From: eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Date: Sat Aug 19 2000 - 10:59:50 PDT
From: potsmaster bebop <silent-tristero@world.std.com>
Re: tongue in cheek thought experiment
from Tom Parmenter <tompar@world.std.com>
and "Bryan O'Sullivan" <bos@serpentine.com>
and Dori Smith <dori@chalcedony.com>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 14:12:51 -0400 (EDT)
From: Tom Parmenter <tompar@world.std.com>
Subject: Re: tongue in cheek thought experiment
|From: david mankins <dm@bbn.com>
|Date: Thu, 17 Aug 2000 18:05:09 -0400
|Sender: silent-tristero-approval@world.std.com
|Precedence: list
|Reply-To: david mankins <dm@bbn.com>
|
|
|
| Date: Wed, 16 Aug 2000 22:55:58 -0700
| From: Phil Agre <pagre@alpha.oac.ucla.edu>
| To: "Red Rock Eater News Service" <rre@lists.gseis.ucla.edu>
| Subject: [RRE]notes and recommendations
|
| [much deleted, but this was marked as a section all
| its own:]
|
| The Internet, you may recall, is supposed to cause the "death
| of distance". Is it true? Well, one test would be real
| estate prices in San Francisco. People in the computer
| industry are affluent and good with technology; their work can
| be done anywhere; they should be the very first to disperse to
| Caribbean islands and teleconference. If distance is dying
| then we should see real estate prices in San Francisco fall to
| a reasonable level as computer people scatter to the places
| they'd really like to live. On the other hand, if we see San
| Francisco real estate prices go completely insane then the
| death of distance is much exaggerated. Someone might want to
| have a look.
|
| [End of section, beginning of much more deletia.]
|
|
|- david mankins (dm@bbn.com, dm@world.std.com)
|
There was an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about
Internet companies moving into Boho neighborhoods in San Francisco and
driving up real-estate prices. "They hate us. They call us
dot-communists or dot-commies. They even call us e-holes."
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Subject: Re: tongue in cheek thought experiment
From: "Bryan O'Sullivan" <bos@serpentine.com>
Date: 18 Aug 2000 12:53:46 -0700
p> A friend pointed out that San Jose, which he said has real-estate
p> prices as, perhaps even more, insane than San Francisco, might be a
p> better test case.
San Jose is rather behind San Francisco in terms of property prices.
You can still buy smallish houses in decent shape there for less than
$300K, which I assure you is not possible here in SF. Even fabled
Palo Alto is, by and large, cheaper than San Francisco.
A house around the corner from me has been advertised for sale for
over a month. This market longevity is highly unusual by local
standards, where houses in semi-decent nick typically sell - above
list price - in less than a week.
To assuage my curiosity, I wandered around inside the place a few
weeks ago. Even to an unpropertied ephebe such as myself, the walls
clearly have a bad case of dry and wet rot. The wiring and fixtures
need replacing throughout the house, as do the entire kitchen,
bathroom, and basement. It's a small place, too; perhaps 1,000 square
feet. All in all, not desirable in almost any way.
The asking price? $650,000. The agent "confidentially assured" me
that the owners would take up to $50,000 less than the list price, in
view of the work that needed doing.
<b
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Date: Fri, 18 Aug 2000 14:08:34 -0700
Subject: Re: tongue in cheek thought experiment
From: Dori Smith <dori@chalcedony.com>
On 8/18/00 6:30 am, Steve Lamont at <spl@ncmir.ucsd.edu> wrote:
> I don't know that this is an appropriate "test case," even tongue in
> cheek. San Francisco, at least in my opinion as a former resident of
> the Bay Area, is one of the most desirable places in the world to
> live. If I could afford to live there, I most certainly would. It
> certainly beats this cultural backwater (San Diego) all to hell.
>
> spl
>
> [I agree. A friend pointed out that San Jose, which he said
> has real-estate prices as, perhaps even more, insane than San
> Francisco, might be a better test case. ---pozzo]
Here's another test case: Sonoma County, California. I'm exactly 65 miles
north of the Golden Gate bridge, and a large percentage of my new neighbors
in this recently built tract are SF refugees. It's too far to commute, so
they (and we) do everything freelance or telecommute. But it's within
driving distance for a really good dinner out--the best of both worlds.
The houses here are selling like hotcakes.
Dori
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