able to provide enough high paying jobs to allow the majority of talented residents to remain in the city limits. This is not London or Hong Kong.

  30. But somehow 30% of the residents of San Francisco survive without a car in their household, even though you claim that it is not possible. And I have managed to survive and even prosper in my career, even though I have not owned a car for almost 15 years and no motor vehicle at all for almost five. I am even raising a family here. So it is certainly possible, you just have to make it a priority.
    California in general and San Francisco in particular just make it very convenient to own a car, with all the massive subsidies car owners receive, so most people just decide to follow the path of least resistance.

  31. Robert – CalTrain alone transports thousands of SF residents to their jobs outside the city without using a car.
    NoeValleyJim is right that people drive mostly because it is so cheap and convenient due to all of the government provided freebie subsidies.
    If motorists had to pay the real cost of driving, you would see a lot less solo drivers on the road.

  32. NVJ,
    But somehow 30% of the residents of San Francisco survive without a car in their household
    Well, of course. Many people also get by without health insurance. Those 30% tend to be quite poor, and don’t have jobs that would allow them to own a condo. Look at the median incomes of those that take public transportation. Look at how much they pay in rent. At how many of them live in government housing. These are the people many claim should be excluded from income and rent calculations, and at the same time, they should be the entire universe for commuting patterns!
    Of course there are exceptions — I am glad you found a nice space. A moment of cheer for you! Now, let’s get back to demographics. Wouldn’t it be better to put in place policies and work towards expanding that space, rather than pretending to be something we are not?
    A good way to start expanding that space, is to lower the cost of living, so that people can take a lower paying job nearby, instead of searching for the highest paying jobs in the entire bay area. Another good way to remove those constraints would be to spend money on a regional transportation system instead of a monorail to L.A. Some union busting in BART would be helpful, too. Changes to zoning laws and repeal of the mortgage interest deduction would also be very beneficial. Lower prices would help in so many ways — it would be easier to buy up land to extend public transit, office space would be cheaper, allowing for more satellite offices, etc. There are many things we could do to expand that space, rather than pretending that we are living in Hong Kong.
    However, we must work with the demographics that exist. SF is the urban thumb of a vast suburb, and “last leg” costs will not allow for a majority of people to take public transportation, regardless of how much money is put into it. Not unless the number of nodes is drastically reduced, or people become so poor that they value money over time, in terms of commuting.
    Milkshake,
    Sure, Caltrain is great — I took it for about 3 years. Maybe 4. My commute was almost 4 hours both ways, door to door. Noe to Caltrain to employer shuttle was almost 2 hours. You are right that people drive because it’s convenient. People will always minimize the use of scarce resources, so you see different tradeoffs of time vs. money. Who are you to say that the trade-offs are wrong for them?
    When I started driving, my commute became about 70 min both ways, door to door. Not everyone works/lives close to a caltrain stop. Without a car, I would be forced to live in a suburb. With a car, I can live in a more urban area. It’s because the urban area is to tiny that I need a car.
    I guess, what you call a subsidy most people call “infrastructure”. Roads are infrastructure. Infrastructure is a public good, and should be funded by the public. Due to the nature of majority vote, those confining themselves to small urban bubbles will always be outvoted by those who need to drive, therefore your calls for ends to this form of infrastructure will fall on deaf ears. If you really want to change things, you need to make it so that those, following their own personal trade-offs, find it faster/cheaper to take the transportation option you think they should be taking. If it really bothers you (and I don’t know that it does) that others are driving, I recommend either acceptance of their time valuation, or a move to a location where the trade-offs are different. Than you can be completely surrounded by people more similar to yourself, and things will seem much less wrong to you.
    I am all for more and better infrastructure, that gives people more choices. This includes better public transportation and better roads. But macro concerns and weighted costs for the whole bay area will determine this, not just what happens in our neck of the woods.

  33. To set up a region around mass transit it’s necessary to limit the topology of the system. It’s incredibly difficult to create a system that can connect any two arbitrary points in a 2D space with an efficient use of resources. Limiting the topology and the amount of nodes in the system helps a great deal but it’s difficult to retrofit existing cities around that concept.
    http://www.carfree.com/

  34. You spend 3 hours of your day (i.e. 1/6th of your waking hours) commuting?! WOW. I mean, seriously, its fun to live in the city but not that much fun. Over a working life of 30-40 years you’re looking at 5+ YEARS imprisoned in the car/train/bus/whatever.
    Its your life, I guess but still…

  35. Anon,
    Not even close. ACS has the data on this.
    Jimmy,
    I did for a while, but back then I often slept in the office, too, so I wasn’t commuting every day. It was a start-up situation. The choice of moving to the city was more a group decision, but I do enjoy living here. Also, that was before the bullets, but the bullets don’t stop where I need them to, anyways.
    Later on, I slowed down and got a car, and the commute became about 35 min, and closer to 20 min during good days (each way). If you really count all the costs — waiting for the train, the need to arrive early, getting to the station, etc, then you’ll find that it’s very difficult to use caltrain to the south bay and have the total time be less than 3 hours (round trip).
    It’s possible if you live above the station, work within a short walking distance of your stop, and don’t need to take any transfers, but this is a practical option only for a few people. “Thousands”, sure, but still only a few.
    I know grad students who take it, for example, but only if they are working on their dissertation and need to be on campus once or twice a week. I’ve only known one “tech” guy other than me who took it, but he’s marketing, lives in some of the new condos next to the station, arrives at 10am, leaves at 4:30, and works from home 1-2 days a week. I think, with those working conditions, it’s doable. Again, with “european” working hours, many things become doable, such as daily grocery stops, etc.
    I talk to a lot of people, and in the last few weeks, I’d say the only ones I met who don’t own a car were a gay prostitute, a DJ, and a gaggle of industry people (baristas, bartenders, hostess). Every cabbie I asked owns a car, for example. All the tech people I know own cars and usually drive. Every academic I know drives. I knew one city employee who walked to work, but when her site was moved, she broke down and got a car.
    In any case, everyone optimizes differently. I’ve never understood those who assume that their weightings should apply to everyone else, much less those who become upset at the lifestyles of others. San Francisco is remarkably close-minded in this respect, particularly on the part of the prostitute and less so with the DJ. I think there’s something about confining your daily life to a small geographic area that makes one narrow-minded.

  36. Robert, I think the only reason some of us are “close-minded” about it is that we wish that we could expand the urban footprint, as you said earlier, but all that we ever see happening is the suburban footprint coming into the urban one. Palo Alto isn’t doing anything to build anything resembling urban, but we have people here who complain when a building is being built without every unit coming with parking.
    BTW – I’ve worked in tech for seven years (one nonprofit in the Presidio, two startups in SOMA, and now a startup in the Mission) and never worked outside the city (sold my car after I found it to be too much of a hassle). It all depends on your priorities, as you said. I can’t imagine dealing with a commute that wasn’t either a walk or ten minute bike ride (I moved across town when I changed jobs from the place in the Presidio). Life is too valuable to spend in a car or on a train or bus, IMO.

  37. How did you come to be discussing car ownership with a gay prostitute? Just out of sheer curiosity …

  38. Car drivers force others to absorb the negative externalities of their choices. I bet you wouldn’t be too keen if I blew cigar smoke into your face, well car drivers blow pollution into the air we all breathe every time they turn on their engines.
    Not to mention the congestion they force onto other road users, the 40,000 killed every year due to their actions, the 1M or so injured, all the space they demand taxpayers provide for them for storage of their personal property, the obesity epidemic, etc.
    I never understood why car drivers assume that everyone else should just silently tolerate and subsidize their lifestyles and get sanctimonious when someone suggests that they should have to pay for all the damage they do to the people around them.

  39. “… blow pollution into the air … sit silently by … and get sanctimonious …”
    Irony, one hopes, is externality-free 🙂

  40. If you really want to change things, you need to make it so that those, following their own personal trade-offs, find it faster/cheaper to take the transportation option you think they should be taking.
    This is the crux here. The only reason people find it more convenient to drive is that there have been massive amounts of public money poured into this kind of infrastructure. People who have lived in Europe it is possible to create a different kind of built environment. There are 58
    “car first” counties in California. It always amazes me when someone moves to the one that is “transit first” and then begins demanding that The City change to suit their convenience, usually in ways that would destroy the very amenities that attracted them here in the first place!
    I think there must be something about sitting behind the wheel of a two ton vehicle all day, ensconced in an air conditioned bubble, that make people particularly short-sighted and selfish.

  41. Wow.
    @Jimmy,
    you would be surprised at all the people I talk to! In fact, I’ve even talked to a Fields medalist about prostitution, and a CalTrans engineer about commuting. Funny thing, the CalTrans engineer was dead seat against people driving, but he drove a huge truck everywhere (with the caltrans logo) and was proud that he could leave it in the median while he went to get coffee. Because it was an official truck, he never got tickets. His dream was to build his own eco-friendly house way out in the boondocks, but when I pointed out that this was sprawl, it didn’t seem to bother him.
    @Anona,
    To be clear, I’m not accusing anyone on this thread of anything, merely having a discussion. I don’t think you will succeed in changing Palo Alto, and I’m not sure why you would want to. Accept that you are not living in London or Paris, and that the center of mass, politically, demographically, and economically, is south of the city. Work within that framework to make life better for everyone. For example, parking is infrastructure. It is expensive to provide. Developers don’t rush to build unwanted infrastructure, they build the absolute minimum necessary to move the product. Why not let them decide how many spaces they need to build? Parking spaces don’t create cars — like dirt creating rats. High prices and living in a suburban area is what creates the cars. Besides, it’s hard to get mad at Palo Alto when they are basically the same people. Most SFers will bail when they have kids anyway, so all this sanctimoniousness will disappear as soon as the kids reach school age and they decide to live a different lifestyle.
    NVJ,
    The problem is that you don’t know what the “externalities” of driving are, and are not able to quantify them. You are talking about the vast majority of the population, which of course subsidize those who do not drive, as this poorer pool of people pays much less in taxes, does not pay registration or gas taxes, and in general makes their money off of the incomes of those who drive. You of course realize that those who don’t own cars are in poorer health and receive more assistance than those who do, right? We are all connected, and you can’t tease these things apart. I am not a fan of any sort of Pigovian tax, btw.

  42. Why not let them decide how many spaces they need to build?
    Because that encourages even more suburbanization of one of the true bits of urbanity in the US. If it is artificially holding prices down and keeping some people out that would otherwise want to buy, then I’ll support it even more. Urban areas in the US are like endangered species – if the only way to keep them viable is through regulations and restrictions, well, that’s what I’ll support.

  43. Parking spaces don’t create cars
    Just as cable outlets in homes don’t create internet users, but they certainly allow more people to access the internet via that outlet. As more people use the outlet for its intended use, Comcast must invest in ways to deal with the increased usage, or their capacity will be overwhelmed. How are city roads not the same – except for being even worse because the city can’t do anything to efficiently move the cars once they start using the network? It would be like each individual Comcast customer deciding exactly how to send their data to specific sites on Comcast’s network.
    Now, if we were talking about an area where road capacity was easily increased, maybe you’d have a point.

  44. Just because you can’t measure precisely the value of something doesn’t mean you can’t make a good minimum estimate. At the least, there is the loss of all the injured and killed pedestrians. We also have pretty good estimates of the cost of the air pollution. If you don’t like Pigovian taxes, what is your solution to the problem of air pollution, regulation?
    Of course everyone takes some utility from the transportation network unless they live entirely off the grid. But those who drive the most get the most utility. There is no particular evidence that those who drive the most are paying the most taxes, in fact I would argue that what evidence we have indicates otherwise. In any case, it is foolish for the government to subsidize what is clearly such an economically disadvantageous activity, particularly when there are better alternatives.
    If you are really committed to reducing the cost of housing in the urban core, you should be a fan of unbundling parking from housing. You do know that in the vast majority of San Francisco, there is a parking minimum for new construction, right? Instead of focusing on the very small regions where there is a maximum, perhaps it would make more sense to worry about the rest of The City. Reducing the footprint dedicated to car uses would also bring down the cost of housing, by increasing the supply of land, which is the largest component of home costs.

  45. If it is artificially holding prices down and keeping some people out that would otherwise want to buy, then I’ll support it even more. Urban areas in the US are like endangered species – …
    I think this is the best comment in this thread. Certainly, the most honest. It reminds me a bit when Satchel admitted that perhaps he might have devoted himself to something “more productive”, or when NVJ admitted that he was a “middle manager” and that it was a difficult trade-off to commute south or face diminished career prospects here. I love these types of comments. Btw, I am definitely keeping an eye out for local jobs. I would love to work in the city!
    But, Anona, if you re-read your statement, do you see how profoundly conservative it is? It is really the same mentality as in the suburbs, which I guess is because it is the same pool of people, just at different points in their lives. I respect your goals — I share them! But, I don’t share the fear of change and need to prevent outsiders with different lifestyles from coming here.
    More importantly, you don’t know what will happen. These are emergent phenomena. So, perhaps a lot of commuters pile into the city, and then more local jobs are created, and land costs increase so that parking becomes unaffordable, at which point the whole city gets more urban. You don’t know, and I generally prefer to let people make their own choices even if it risks “ruining” what I feel is special about a place.
    Just because you can’t measure precisely the value of something doesn’t mean you can’t make a good minimum estimate.
    You can’t make a fair estimate at all, because It is all inter-connected, so you cannot separate one effect from another. Take, for example, my DJ friend. He can go without a car and work as a DJ because people drive up to him. A yelp search shows about 3500 listings for “club” in San Francisco. That’s not locals! So, if people wouldn’t drive to us, we wouldn’t have so many restaurants, or such an entertainment-heavy economy, at which point my DJ friend might need to drive out to where the gigs are outside of the city, or perhaps he would be unemployed — you don’t know. Just because people drive to the city and fund the locals doesn’t mean the locals are somehow less dependent on cars — in fact, it is the hundreds of thousands of people that drive into SF to entertain that allows so many industry people to live here and go without a car in the first place. And even if you are a monk and grown money on trees, you are still buying goods trucked in, etc.
    Moreover, you have to take into account all the effects, not just the primary or secondary effects. So where does the DJ spend his money — disposable income he would not have if so many people would not be driving to see him perform. The merchants that sell to the DJ are benefitting from the drivers, too. And then, who gets the merchants’ money? etc.
    That’s why I don’t like Pigovian taxes. They boil down to the politically strong exploiting the weak, and have no basis in fact or actual costs, since we cannot calculate these costs to begin with. That’s why most Pigovian taxes — cigarette, liquor, etc., end up being targeted at the poor and those with less clout. It is nothing more than a modern “poll tax”, although the primary objective is economic, not political, in nature. None of these taxes are fair in any way.
    If you don’t like Pigovian taxes, what is your solution to the problem of air pollution, regulation?
    My solution is that if something is really undesirable, you outlaw it. Those breaking the law can pay fines and/or go to jail. At the end of the day, either outlaw something, or have the economy as whole pay to clean it up — as the economy as whole benefits or suffers. I am not a fan of self-righteous do-gooders attempting to micro-manage things. That way be dragons.
    Btw, I am not arguing that prices need to be artificially lowered.
    Finally, keep in mind that we are talking about small potatoes. We are not adding a lot of housing stock to SF, so these disputes are a bit talmudic. However, the attitude behind the disputes is important. If you want to know why we are in danger of becoming colonial Williamsburg, then the comments in this thread are a good framework for understanding the dynamics. Good discussion all-around. I was interrupted by a liquor and a great DJ — he doesn’t own a car, and I took a cab back home. 🙂

  46. NVJ, you work in the technology industry which has huge “externalities” – pollution, labor practices, and profit-driven (unnecessary) upgrade cycles among them.
    The government has subsidized the entire technology industry, and technology workers (along with the wealthy in general) get the most utility from it.
    Sound familiar? So I guess you’ll be working at Four Barrel now. Or is it just the car you will be giving up? Or maybe you are buying carbon credits, lol.
    “Externalities” is a fancy word for “things I wish you would pay extra for, because in my personal opinion those things are not desirable, but I could not get enough voters to agree with me to impose more tax on it yet”.
    Once you get the votes and taxes, you’ll claim there are more externalities we haven’t paid for yet. And so on, until we live like you want us to.

  47. LOL at the anti-car screeds. It makes me want to add a fourth car to our stable!
    That’s fine with me, you live in Marin where there is plenty of room for cars and the area is built a around a car. I wouldn’t care if you had 50 cars. I also wouldn’t care if someone living in San Francisco had fifty cars – I just don’t want new buildings built that will overload the current roads (that are already nearly overloaded by the amount of cars).
    As I’ve stated before, I like the idea of changing zoning so that ONLY the number of cars per lot is restricted (and if it was unavoidable, the height as well). For example, now we say that a place is allowed to 55′ high with a 1:1 parking ratio. I’d prefer it be: This place is allowed to be 55′ high with parking for 20 cars. That way, the developer gets to decide how many units he wants to build – it can be one unit with a 20 car garage, 20 units with one parking spot each, or 40 units with half not having parking. This way the market decides while the city gets to keep control on overloading of local capacity.

  48. But, Anona, if you re-read your statement, do you see how profoundly conservative it is? It is really the same mentality as in the suburbs, which I guess is because it is the same pool of people, just at different points in their lives. I respect your goals — I share them! But, I don’t share the fear of change and need to prevent outsiders with different lifestyles from coming here.
    I actually relatively conservative in many ways, however, in terms of zoning and new buildings, generally the only things that I want regulated are the following:
    1. Curb Cuts – no first floors with 40 parking garage entrances
    2. Number of parking spots per lot
    I don’t care about height, bulk, density, etc, etc, etc. Developers can build whatever they want as long as they don’t turn all sidewalk space into a driveway or exceed the number of parking spots allotted per lot (see post above regarding my idea for that). I’d like to see a lot more teardowns, converted use buildings, etc, without the heavy hand of forcing people to do it one particular way.

  49. Glad you picked up on the irony there dub dub, I was afraid that I was being too subtle.
    The world is a lot more complicated than the market fundamentalists would have us believe. There is no “market solution” for the Tragedy of the Commons problem, which the real world is full of. Coal plant emissions, for example, clearly belong in a space somewhere between criminality and a free-for-all. Do you really want to go back to the days of Killer Fogs? Or perhaps you would prefer to give up electricity?
    The slippery slope argument in general is not a very strong one, unless you can show how one event leads to another. It is pretty funny that the guys getting the massive government subsidy want to invoke the specter of Big Bad Ole Gubmint at the mere suggestion that they should have to shoulder more of the cost of their actions. Even harder to take seriously is the claim that Exxon and Chevron are “politically weak” and need to be protected from being exploited. If anything, it is the other way around, since for decades they have received government subsidies, free or cheap access to public land and a favorable regulatory environment. Of course, they are going to object when these perquisites are taken away. And I say this as an Exxon shareholder!
    The Economist, while usually a reliable source, might be wrong here, at least these guys (and many other sources) say otherwise:
    http://www.unece.org/stats/trends2005/transport.htm
    Canada is an even larger user than the US of energy per capita though, which is not surprising, given the geography and climate.
    One way or another the United State’s disproportionate use of the world’s oil is likely to diminish. We might use nukes to bomb China and India back to a pre-fossil fuel era, but this seems less and less likely. There is also the inevitable resource constraints we will run into sooner or later. We may discover another source of cheap energy, but I wouldn’t count on it.
    There are probably other good transportation solutions: I can imagine a world where people rode around in self-contained electric powered semi-autonomous vehicles (“cars”) which had robotic assist and were connected to a smart grid road network. This would solve a lot of the problems with our current vehicle implementation, but it is kind of hard to imagine how we would get there from here. The reactionary forces dedicated to the status quo are just too strong.
    Of course, we could just muddle along, assuming that the future is going to be like the past and hoping that it all somehow works out. I am sure that this is what most people will do in any case. But it doesn’t hurt to do some scenario and contingency planning and at least start the research on what it might be like to live and prosper in a world where cheap plentiful oil is not a given. We can probably reduce the pain of the shock to come quite a bit that way.
    I am going to be away from the keyboard for a while, I have two little girls who are demanding my attention and the fog is finally starting to clear. It is an interesting topic though.

  50. NVJ got me to thinking when he mentioned the smart grid idea for roads. I would be in favor of allowing unlimited parking everywhere (though I would still want garage entrances minimized to maintain safety for pedestrians – but the garages could be for a billion cars for all I care) IF there was a way to control the number of cars on the road and keep from roads going over capacity.
    I would be fine with either some way of privatizing the roads, or having a government entity do it – having congestion charges in place for every inch of road anywhere in the city that varied by current use. That would enable the roads to remain at the capacity that they were designed for using market mechanisms, so then unlimited parking would seem to be a viable option for me. Until then, limiting parking and having tolls to enter the city (would be better if they were designed to rise and fall depending on time/demand) seem to be the only things that are politically viable to keep the roads from becoming parking lots.

  51. Don’t worry about social engineering — the price of gasoline will, in about 10 years or so, solve the car congestion problem for us. Rich people will drive, poor and middle class people will take transit. Our cities will go back 100 years to an era of electric-powered streetcars and light rail. Nuclear power plants will be built to power it all. People will still own cars, they just won’t drive them because its uneconomical when gas is $10-$15 a gallon.
    One day (after we’re all dead and gone, likely), they’ll figure out fusion (both the nuclear and cuisine varieties) and then the world will have another wonderful, unlimited surce of energy to propel us to ever greater heights of consumption.
    Life will go on.
    In the near term, SF housing prices will drop a little bit, too.
    That’s my prediction. You heard it here first.

  52. “and cuisine varieties”
    Oh you got that right. As I always say, “The asians got it right the first time, you’re not helping.”

  53. “go back … to an era of electric-powered streetcars”
    You can already buy electric cars that satisfy all but the most outrageous commuting needs. They aren’t economical or practical yet, of course, for many reasons.
    In fact, there may be a personal vehicle renaissance over the next decade or two, unless vehicles are made illegal, lol.
    During the great depression, electrical appliances (new technology) increased, and surprisingly, 80% of these new purchases were *financed*
    http://books.google.com/books?id=gDrlTbyBKvYC&lpg=PA56&ots=bjipmsbOsU&pg=PA56
    The same could happen with more-rational personal vehicles. This is not inconsistent with a shrinking auto industry – electric cars are cheaper to maintain, have fewer parts, are more reliable, and are more efficient:
    http://www1.eere.energy.gov/vehiclesandfuels/avta/light_duty/fsev/fsev_gas_elec1.html
    Hilariously, the personal vehicle could become even *less expensive* than it is today, but they will probably tax it more to compensate. Hopefully that will take care of all externalities 🙂

  54. Btw, I am definitely keeping an eye out for local jobs. I would love to work in the city!
    Robert, I believe you mentioned that you worked in IT. I know that Twitter is hiring like mad, they must have gotten another round of funding. If I was still swinging for the fences, this is a place that I would definitely check out.

  55. re: twitter — it’s fantastic, but I need to understand the business model before sending in a resume. Perhaps someone can explain it to me.

  56. What’s to understand? Their business model is to milk VC investors until they run out of suckers to invest in them.
    Those guys found themselves at the center of a global phenomenon and they have absolutely no clue how to capitalize on it.

  57. Well, I do think that Facebook will be able to generate revenue, by means of selling rich user data to marketing firms, and also targeted ads. Even though in the beginning, I didn’t understand that one, either. So, it was an honest question.

  58. It really doesn’t matter what their business model is, many will be interested in their traffic. They are getting loads of traffic and it is growing quickly, though that growth has slowed a bit lately. They are a likely Google buyout candidate, though at least a dozen biggies, including the company I work for, would probably love to have them.
    Send in your resume and ask them what their business model is during your interview, why not? You should at least try it out. I would guess that they still don’t really have it figured out yet, having worked at a few start-ups, maybe you could help them get there.
    Start-ups are always risky and a lot of work, but you seem like the kind of person open to both of those things. If you are half the programmer you seem to be you will never have to worry about finding a job if things don’t work out well.

  59. NVJ — “doesn’t matter what their business model is”
    I wanna run a business like that.
    Business model:
    1. Write a website in your spare time.
    2. Site becomes global phenomenon, somehow.
    2a. Never make a cent in revenue, let alone profits.
    3. Load up on VC money
    4. Sell out to Google.
    5. Retire
    Let’s see… I know I had a copy of HTML for Dummies here someplace.

  60. I think you pretty much described YouTube right there in a nutshell. #2 is harder than you might think.

  61. Incidentally, twitter’s founder has already sold once to google (blogger.com), had a subsequent failed VC-backed investment, but because he stayed on good terms with the VC’s (USV), they were there to fund twitter when it started to get traction.
    And of course, youtube’s lead VC investor (Moritz) was also the lead VC for google, and was actually sitting on the board of google at the time of their acquisition.
    I’m guessing these founders are not taking the “VC’s are bloodsuckers” to heart 🙂

  62. Unit 502 (1010sf 2/2) for sale asking 945K, but Zillow shows a sale at 1.24M in 06/08. What’s the story?

  63. What’s the story?
    Nice find. I have an odds on favorite candidate for the owner (involved in the Commercial Real Estate industry), but I can’t be totally sure. Note that it closed right before the credit crisis, so it may be a casualty of war. Here’s a link to the listing.

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