22 March 2016

Team Small Dog explains the Bay Area Housing Crisis that is happening on my street and maybe yours, too.


It's been a while since we've done some splaining, so we got some splaining to do. Have you noticed some of your friends are having to flee from their homes? Maybe to a new home, but sometimes, sadly, to a car or another state, or somewhere we don't even know where.


Used to be, you went looking for a house to buy or rent. You checked it out, see if you like it. Maybe it's in a nice location with a woodsy yard, mature landscaping. Maybe it even has 2 bathrooms in it. Hopefully a good roof and strong walls, doesn't have to be fancy.


Maybe it had an outside deck, even, and is just a short distance from the beach. That would be the best case scenario, if you happened to have enormous luck. Everyone should have a good place to live.


The we had a thing called The Housing Bubble.


You know the bubble that Glinda the Good Witch floats around in? It's like a car if you're a fairy witch and riding a broom stick hurts your crotch. This is not that kind of bubble.


In this kind of bubble, everyone who works in the dotcom makes a million dollars at their job. It's not even called the dotcom anymore. That was last bubble. This one is from apps, I do believe. Or whatever. It comes from the valley of the Silicon, which is a short car ride away. So the dotcom appkins can buy 2 houses if they want. Or just pay a million dollar for whatever house they want.


Even if it was a shitty apartment that already had a family in there, kinda squeezed in and all, but they called it home.


So then they get squeezed some more, into a littler and crappier place.


Like maybe they are all squeezed on to a shitty little piece of wood that now has the cost of One Million Dollars, too, and it doesn't even have a roof or walls, or whatever. That'll be, One Million Dollars and wait in line and hopefully you don't have any pets or didn't want to keep your kids in the same school or even want to stay til the next millionaire comes along to buy this one too.


That's when, once again, everybody has to go, SCRAM. Scrambles for something new, something somewhere else. May the best millionaire win, and everybody else, good luck and best wishes to you on your new endeavor wherever and whatever that may be.

6 comments:

Tammy Moody said...

But there are no more houses for them to buy in California, so they have come up here;( We are in the worse housing crises ever and the rents are crazy high and no one can afford to buy a house unless they have the cash up front and the houses are worth double what they were three years ago..... renters cannot afford to live in places they have lived in for years and it is making everyone very sad and angry around here. We have had so many housing riots, crazy riots. And when that tv show about flipping houses came to PDX they got chased out and had beer bottles thrown at them, not welcome in our city they were told (not sure the beer bottle thing is true). Mostly corporations are buying up everything and putting crappy apartments everywhere. Sighs. http://www.oregonlive.com/watchdog/index.ssf/2015/09/post_19.html

team small dog said...

It is probably the people exactly like me who are able to actually flee who are buying all the Portland houses! It's the trickle up effect.

Tammy Moody said...

I could only wish it were you!

team small dog said...

Very likely it will be someday! Except by the time we're able to flee, the bubble will have taken over all states bordering California, and we will be fleeing to somewhere like the middle of the desert or way up high on a mountain. Or if Trump is president, Canada!

Anonymous said...

well, i hate to tell you this, but it's already happening in Canada! or at least it is here in BC. very sad for the younger people who are trying to grow up and settle down -- they can hardly find a place to live on their own, let alone a place where they can have a kid and a dog.

Sobaka said...

I work for a company with HQ in the Bay area, although I work in one of their East Coast satellite offices. Our new CEO mentioned he had sold his house in Colorado but had not yet decided whether to live in the Bay area or on the East Coast. I wondered, since he has already sold his house, where is he living while he makes up his mind? On his Wyoming ranch, of course.