Seattle v. SF Forum

[ATXBiglaw]

1850 billable hours is the requirement. Do you know how many hours you have to work to be able to "bill" 1850, especially after a partner via down your hours on the bill?

Incorrect. You still get credit for the hours you work with respect to the firm's billing requirements, irrespective of the partner's decision to write off your time on the bill.

[HungJuror]

I'd be curious to know what the cost of a home just outside SF is (30-45 minute drive). In Seattle you can look outside to Des Moines, Federal Way, Shoreline, Issaquah, etc. and have a 30-45 minute commute and the house prices drop significantly.

[mogwli]

I'd be curious to know what the cost of a home just outside SF is (30-45 minute drive). In Seattle you can look outside to Des Moines, Federal Way, Shoreline, Issaquah, etc. and have a 30-45 minute commute and the house prices drop significantly.

From experience of a few friends. Even if you go 45 minutes out, average home prices are still like $600-650K+ minimum, with many neighborhoods in the $800k-1M range depending on how nice they are.

[SFSpartan]

I'd be curious to know what the cost of a home just outside SF is (30-45 minute drive). In Seattle you can look outside to Des Moines, Federal Way, Shoreline, Issaquah, etc. and have a 30-45 minute commute and the house prices drop significantly.

It's important to differentiate between SF and SV, as the Bay Area legal market tends to be split between SF (lit) and SV (corp.), which are about an hour away from one another.

Housing prices generally don't drop substantially 30-45 min. outside SF. The problem is that housing prices don't really drop enough to make a difference until you go to the East Bay, and then you are stuck dealing with Bay Bridge traffic or an increasingly unpredictable public transit system (giving you a narrow radius of places to choose from). Median home prices in Alameda County are $700k+ (whereas SF is a bit over $1M). However, median home prices can be misleading, and I'd be surprised if you could find a house within 45 minutes of the City for much less than $1M.

Things are probably a little easier for SV corp. lawyers, as they can live in places like Fremont or Campbell, where you can generally get cheaper housing. Those locations are at least 90 min outside the city, so not suitable place to live if you work in SF.

[patentlitigatrix]

A huge problem with SF is that rent/home price, even though it is astronomically high, doesn't reflect all of your housing expenses. For example, you may have to pay for parking separately, and this can be another 300 a month per car. And HOA fees can be really high, too.

In the city at least, it is also difficult to find something modern and in a nice area at all. I know everyone has a different idea of what "nice" is, but if you want to live in a clean, safe neighborhood in reasonably modern housing, that is really, really hard and really, really expensive.

[dabigchina]

I'd be curious to know what the cost of a home just outside SF is (30-45 minute drive). In Seattle you can look outside to Des Moines, Federal Way, Shoreline, Issaquah, etc. and have a 30-45 minute commute and the house prices drop significantly.

It's important to differentiate between SF and SV, as the Bay Area legal market tends to be split between SF (lit) and SV (corp.), which are about an hour away from one another.

Housing prices generally don't drop substantially 30-45 min. outside SF. The problem is that housing prices don't really drop enough to make a difference until you go to the East Bay, and then you are stuck dealing with Bay Bridge traffic or an increasingly unpredictable public transit system (giving you a narrow radius of places to choose from). Median home prices in Alameda County are $700k+ (whereas SF is a bit over $1M). However, median home prices can be misleading, and I'd be surprised if you could find a house within 45 minutes of the City for much less than $1M.

Things are probably a little easier for SV corp. lawyers, as they can live in places like Fremont or Campbell, where you can generally get cheaper housing. Those locations are at least 90 min outside the city, so not suitable place to live if you work in SF.

Living in Fremont means you get to deal with Dumbarton Bridge Traffic, which might push the commute up to an hour in the morning. My friend used to do this all the time. He finally gave up and moved to Mtn View. Not sure how the Campbell commute is.

[bruinfan10]

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[sundance95]

I'd be curious to know what the cost of a home just outside SF is (30-45 minute drive). In Seattle you can look outside to Des Moines, Federal Way, Shoreline, Issaquah, etc. and have a 30-45 minute commute and the house prices drop significantly.

ohhhhhhhhh lordy, outside of going way east bay and signing up for a suburban hellcommute, the prices outside SF are insanely expensive. my mom just sold the rattiest townhome in mountain view for like 1.2 mil (although god knows with ca prop taxes she won't be seeing much of that revenue). i grew up here, and techbubble 2.0 has made the bay area a different goddamn planet from the rest of the country real estate-wise.

You must mean income taxes? One pays property taxes annually while one owns property. California taxes capital gains as ordinary income.

[bruinfan10]

I'd be curious to know what the cost of a home just outside SF is (30-45 minute drive). In Seattle you can look outside to Des Moines, Federal Way, Shoreline, Issaquah, etc. and have a 30-45 minute commute and the house prices drop significantly.

ohhhhhhhhh lordy, outside of going way east bay and signing up for a suburban hellcommute, the prices outside SF are insanely expensive. my mom just sold the rattiest townhome in mountain view for like 1.2 mil (although god knows with ca prop taxes she won't be seeing much of that revenue). i grew up here, and techbubble 2.0 has made the bay area a different goddamn planet from the rest of the country real estate-wise.

You must mean income taxes? One pays property taxes annually while one owns property. California taxes capital gains as ordinary income.

i apologize, that was imprecise. given the tax basis for the property (it was purchased way before SV was a thing), she's going to get killed on the gains, but first world problems. the forces driving me out of the bay are the same ones that have ensured she'll have something to live on in retirement.

[OutOfTheQuestion]

Don't live very far outside of Seattle. Traffic is a fucking shitshow and will only get significantly worse. Public transit is a joke, local government is too incompetent to fix that anytime soon and geography doesn't allow for any real fixes. Seattle is surrounded by water on both sides so it's not like we can expand I5. Also, living in one of the cool neighborhoods in Seattle is fun (Ballard, Fremont, parts of Cap Hill, I personally love West Seattle). Living north of Shoreline and south of Burien would suck, in my biased opinion. Some people really enjoy the eastside (Bellevue, Kirkland) but a lot of the folks out there are insufferable IMO.

Seattle is expensive and is quickly becoming more expensive. There is an undersupply of housing for sale. If you're smart, you can find decent rent (if we're comparing Seattle to SF).

Also, there are rumors that a state income tax will be on the table after the state elections. I don't think it will happen, but it's possible. Washington public schools are criminally underfunded.

As a native Seattleite, it's weird that the city is booming and people are moving here at such a crazy rate. But it's happening, and Seattle doesn't know how to handle it. But, I love Seattle. And SF has most of these same problems.

[favabeansoup]

Not moving to either but curious, what is public transportation like in both? I know SF has BART, is it reliable and effective for commuters? (obviously not once you get into east bay area). What about SF, I don't know much about their public transit.

[rpupkin]

Not moving to either but curious, what is public transportation like in both? I know SF has BART, is it reliable and effective for commuters? (obviously not once you get into east bay area). What about SF, I don't know much about their public transit.

Actually, BART is more helpful in the East Bay than it is anywhere else. As its name reflects, BART is a regional transportation system.

SF city's public transportation system is called MUNI. Locals generally hate it. MUNI is better than it was five years ago, but it's mediocre by large-city standards. Some neighborhoods have better service than others.

[Blessedassurance]

I'd be curious to know what the cost of a home just outside SF is (30-45 minute drive). In Seattle you can look outside to Des Moines, Federal Way, Shoreline, Issaquah, etc. and have a 30-45 minute commute and the house prices drop significantly.

[ballouttacontrol]

Bart is excellent for work commuting. Reliable, not retardedly expensive, fast, etc. Only catch is u need to make sure you are relatively close on both ends

It's shit for going out because it stops running at 1230

[OutOfTheQuestion]

Not moving to either but curious, what is public transportation like in both? I know SF has BART, is it reliable and effective for commuters? (obviously not once you get into east bay area). What about SF, I don't know much about their public transit.

I assume you're asking about Seattle. It's bad. It's pretty inconvenient not to have a car in Seattle.

The bus system is okay but you run into the traffic problem again, and the routes aren't great. The light rail is trying really hard to be relevant but it only services a few neighborhoods and takes a long time. Public transit overall is not good.