What’s Driving The Rent Explosion in San Francisco?

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The average 1 bedroom apartment in the Financial District of San Francisco is now $3,500 a month, making it the most expensive rental housing market in the United States, even beating Manhattan. Despite the high rent, the vacancy rate in downtown San Francisco is almost zero. San Francisco has been expensive for a long time, but what’s driving the current rent explosion? It’s the dot-coms. Internet companies in the Bay Area are growing rapidly, and unlike the dot-com boom of the 1990s, this time they are making money, and lots of it. Bay area internet companies are having a hard time finding enough employees. They all need young, smart, well educated, tech savvy people, and lots of them, and they can’t find them in Silicon Valley. The problem is that the kind of people they need don’t want to live in Silicon Valley. While Palo Alto is undeniably clean and safe, it is also dull. Young, tech savvy people want to live in San Francisco, so the dot-coms are expanding there. They have to. Besides, not all the dot-coms are based in Silicon Valley. A lot of internet companies are headquartered in San Francisco and always have been, and they are also growing. This includes Twitter, Yelp, Craigslist, Salesforce, Digg, and dozens of others. There is a limited supply of new rental housing being built in San Francisco, and a lot of well-paid techies are competing for it.

Berkeley Central. Berkeley is getting the spillover effect from all this. Rents in Berkeley are lower than downtown San Francisco, and San Francisco is only a 20 minute subway ride away. The newest apartment houses in Berkeley used to cater to college students, but now they are targeting San Francisco commuters, and commuters can afford to pay higher rent than college students. Berkeley’s newest apartment house is Berkeley Central. It is located at 2055 Center Street, just a few steps away from the downtown Berkeley BART station. 1 bedroom apartments rent for $3,000 a month, and 2 bedrooms start at $3,500 a month. Larger 2 bedroom units go for up to $6,000 a month. Parking is extra.

Windowless bedrooms. A lot of the apartments at Berkeley Central have windowless bedrooms. This is an architectural trend that I don’t like. Actually, the bedrooms aren’t windowless. They have windows, but the windows are not on exterior walls and don’t face outside. The windows face into the apartment. This means that when someone is in the kitchen washing the dishes, he is looking into your bedroom through the window separating the 2 rooms! It seems to me that if someone is paying $3,000 a month for a 1 bedroom apartment, the bedroom should have a window that faces outdoors. Berkeley Central isn’t the only building like this. A lot of new buildings in this area have bedrooms with windows that face inside the apartment. As I said, it’s a trend that I don’t like.

Do You Want To Work At Home? Get A College Degree First.

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More and more people want to work at home, and it’s easy to see why. Rush hour traffic in the Bay Area is grinding to a crawl. In Los Angeles, it has been that way for decades. On a typical day, it can take an hour or more to drive 20 miles during rush hour on the I-5 in Los Angeles. Many other big American cities have rush hour traffic that is just as bad as L.A. I know people here in Berkeley who spend 3 hours every day driving to and from work. I am glad that I don’t have to do that. I have been working at home for 30 years. If you would like to work at home, get a college degree first. Data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics last month shows that college-educated workers are more likely to work at home than any other group, aside from the self-employed. The data shows that while only 1 in 20 employees with less than a high school degree work at home, almost 40% of college graduates now work at home on a regular basis. Here are the numbers.
The percent of workers 25 years of age or older who worked at home on an average day in 2012.

Less than high school diploma  5.4%
High school graduate  12.7%
Some college, including associate degree  21.1%
Bachelor’s degree and higher  38.4%

Fewer vs. Less

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 Most people often use the words ‘fewer’ and ‘less’ as though they meant the same thing, but they don’t. ‘Fewer’ refers to amounts that can be counted individually. In other words, a specific number of items is known or knowable. ‘Less’ refers to a general amount that is not quantifiable. The number of items cannot be counted or measured. Here are some examples:
‘I have fewer tenants now than I did ten years ago.’ I know how many tenants I had 10 years ago and how many I have now.
‘One bedroom apartments cost less than two bedroom apartments.’ While this is true, it is a generality.
There is a sign over the express lane at the Safeway store in in Orinda that says ’12 items or less’, but that is bad grammar. It should say ’12 items or fewer.’ You can count the number of items in your shopping cart. Supermarkets always seem to get this wrong. There used to be a TV show set in a supermarket titled ’10 Items Or Less.’ It was not a very good show.
(My thanks to Matt Todd, an SAT tutor, for telling me about this.)

What’s The Difference Between Dried Plums and Prunes?

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There is no difference between dried plums and prunes. They are the same thing. By definition, a prune is a dried plum. However, prunes cost more, and sometimes a lot more, when they are called ‘dried plums.’ At the Safeway store in north Berkeley, dried plums cost almost twice as much as prunes of the same size and type. Prunes cost $3.00 a pound, but dried plums cost $5.00 a pound.  Why are dried plums so much more expensive than prunes? That is easy to answer. People are willing to pay more for prunes when they are called ‘dried plums.’ Consumer testing has shown that people do not like the sound of the word ‘prune.’ People associate the word ‘prune’ with something that is dark, old, and wrinkled. Prune companies are acting rationally. Suppose you owned a prune company and you knew you could get $3 a pound for your ‘prunes’ or $5 a pound for your ‘dried plums.’ What would you call them? There are a lot of other supermarket products like this. For example hazelnuts and filberts are the same thing, but in California, hazelnuts cost more than filberts, whereas in southern states, filberts cost more than hazelnuts.

New In The Chocolate Room.

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Chocolate Bars with Reese’s Peanut Butter Chips. Reese’s peanut butter chips work well inside chocolate bars because these chips have the same consistency and texture as chocolate itself. Some chocolate bars have real peanut butter inside, but I don’t care for them. Eating a chocolate bar with peanut butter inside can be quite messy, especially in warm weather.

Compact Refrigerators

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compactfrigWhat uses more electricity, the big refrigerator in your kitchen or the little refrigerator in your bedroom? Surprisingly, it is probably the little refrigerator. That may seem hard to believe, but it’s true. A lot of my tenants have compact refrigerators in their bedrooms. Almost all of these little refrigerators were purchased by my tenants when they were freshmen living in the dorms. When they moved out of the dorms, they took their refrigerators with them. I own one house that has 3 compact refrigerators in it. All of these refrigerators are either empty or just have a few cans of soda or beer inside them. Because compact refrigerators are so small, most people assume that they don’t use a lot of electricity, but that isn’t true. Compact refrigerators are electricity guzzlers. That is because full size refrigerators are subject to government standards for energy efficiency, but small ones are not. Full size refrigerators have external condensers and fans, but compact refrigerators normally vent their excess heat through their exterior walls. It’s a cheap way to make a refrigerator, but very energy inefficient. This explains why a 22 cubic foot G.E. refrigerator costs $72 a year to operate but a 4 cubic foot Magic Chef compact refrigerator costs $81 a year to operate. Do you have a compact refrigerator in your apartment? Do you really use it? Turning off a compact refrigerator is an easy way to reduce your electric bill.

Mark’s Job Hunting Tip #6: Research the Company

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Many years ago, a graduating U.C. Berkeley senior I knew applied for a sales job with Cobra, a company that makes high-priced golf clubs. They also make Titleist golf balls and several other brands of golf-related products. He really wanted this job. He loved to play golf. The job paid well, and if he got the job, he would get to travel to some of the best golf courses in the United States at the company’s expense. He did everything he could think of to prepare for his interview – except research the company. Since he was applying for a job with a sporting goods company, he thought his best strategy would be to stress his own healthy lifestyle and love of sports. He told the company interviewer that he exercised daily, never ate junk food, never used drugs, tobacco, or alcohol, and that he avoided the company of people who did. He did not get the job. If he had researched the company before his interview, he would have known that Cobra and Titleist were owned by American Brands, and American Brands was the nation’s the 2nd largest distiller of hard liquor (Jim Beam, Knob Creek, etc) and the 3nd largest cigarette manufacturer (Lucky Strike, Pall Mall, etc.)  If he had researched the company, I am sure that he wouldn’t have badmouthed cigarettes and booze during his job interview. This guy wasn’t stupid, just unprepared.

Louis Pasteur said: ‘Chance favors the prepared mind.’ In other words, people who are well prepared are more likely to be lucky in their endeavors than people who are unprepared. Even in the best of times, the best jobs go to the best prepared applicants, and these are not the best of times.

Before going to a job interview, find out something about the company. The internet has made that easy. Check out the company’s web site. Also check out the company on Wikipedia. Wikipedia is often inaccurate, but it is a good starting point for a company search. Knowing something about a company gives you a big edge over other applicants who know nothing about the company.

Here are my previous job hunting tips.
Mark’s Job Hunting Tip #1: ‘Today’ And ‘Tomorrow’ Are Dangerous Words In E-Mails. June, 2011
Mark’s Job Hunting Tip #2: Clean Up Your Facebook Page. July, 2011.
Mark’s Job Hunting Tip #3: Don’t Get A Conspicuous Tattoo. July, 2012.
Mark’s Job Hunting Tip #4: A Resume Is Not An Autobiography. November, 2012.
Mark’s Job Hunting Tip #5: Have A Professional Sounding Voice Mail Message. February, 2013

Chez Panisse

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Chez Panisse is reopening soon. The famous Berkeley restaurant has been closed since March due to an electrical fire. Alice Waters has not yet disclosed the menu for the opening night dinner on June 21. If you want to go, make your reservations right away. Special event dinners at Chez Panisse always sell out. The prix fixe dinner is priced at  $2,500 a plate. I don’t know if that includes the tax and the tip. I have never been able to figure out whether ‘prix fixe’ means that the meal includes the tax and the tip or whether tax and tip are extra. If anyone knows exactly what ‘prix fixe’ includes, let me know. The sales tax rate in Berkeley is 9.75%, so if the sales tax is extra, that would add almost $500 to the cost of a dinner for 2. Of course I realize that that won’t make any difference to the people coming to this dinner. People who can afford to pay $2,500 a head for dinner can also afford to pay sales tax.

Greek Restaurants

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SOUVLAKI GREEK.

souvlakiIf you are looking for a meal that is a somewhat cheaper than Chez Panisse, try Souvlaki Greek Traditional Foods at 2518 Durant (between Telegraph and Bowdich) near Sproul Plaza. They have the best Greek roasted chicken anywhere. The chicken is encrusted with Mediterranean herbs and then flame roasted until the skin of the chicken and the herbs are almost black. It is the best Greek roasted chicken anywhere. I get the 1/4 chicken plate, which is enough for me. They use large chickens. It comes with lemon sauce, salad, and french fries. The meal is very underpriced at just $4.00. I don’t know how they stay in business. The 1/2 chicken plate is $6.99. The lamb gyro plate is also very good. If you want dessert or a lighter meal, try the Greek yogurt, which comes with fresh strawberries, raspberries, and honey. My only complaint with this restaurant is the uncomfortable, flimsy seating. Souvlaki Greek doesn’t have a web site, but you can see their menu on their Facebook page at Souvlaki Greek.

GREEK RESTAURANTS IN BALTIMORE.

I ate a lot of Greek food when I was a kid growing up in Baltimore. My grandparents came to America from Odessa over 100 years ago. Odessa is on the Black Sea, and there is a strong Greek influence in the food and culture of the city. Tarses is a common name in northern Greece. My father used to take me and my sister Judy to Greek restaurants all the time. There were a lot of small, family-run Greek restaurants in downtown Baltimore in those days. Unfortunately, the sanitary conditions at these restaurants was often substandard. My father and I were willing to overlook that if the food was good, but my sister was not. She complained constantly about the unsanitary conditions at these greasy-spoon restaurants. Judy would say things like: ‘This table is sticky and smells bad’, ‘There are rat traps in the bathroom’,  and ‘I don’t want to eat at restaurants where you have to shoo away the flies while you’re eating.’ Eventually, my father wound up leaving Judy at home when he and I went to restaurants that we both knew she would complain about. My sister still won’t eat at restaurants with rat traps in them, and now, neither will I.

Sprio Agnew

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agnewDo you remember Spiro Agnew? He was Richard Nixon’s vice president. When Agnew was elected, Greek-Americans were elated. Every Greek restaurant in Baltimore had a picture of Agnew on the wall. No Greek-American had ever achieved such a high position in the United States before. However, Greek-Americans don’t talk about him anymore. Agnew resigned as vice president after pleading ‘no contest’ in a highly publicized income tax evasion case. Agnew failed to pay income tax on the bribes he took while he was governor of Maryland, and he took bribes from everybody. Agnew was only governor of Maryland for 2 years, but during that brief period of time he received hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from the contractors building the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel and the second span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. When Agnew became governor of Maryland, he placed a small wooden box on his desk. Contractors were expected to leave envelopes full of cash in the box whenever they visited the governor’s mansion in Annapolis. As Agnew’s greed grew, so did the size of the box. After his resignation, Agnew was replaced by Gerald Ford who went on to become president after Nixon was also forced to resign. Just like most of the other crooks in the Nixon White House, Agnew wrote a book and went on the lecture circuit after his resignation. He took no personal responsibility for his actions and blamed all of his troubles on Richard Nixon. In his book ‘Go Quietly Or Else’, Agnew claimed that the reason he resigned as vice president was because President Nixon threatened to have him assassinated if he didn’t leave, but Agnew had no evidence to back up his preposterous claim. The real reason that Agnew resigned was to avoid going to prison. It was just that simple. The judge in Agnew’s tax evasion case would not accept his plea deal with the I.R.S. unless Agnew resigned as vice president first. Most historians now rate Spiro Agnew as the worst vice president in American history. He was also the worst governor in Maryland’s history. Just as the national Republican Party never mentions Richard Nixon at their conventions, the Maryland Republican Party never mentions Spiro Agnew. I once met Agnew while he was governor of Maryland. Actually, I stepped on his foot. It was an accident. I was a student at the University of Maryland. He was getting off an elevator, and I was getting on.