Author Topic: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!  (Read 11636 times)

panda

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 20
Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« on: September 13, 2017, 11:09:18 AM »
DELETED
« Last Edit: December 15, 2017, 09:48:02 AM by panda »

honeybbq

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1468
  • Location: Seattle
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #1 on: September 13, 2017, 12:10:24 PM »
That happens here in Seattle, too, though not that much.

But MANY houses go 100k-250k over asking in a bidding war in our area, not surprised it's higher in CA.

This seems like a calculated ploy by the sellers to drive up bidding: "“We anticipated it would go for $2 million, or over $2 million. But we had no idea it would ever go for what it went for.” (And they started the price at 1.6)

Reminds me of ebay listings: 1 CENT NO RESERVE - gets a ton of people in the door and stirs up traffic.

talltexan

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 5344
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #2 on: September 14, 2017, 08:34:11 AM »
If you're in a multiple offer situation, and you win, then presumably you've paid market price. There were other bidders willing to pay about as much as you.


Drifterrider

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1118
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #3 on: September 14, 2017, 09:05:49 AM »
One must bait the hook to catch the fish.


zolotiyeruki

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 5603
  • Location: State: Denial
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #4 on: September 14, 2017, 09:51:11 AM »
That happens here in Seattle, too, though not that much.

But MANY houses go 100k-250k over asking in a bidding war in our area, not surprised it's higher in CA.

This seems like a calculated ploy by the sellers to drive up bidding: "“We anticipated it would go for $2 million, or over $2 million. But we had no idea it would ever go for what it went for.” (And they started the price at 1.6)

Reminds me of ebay listings: 1 CENT NO RESERVE - gets a ton of people in the door and stirs up traffic.
That's exactly right--sellers will often underprice the home in order to entice multiple potential bidders.  The idea is this:  by underpricing the home at first, they get more people to look at it.  The sellers might think the home would sell for $2 million, but if you get a few people whose budget is $1.75 million to look at it, they might decide to increase their budget and jump into the bidding war.  You *know* the home is going to sell for at least $2 million, but having more bidders means you're likely to sell for even more.

Dicey

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 22318
  • Age: 66
  • Location: NorCal
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #5 on: September 14, 2017, 09:57:05 AM »
We bought our not-in-Silly-Valley house in 2013. It was listed for 800k. It drew twelve other above-asking offers. We had to pay 928k to get the property. Zillow claims it's now worth over 1.35M. Interestingly, Zillow "Zestimates" are typically low in this market. Nuts. Fucking nuts!

I totally believe this story. Funny, Sunnyvale was considered so not cool for ages. They used to call it "Scummyvale". Nothing wrong with the area, just perception, I guess.

ms

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 84
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #6 on: September 14, 2017, 09:59:09 AM »
I saw the headline and thought "Welcome to Toronto." There are a few areas where houses sell for 150% of asking price, so easily half a mil over.  The bidding wars are crazy here and you just know that when the house goes on the market and states that it's not accepting offers until next Tuesday or whatever that they are just waiting for multiple offers.

We went to an open house over the summer that was listed for around $900k.  The real estate agent said that they had 180 people come through between Saturday/Sunday of the open house.  They were taking offers starting next week.  I didn't see what they actually sold for, but I bet it was close to 1.4 mil or over.

This in particular sucks for us because this way we cannot tell whether the house will actually be for 900k or sell well over.  We have now signed up with an agent and so hopefully they'll guide us through the listings but it's disheartening to see what the actual prices are vs the asking prices.

GuitarStv

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 23128
  • Age: 42
  • Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #7 on: September 14, 2017, 10:18:13 AM »
I saw the headline and thought "Welcome to Toronto." There are a few areas where houses sell for 150% of asking price, so easily half a mil over.  The bidding wars are crazy here and you just know that when the house goes on the market and states that it's not accepting offers until next Tuesday or whatever that they are just waiting for multiple offers.

We went to an open house over the summer that was listed for around $900k.  The real estate agent said that they had 180 people come through between Saturday/Sunday of the open house.  They were taking offers starting next week.  I didn't see what they actually sold for, but I bet it was close to 1.4 mil or over.

This in particular sucks for us because this way we cannot tell whether the house will actually be for 900k or sell well over.  We have now signed up with an agent and so hopefully they'll guide us through the listings but it's disheartening to see what the actual prices are vs the asking prices.

Yeah, the underpricing in this city is silly.  It's pretty common practice to under price homes by a huge margin.  It was really annoying when we were looking for our house, wastes a lot of your time.

ms

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 84
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #8 on: September 14, 2017, 10:50:20 AM »
Yeah, the underpricing in this city is silly.  It's pretty common practice to under price homes by a huge margin.  It was really annoying when we were looking for our house, wastes a lot of your time.

Agreed!

So right now there are two homes for sale in the area we're looking at (Bathurst north of 401) and one is for 999k and other is for 1.1mil. The more expensive home has a larger property but less desirable location as it's across the street from an apartment complex vs a residential single home kind of street.  The 999k home is hoping for multiple offers.

We are just watching to see what they both sell for as that should give us a better idea of the actual prices.  Which may mean that freehold home ownership within the city may be out of our reach.

Undecided

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1237
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #9 on: September 14, 2017, 09:22:14 PM »
Yeah, the underpricing in this city is silly.  It's pretty common practice to under price homes by a huge margin.  It was really annoying when we were looking for our house, wastes a lot of your time.

Agreed!

So right now there are two homes for sale in the area we're looking at (Bathurst north of 401) and one is for 999k and other is for 1.1mil. The more expensive home has a larger property but less desirable location as it's across the street from an apartment complex vs a residential single home kind of street.  The 999k home is hoping for multiple offers.

We are just watching to see what they both sell for as that should give us a better idea of the actual prices.  Which may mean that freehold home ownership within the city may be out of our reach.

I suppose that's one reason to use an agent as a buyer---to have someone narrow the viewings to those homes that may realistically be expected to sell within your budget.

The only relevance listing price had in the last listing agreement I signed was that if I refused an unconditional offer at or above listing price, I was obligated to pay commissions. I actually had to "fight" the listing agent to bring the listing price up to an amount I would actually accept, rather than the amount she thought would "drive the most traffic." She didn't want to "change the form" to eliminate the obligation to pay the commission if I rejected a full-priced unconditional offer.

FINate

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3114
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #10 on: September 14, 2017, 11:44:42 PM »
I must be missing something since I don't know how anyone thinks that is a good idea this this point.

Very short commute to Google, Facebook and the new Apple campus. Many couples have dual tech incomes, which can each easily be $200k+ after bonus and equity. Many transactions are cash. The price they paid is in line with that area (even after the overbid on low starting price), crazy as that seems. Working at the big tech companies pays the big bucks but you have to live somewhere and there's very little inventory. Rents for 2-3 beds are also crazy ($4-5k or higher). Prices are lower in SE San Jose or Morgan Hill/Gilroy, but traffic on 85 and 101 is atrocious. My biggest concern would be the ~$30k in annual property taxes due.

MgoSam

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3684
  • Location: Minnesota
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #11 on: September 15, 2017, 08:46:20 AM »
Not to mention that for people that are willing to be a distance from Google but want to use Google provided transportation, they face the risk of people protesting and throwing egg at the bus windows.

Abe

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2647
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #12 on: September 15, 2017, 11:19:23 PM »
I'm living in santa monica right now, and realized two things

1) turns out our family needs a lot less house-space than we thought
2) there's no way we are going to stay long-term in a housing market this nuts

Which got me to a third realization: I could buy a decent-for-us house in approximately 90% of the US for less than one year's salary for the wife and me.

This is a crazy world.

FINate

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3114
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #13 on: September 16, 2017, 10:22:59 AM »
I'm living in santa monica right now, and realized two things

1) turns out our family needs a lot less house-space than we thought
2) there's no way we are going to stay long-term in a housing market this nuts

Which got me to a third realization: I could buy a decent-for-us house in approximately 90% of the US for less than one year's salary for the wife and me.

This is a crazy world.

Making big bucks in a HCOL area for, say, five years and then retiring to a LCOL area is a reasonable strategy. It's cost of living arbitrage. From a market perspective it's good as well; get in, make your money, then move on and make room for someone else. The trick, I think, is keeping your expenses low enough that you can save enough of your high income to make it work. Google is known for having a number of very highly compensated employees who lived in cars in their parking lot and then retire elsewhere or paid cash for a house.

jeromedawg

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 5174
  • Age: 2019
  • Location: Orange County, CA
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #14 on: September 25, 2017, 09:59:45 AM »
That happens here in Seattle, too, though not that much.

But MANY houses go 100k-250k over asking in a bidding war in our area, not surprised it's higher in CA.

This seems like a calculated ploy by the sellers to drive up bidding: "“We anticipated it would go for $2 million, or over $2 million. But we had no idea it would ever go for what it went for.” (And they started the price at 1.6)

Reminds me of ebay listings: 1 CENT NO RESERVE - gets a ton of people in the door and stirs up traffic.
That's exactly right--sellers will often underprice the home in order to entice multiple potential bidders.  The idea is this:  by underpricing the home at first, they get more people to look at it.  The sellers might think the home would sell for $2 million, but if you get a few people whose budget is $1.75 million to look at it, they might decide to increase their budget and jump into the bidding war.  You *know* the home is going to sell for at least $2 million, but having more bidders means you're likely to sell for even more.

It's the same concept as banking on the fact that bidding becomes emotional for something so highly sought-after. Same concept for those who get caught up in bidding wars on Ebay, etc. I saw a classic example of this briefly watching Storage Wars too - one guy outbid another and probably felt great that he beat his opponent, while his opponent felt great because he "screwed" the other guy over by bidding it up so high that it wasn't worth it and "forced" his opponent to pay over market price (yet you could tell he was still bitter about losing)

aperture

  • Bristles
  • ***
  • Posts: 475
  • Location: Colorado
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #15 on: October 01, 2017, 07:33:09 PM »
$2.47 million for a ranch with a sunken living room!!! WTF? Is there a goldmine in the back yard?

Indexer

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1463
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #16 on: October 01, 2017, 10:11:11 PM »
Makes me wonder why the big tech firms even stay in these places.

At these housing prices they could open another campus and people would be happy to work for a bit less so they can afford a place to live. 200k/yr and houses cost 2 million, or 175k/yr and houses cost 200k?

In plenty of nice cities, outside of CA, you could get the above house in a safe neighborhood for 1/10th of the price. If you are willing to commute 30-45 minutes make that closer to 1/15th of the price.

Related: Amazon is looking at cities with lower COL for it's second HQ.

obstinate

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1147
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #17 on: October 02, 2017, 07:38:39 AM »
I saw the headline and thought "Welcome to Toronto." There are a few areas where houses sell for 150% of asking price, so easily half a mil over.  The bidding wars are crazy here and you just know that when the house goes on the market and states that it's not accepting offers until next Tuesday or whatever that they are just waiting for multiple offers.

We went to an open house over the summer that was listed for around $900k.  The real estate agent said that they had 180 people come through between Saturday/Sunday of the open house.  They were taking offers starting next week.  I didn't see what they actually sold for, but I bet it was close to 1.4 mil or over.

This in particular sucks for us because this way we cannot tell whether the house will actually be for 900k or sell well over.  We have now signed up with an agent and so hopefully they'll guide us through the listings but it's disheartening to see what the actual prices are vs the asking prices.

Yeah, the underpricing in this city is silly.  It's pretty common practice to under price homes by a huge margin.  It was really annoying when we were looking for our house, wastes a lot of your time.
Recently sold a house out there. We intentionally underpriced it by about 200k. This was slightly annoying for buyers, I'm sure, but it would be irrational to ask the market price, because then buyers would not show up. So ultimately this is on buyers and their irrational attraction to underpriced listings. :)

We really wanted to just do a no-ask second price auction, but our agent convinced us that this would not fetch the highest price. In the end, the house went for $400k over, so I guess he did what I paid him to do: give me wise and sound advice.

talltexan

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 5344
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #18 on: October 02, 2017, 08:08:48 AM »
Makes me wonder why the big tech firms even stay in these places.

At these housing prices they could open another campus and people would be happy to work for a bit less so they can afford a place to live. 200k/yr and houses cost 2 million, or 175k/yr and houses cost 200k?

In plenty of nice cities, outside of CA, you could get the above house in a safe neighborhood for 1/10th of the price. If you are willing to commute 30-45 minutes make that closer to 1/15th of the price.

Related: Amazon is looking at cities with lower COL for it's second HQ.

I think the big Tech firms want to attract the kind of people who see a gigantic housing premium, but are so confident in their own abilities that they feel they can out-earn that premium.

EricEng

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 605
  • Location: CO
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #19 on: October 02, 2017, 09:57:39 AM »
Makes me wonder why the big tech firms even stay in these places.

At these housing prices they could open another campus and people would be happy to work for a bit less so they can afford a place to live. 200k/yr and houses cost 2 million, or 175k/yr and houses cost 200k?
The problem is the tech talent is there and not willing to move away.  The best talent  hops from business to business in a super heated competition in these small geographical locations.  Since all the tech and startups are in the same spot it works like a black hole just pulling more and more in.  That talent doesn't want to leave the area because all their job prospects are in the same region. 

If anyone short of the top three (Google, Facebook, Apple) opened a campus in the middle of nowhere, they would lose a lot of their talent that doesn't want to leave all their other prospects behind.  The tech workers their have a huge independence because they can just walk out one door and find ten other locations within a 5 minute walk that will scoop them up for 30% more money.  Hence they crazy high salaries to retain talent.  It also becomes very hard to recruit people and pull them from that region because it is asking a lot of commitment from them as they will likely have no other job prospects for their skillset in that middle of nowhere location.

Indexer

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1463
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #20 on: October 02, 2017, 03:48:45 PM »
@ EricEng & talltexan:  I wasn't saying existing people needed to move. Open a new location in addition to the existing location. In the new location pay less. Give people the option. I bet a lot of new people will choose the new location.

I was also talking about places people want to live, not the middle of no where. Example: Charleston, Charlotte, Nashville, Raleigh, Houston(pre-hurricane), growing cities in the country, places people want to live. In these cities, and cities like these, the house in the article goes for 200-300k. If you are willing to commute 45 minutes from the suburbs make it 150-200k. In almost any US city outside of CA and NY, the home would still be less than 2 million. Every person doesn't want to live on the west coast. Take your pick.

In the middle of no where, that house goes for 100k. It's a little ranch. Most rural southerners live in little ranch style homes.
« Last Edit: October 02, 2017, 03:52:32 PM by Indexer »

talltexan

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 5344
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #21 on: October 03, 2017, 11:34:06 AM »
I still think it's an uphill battle. Moving sucks. And when you're start-up obsessed friends realize you're doing it to move to Columbia, SC, their opinion of you may change. (I do like some of the cities you listed, including Charlotte, where I live)

FINate

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3114
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #22 on: October 03, 2017, 08:30:51 PM »
Makes me wonder why the big tech firms even stay in these places.

At these housing prices they could open another campus and people would be happy to work for a bit less so they can afford a place to live. 200k/yr and houses cost 2 million, or 175k/yr and houses cost 200k?

In plenty of nice cities, outside of CA, you could get the above house in a safe neighborhood for 1/10th of the price. If you are willing to commute 30-45 minutes make that closer to 1/15th of the price.

Related: Amazon is looking at cities with lower COL for it's second HQ.

Google has engineering offices in: Mountain View, SF, San Bruno, LA, Seattle/Kirkland, Boulder, Pittsburg, NYC, Waterloo, Dublin, London, Zurich, Munich, Tel Aviv, Sydney, Hyderabad ... I'm sure I'm probably missing some. Basically, they go wherever there's a deep pool of talent. The SF Bay Area just happens to be a very deep pool.

TheGrimSqueaker

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 2606
  • Location: A desert wasteland, where none but the weird survive
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #23 on: October 03, 2017, 08:33:49 PM »
I still think it's an uphill battle. Moving sucks. And when you're start-up obsessed friends realize you're doing it to move to Columbia, SC, their opinion of you may change. (I do like some of the cities you listed, including Charlotte, where I live)

Funny: I know an amazing small company out of Columbia, SC that was a tech startup. Software. They chose their location to be near a bunch of decision makers of the naval and DC-administrative persuasion, to be close enough to major population centers, but far enough away for real estate to be more affordable.

Dicey

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 22318
  • Age: 66
  • Location: NorCal
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #24 on: October 04, 2017, 10:14:42 AM »
A house around the corner, on a thoroughfare, went in the market for $1.2M. It's an owner/contractor/flipper who improved it while living in it over the last 2+ years. It has some "improvements" that are very specific to his taste. Stone trimmed archways in a house with standard height ceilings? Check. Wasted square footage caused by reusing cabinets from some other project? Check. Mis-matched/sloppy finishes? Check. Over built for the neighborhood? Check. 

Anyway, it didn't sell and around here, everything sells. Now it's on with a different firm. The new asking price is $755k. Clearly, they're trying the bidding war strategy. Yesterday, I drove by during the Broker's Open House Tour. The number of pregnant women and people with small kids that were looking at it was nuts. Also sad, because they're all hoping they can afford it, when the truth is, the seller's "real" price is far out of their reach. Frankly, I hope the strategy backfires on the greedy jerk*.

*We encountered him at a different open house, where he was berating the agent about the asking price of the house she was holding open, so my assessment is based on his actual behavior, not on the house he's trying to flip. Or maybe both. Also, I have no problem with reusing/repurposing building materials, as long as they look good and fit the space well. Trust me, if you know anything about design and construction, these don't.

EricEng

  • Pencil Stache
  • ****
  • Posts: 605
  • Location: CO
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #25 on: October 18, 2017, 09:40:02 AM »
@ EricEng & talltexan:  I wasn't saying existing people needed to move. Open a new location in addition to the existing location. In the new location pay less. Give people the option. I bet a lot of new people will choose the new location.
Yeah, I understood you didn't mean forced uprooting (although I have seen that).  I was just referring to past experiences about difficulty hiring.  Friends tried to hire for start ups in low cost locations and the talent refused to move away from the big hubs.  That talent doesn't just magically start in those areas, they usually need experience which they gain working in the hubs.  So you have to be able to lure them away unless you can work with all fresh college grads from a local university, but those won't be your top 5% brains you get out of MIT and such.

Some of those locations you mentioned aren't crazy high Silicon valley prices, but they aren't cheap either.  There has to be a fair amount of other opportunity around to interest them, but the more there is the more the cost will be.  So it will always be inverse correlation.

zolotiyeruki

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 5603
  • Location: State: Denial
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #26 on: October 18, 2017, 10:10:27 AM »
@ EricEng & talltexan:  I wasn't saying existing people needed to move. Open a new location in addition to the existing location. In the new location pay less. Give people the option. I bet a lot of new people will choose the new location.
Yeah, I understood you didn't mean forced uprooting (although I have seen that).  I was just referring to past experiences about difficulty hiring.  Friends tried to hire for start ups in low cost locations and the talent refused to move away from the big hubs.
There's also a pervasive perception on the part of tech employees that once you leave Silicon Valley, it's really hard to get back there.

talltexan

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 5344
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #27 on: October 18, 2017, 11:30:17 AM »
Housing prices what they are in Silicon Valley, that perception looks...reasonable.

zolotiyeruki

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 5603
  • Location: State: Denial
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #28 on: October 18, 2017, 12:27:38 PM »
Housing prices what they are in Silicon Valley, that perception looks...reasonable.
It's not the housing costs, it's the fact that the high-tech companies prefer to hire people who are already there.

zephyr911

  • Magnum Stache
  • ******
  • Posts: 3619
  • Age: 45
  • Location: Northern Alabama
  • I'm just happy to be here. \m/ ^_^ \m/
    • Pinhook Development LLC
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #29 on: October 19, 2017, 10:17:51 AM »
Y'all motherfuckers are crazy. I guess it's gotten so bad that coastal money is creeping inland looking for better valuations, because just yesterday I got a heads-up that I need to finalize my next package deal or a cash buyer from Cali will take the seller's entire portfolio (26 props worth well over $2M). I came to Alabama to get away from all that damn price inflation! Stop fuckin' up my program here, guys! xD

...actually, can you just wait till next year so I can finish buying and enjoy the appreciation you'll cause?

I'm also hosting a guy (AirBnB) who just moved from Silicon Valley and is selling his condo for almost $700K. He'll be in a palace by comparison for half that.

MrMoneyMaxwell

  • 5 O'Clock Shadow
  • *
  • Posts: 65
  • Age: 41
  • Location: Colorado
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #30 on: October 23, 2017, 05:25:31 PM »
They're clearly from the future. There is a stockpile of uranium, gold and stuff under ground.

jeromedawg

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 5174
  • Age: 2019
  • Location: Orange County, CA
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #31 on: October 24, 2017, 05:35:11 PM »
Related: Amazon is looking at cities with lower COL for it's second HQ.

Whats your source on this? A big time developer where I live in Irvine, CA -  The Irvine Company - sent a masterplan out for the bid to win Amazon's HQ2. It's certainly not LCOL in this area though, and they already have a development office here. They'd likely be leasing from the Irvine Company as well which I'm not sure is something they'd want to do...

talltexan

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 5344
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #32 on: October 25, 2017, 06:58:32 AM »
I've been telling everyone that Amazon will choose Toronto for their new HQ2. Certainly runs contrary to your LCOL claims.

But I think Bezos wants to give Trump the big middle finger. Billionaires think like that.

Goldielocks

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 7062
  • Location: BC
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #33 on: October 25, 2017, 06:23:26 PM »
I have noticed amazon posting job ads for senior computer / engineers, for the tricky to fill technical positions, locally.   When you apply, the job is actually a relocation position despite stating our local city.  My guess is that they are testing the city market for how many people with the needed skillset are located there.  (And they will hire locally and allow remote work for the right persons, of course!).

So, the way to check would be to see if Amazon has a lot of job listings for "Toronto"...!?

ETA -- so I looked.  Amazon Careers sections shows 43 job postings for IT / Tech positions in Toronto, and  255 positions listed for Vancouver... hmm....   and a good volume of goods come in from Asia, if you need a mega hub...
« Last Edit: October 25, 2017, 06:28:36 PM by Goldielocks »

GuitarStv

  • Senior Mustachian
  • ********
  • Posts: 23128
  • Age: 42
  • Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #34 on: October 26, 2017, 08:11:50 AM »
64 posted open positions at one company is pretty gigantic for this area.  I was searching for a new job earlier this year, and Amazon was the most prolific/aggressive tech employer in the entire GTA.

ysette9

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 8930
  • Age: 2020
  • Location: Bay Area at heart living in the PNW
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #35 on: October 26, 2017, 09:18:55 PM »
My company has a decent presence in the Bay Area and keeps moving work away to save money. Some locations like the Denver metro area attract people looking for a lower cost of living without giving up on too much of the quality of life that comes with the Bay Area. However we have also moved programs and jobs to less desirable areas and saw a very low acceptance rate for job relocations. For example, we had a sizable number of jobs go from the Bay Area to Florida and we had something like a 25% acceptance rate, which was higher than I had anticipated. When you think about 75% of your expertise and experience walking out the door, it is hard to continue producing the same product and delivering the same quality as before.

In addition to everything people have already said about those tech talent hubs, the fact is that educated professionals tend to marry each other because they meet in school. It is relatively easy for a dual-career household to simultaneously pursue career growth in a tech central. Move one of those jobs to the boonies and suddenly one spouse has to sacrifice. Setting aside the potential resentment that could cause, you have to have a dramatically lower COL to make up for a >50% loss of household income.

obstinate

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1147
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #36 on: December 03, 2017, 01:08:13 PM »
Right. And I hear that Google fb etc. are going to be adding tens of thousands of additional jobs in the peninsula over the next few years. I was back in town on business this week and even since I moved away early this year the growth is palpable. It's a bit insane -- not like paying 700k over asking, which might actually be rational given job growth in the Bay.

ysette9

  • Walrus Stache
  • *******
  • Posts: 8930
  • Age: 2020
  • Location: Bay Area at heart living in the PNW
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #37 on: December 03, 2017, 02:34:00 PM »
We live within biking distance of FB and the construction that is going on to expand that campus is breathtaking. A mile in the other direction, Stanford is building a big auxiliary campus. I am really glad we managed to get into the housing market before all of those jobs arrive and squeeze the housing stock even further.

Indexer

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1463
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #38 on: December 03, 2017, 03:45:59 PM »
Related: Amazon is looking at cities with lower COL for it's second HQ.

Whats your source on this? A big time developer where I live in Irvine, CA -  The Irvine Company - sent a masterplan out for the bid to win Amazon's HQ2. It's certainly not LCOL in this area though, and they already have a development office here. They'd likely be leasing from the Irvine Company as well which I'm not sure is something they'd want to do...

I didn't mean they were exclusively looking at LCOL locations. They are looking for a second HQ, and many cities are looking to be that second HQ. Sure, some of those cities are high cost, but many are lower cost. Compared to Silicon Valley it's really easy to be lower cost.

NoraLenderbee

  • Handlebar Stache
  • *****
  • Posts: 1254
Re: Let's pay $782,000 over asking for a home!
« Reply #39 on: December 04, 2017, 04:00:19 PM »
Right. And I hear that Google fb etc. are going to be adding tens of thousands of additional jobs in the peninsula over the next few years. I was back in town on business this week and even since I moved away early this year the growth is palpable. It's a bit insane -- not like paying 700k over asking, which might actually be rational given job growth in the Bay.

Google is buying property near the San Jose train station and plans to build a campus (excuse me, "village") between now and 2025. I'm looking forward to that sweet sweet equity in my pocket.

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!