Answering CONCERNING Questions About Living in San Francisco

If San Francisco is so awesome, then why did everyone bail on the city the first opportunity they had at the start of the pandemic? Why are wealthy people listing their homes at greater rates than they were in years prior? With all the crime and homelessness, who would touch San Francisco with a 10-foot pole? With all the retail closures, with all the restaurants leaving, with a downtown that is completely dead? And who would spend millions on a home in San Francisco that's just gonna get wiped out by the next earthquake? This is Austin Klar, your lawyer to real estate agent in San Francisco and Marin County, and I've been posting videos all over social media about living in San Francisco for the past several years, and I get the same types of questions and comments from internet trolls over and over and over. There are some kernels of truth that underlie a lot of these questions and comments, but for the most part, they're completely illogical. They're not based on any semblance of data, and they're definitely not based on real life experience. So in this video, I'm responding to some of the most brutal questions and comments I get routinely on my videos, clearing up some misunderstandings and highlighting some of the very real negatives about living in San Francisco, because it isn't all roses. Let's get right to it with the first question I see all the time, and it's, why would I spend millions of dollars on a place in San Francisco that's just going to get wiped out by the next earthquake? Earthquakes are a real risk in the city. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. San Francisco is near fault lines. We've had two unbelievably devastating earthquakes in our history in 1906 and 1989, and the federal government estimates that there's a 72% chance within the next 20 years we get an earthquake of at least 6.7 magnitude. Just 'cause you have a home here doesn't mean it's gonna get destroyed. I live in a house that was built in the 1860s. It survived 1906, it survived 1989. Doesn't necessarily mean there's 100% chance that it's gonna survive the next big earthquake that we get. But just because big earthquakes happen doesn't mean your place is getting destroyed. That's because there are a number of safeguards in place and increasingly more safeguards that are put in place over time to guard against and minimize the risk of earthquake damage. The city's obviously aware of seismic risks and over the past several decades, especially since 1989, have made their building codes substantially more strict to guard against those risks. Mandatory retrofit programs of wood-frame soft-story buildings, unreinforced masonry buildings, new seismic design guidelines to resist ground shaking, especially in soil-compromised zones that got hit hard by the 1989 quake, like the Marina, newer ground motion maps that help model and predict soil and structure interaction. Building codes are not set in stone. Building methodologies are not set in stone. They adapt to what happens in real life. When you're potentially buying an older home in San Francisco, you can diligence what, if any, seismic upgrades have been made since the past earthquake. You can have geotechnical engineers, soil engineers, structural engineers, foundation contractors all do various inspections on the property to make any recommendations, if any, about what needs to be done to your property to make it seismically safe. You can review relevant environmental maps to determine whether your house is in a hazard zone, like an infill zone on one of the outer edges of the city. You can diligence requisite insurance coverage to make sure that you have the coverage that you feel you need to be safe and guard against those risks. There aren't many places in the United States that you can live free of fear of the potential risk of natural disasters— floods, fires, hurricanes, tornadoes. Here it's just earthquakes, and you just need to do what you have to do to diligence the potential risks and minimize the risk of potential loss. You don't ignore the risks, you just plan for them. If you want to learn more about which neighborhoods in San Francisco are more prone to earthquake risks, and what diligence you can do before making an offer to purchase one, reach out to me. I was a lawyer at one of the biggest law firms in the world before getting into real estate, and I've helped numerous people relocate here from all over the country. I'd be happy to be a resource for you. I'll put my contact in the description below. Reach out anytime. And if you like videos about living in San Francisco, current events, new developments, lifestyle, history, or all things San Francisco real estate, make sure to subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. Now back to the brutal questions I get from the internet crowd, and the next one on my list is, if San Francisco is so great, why did so people flee the moment they had the chance at the start of the pandemic. Now, this is somewhat of a fair question. There are kernels of truth underlying the basis for this question here. During the early stages of the pandemic, between 2020 and 2021, San Francisco lost nearly 60,000 residents, about 7% of its total population. Far and away one of the steepest drops of any major city in the United States. Remote work, higher cost of living, higher crime, higher homelessness, and an exodus of retail and restaurant spaces had people looking inward and asking themselves if it was worth paying thousands of dollars a month in rent, or maybe even a million dollars for a condo, especially closer to downtown? Was it really worth paying those, those things if you could just zoom in from other parts of the country, from anywhere else you wanted to live? And a lot of people answered that question no, and that was a fine way to look at it at that time, especially for people living in like high-rise amenity buildings, for example, with super high HOAs. But that outflow that we saw at the start of the pandemic has completely cratered. Outmigration is down about 90% according to 2024 census data. The the pace of decline is less than half a percent. And I bet you, by the time we get the full 2025 data in view, you will probably see population growth in the city, just given the dynamics of the city right now. City conditions have improved in every statistical way in the past year. Office vacancies are down, retail vacancies are down, crime is falling, homeless encampments are falling, tourism is back on the rise, conventions back on the rise. Every statistical metric of the city for overall city conditions is on the rise. There are billions of dollars being invested in brand new mixed-use communities across the city. There are of billions of dollars being invested by VC firms in new companies in San Francisco and in the broader Bay Area. By far the largest segment of VC investment than of any geographic sector in the world. So yes, 100%. There was a major exodus from the city. And at the time, unless you lived in some areas of the city that were largely insulated from the problems that were plaguing areas closer to downtown, it was the right decision or it was a reasonable decision to leave. But that's not the case anymore. If you want a full deep dive on all the numbers supporting San Francisco's comeback,. I've got a separate video on that. I break down all the data behind what's happening with office, retail, restaurant spaces. I talk about some of the new events that are happening across downtown, what's going on with crime, what's going on homelessness, what's going on with housing, what's going on with tourism, all of those things. I'll link it in the description below. Go check it out if you're interested. The reality is because of how much improvement we've seen in the city and how great the conditions in the city are becoming, if these trends continue, people are spending a ton of money to live here because they think it's worth it. The next question or comment I get on a ton of my videos is why rich people are fleeing being San Francisco. I post a ton of videos walking through very expensive homes, very expensive neighborhoods, talking about the lifestyle, and a comment that I get all the time is, if rich people are listing their homes at greater numbers than they were previously, then something must be wrong with the city, otherwise they wouldn't be leaving. And that just makes no sense. First of all, just from a number standpoint, San Francisco has among the highest concentrations of millionaires and billionaires per capita of any place in the entire country, and we have more being created every single day because of all of that investment being made in tech companies and AI companies especially right now. Second of all, and the main reason why that comment makes no sense, is because when a wealthy person lists their house to sell it, if they actually want to sell it, it means someone has to buy it. The house doesn't just disappear into the ether and the, you know, wealthy person that is listing it moves away. If you want to sell your $20 million house, then someone who can afford a $20 million house has to buy the $20 million house, unless you have a group of less wealthy people pooling all their money together to buy that property. So if a rich person sells, it means a rich person is probably buying. Now, the comment has some basis. This year, as September of 2025, we have a 55% increase in the number of sales of $5 million or more. So that sort of underlies, you know, the basis of that stupid comment that I get on a lot of those videos. That means we've had a 55% spike in the number of wealthy people buying. And that spike in sales has actually happened at a time where we have fewer homes for sale. Inventory is down while sales are up. There are more buyers coming than there are sellers selling. So that actually means fewer people are leaving, not the other way around. And that's why we have an affordability crisis.— in our city. We have too many buyers chasing too few homes. And by the way, just because a rich person is selling their house doesn't mean they are leaving the city. Maybe they're empty nesters and don't need a 6,000-square-foot house anymore, so they're just downsizing and buying another place in the city. Somebody who lives just a few blocks from me in Pacific Heights is selling their around 9,000-square-foot house because they're getting divorced, but they have every intention of buying something smaller when the sale is done in the city. There was a huge story about a year or so ago of somebody who bought a $20 million house at the height of the pandemic and then sold it for around $10 million. And you can imagine all the comments hitting on San Francisco on that video. They were basically just saying San Francisco is so bad, this person wanted to just cut their losses and leave the city. But if you look at the tax records, they just bought a smaller place in the city. They didn't need that massive home anymore. So people sell all the time at all income levels. Doesn't mean that they're leaving the city when they sell. So that comment or question really, it's just a troll comment. Yeah. Honestly doesn't really deserve a response, but the data is interesting showing, you know, what's going on, especially in the luxury sector of the market right now in San Francisco. The next comment I get on a ton of my videos is that San Francisco's downtown is dead and is never coming back. There is some basis in truth underlying this question, but in the vast majority of cases, it comes from people who don't live here or spend any time here in recent years, and it's honestly not accurate and doesn't paint a full picture. It is 100% true that downtown basically became a ghost town during the pandemic. That area is dominated by offices, and office vacancies hit their record high of about 38%. Over a third of San Francisco office spaces, largely in that downtown area, were vacant. And even today, office return rates are among the lowest in the nation. That doesn't paint the full picture because San Francisco is actually leading the nation in office return growth rate, about 20% year over year compared to nationwide average of about 13% over that time period. Occupancy rates have grown for 4 straight quarters. Asking rents are increasing. Leasing Activity is up nearly 30% year over year, and gross demand is actually at all-time highs. So from an office standpoint, it was a bloodbath, and downtown San Francisco did feel dead. You didn't have all those commuters coming every single day. A lot of businesses emptied in that area. So I understand the genesis of the question, but that's not real life today. It is very clearly rebounding, and all signs point to continued improvement going forward. The city's also doing a ton of work right now to grow visitorship, especially to downtown. Free concerts and events, legislation authorizing the sale of alcohol in designated outdoor areas called entertainment zones, subsidies for experimental retail pop-ups, increased police presence to provide safety, new legislation making it easier to open restaurants, efforts to revamp and beautify public spaces. There's been a surge of new restaurant retail openings in Union Square in particular after several dormant years, in large part because of the hard work the city's been doing. Monthly visitors to Union Square in Q3 averaged 1.16 million, a 3% increase compared to the same time last year. and total visitors so far year to date climbed to over 10 million, 3.5% increase from the same time in 2024. There are major new construction projects happening across downtown, new office spaces, new hospitality spaces, hotels, restaurants, new retail, you name it. There's so much investment happening in and around downtown San Francisco right now. It's 100% coming back. It'll probably look different than it did before the pandemic, but it will be back. The next one I get is that San Francisco is unsafe. Crime and homelessness are completely out of control because of leadership that's in place. In San Francisco and in California. Doesn't matter if I post about a house or a restaurant or an event or whatever it is, somebody is making that comment. Yes, crime and homelessness rates definitely increased during the pandemic. But if you look at year-over-year crime stats right now, it's down about 26% on average. Car break-ins are at 22-year lows. Homicides are at 70-year lows. You can go to the SFPD's crime dashboard and look at the year-over-year statistics across a number of different crime categories and see the change. They are down almost across the board. Overdose deaths as of October of 2024 5, lowest number recorded since 2020 and down for the second straight month. Obviously more work to do there. No amount of overdose deaths is acceptable, but the fact is conditions are improving. And as far as homelessness goes, the number of street encampments, the number of tents that we see on our streets, has plummeted. According to the Department of Emergency Management, it's at its lowest number since the number was recorded before the pandemic. We obviously have work to do to reduce the number further, and we definitely have work to do to reduce the number of sheltered unhoused people. The problem of homelessness definitely isn't solved, but it's improving. But that, along with the improvement in crime is why you have so much renewed investment in the city, from office, retail, to restaurants, to housing, all of these things. So just another comment that has at least some basis in truth, but really fundamentally misunderstands what's actually happening in the city, and most likely comes from somebody who doesn't live here or spend any meaningful time here. The last comment I get that I want to go over, and I get this one not just from people on the internet, but I actually get it from clients, is that, why would I ever buy a condo in San Francisco when condos don't appreciate? And this one, like some of the other ones, I understand where it's coming from, but it's based on a myopic view of the broader San Francisco condo market. These are graphs of the median sale price and the median sale price per foot of condos in San Francisco over the past 20+ years. Now, based on these graphs, you can't really say with a straight face that condos don't appreciate. But what people are focusing on when they say this is this last segment, these past 7 or so years on the right side of these graphs. We had condo price appreciation pretty dramatically leading up to around 2019, and then it fell off during the pandemic for a number of reasons that we've talked about a bit in this video. Remote work, rising crime, rising homelessness, falling tourism, restaurants leaving, retail leaving, all of those things. Because of waning city conditions, there was less demand for condos over that time period, especially near downtown. So when you have falling demand, it makes sense that prices would fall. And in some instances and in some neighborhoods, they fell pretty dramatically. So if you look at the period of time, you know, from right before the peak to now, it would look like there isn't much appreciation, if any, for condos. But if you look at the broader time period, there's been massive appreciation. You just need to understand the broader market conditions that drove various fluctuations in the market, and you can use that to make predictions about what's going to happen in the future with condos or any property type. If rising office vacancies and rising retail vacancies and restaurant vacancies and rising crime and rising homelessness, just deteriorating city conditions, dropped demand for condos and caused prices to fall, wouldn't it make sense that if all of those things start turning in the other direction, that more people might want to live in San Francisco again, and that with increased demand, if, you know, basic economics, supply-demand 101, actually holds true, that prices would go up. Of course it does. And that's exactly what we've started to see. We've already had year-over-year price appreciation. If you look at this year compared to last year, I've got a separate video on what's going on in San Francisco's housing market, including the condo market, how we've had appreciation year over year so far this year compared to last year, and what factors are driving that and what we can expect going forward. I'll link that in the description below. Go check it out. It goes over how inventory is shrinking as demand rises, which is causing an increase in pricing, an increase in overall competition, especially in the condo sector. And you should also remember that these graphs that I provide, these stats are citywide stats, but there are nearly 90 different subdistricts in San Francisco, and each of them behave vastly different from each other. So what you're seeing in areas, you know, close to downtown, for example, might not hold true for areas in other parts of the city that have always been very desirable, like Pacific Heights, for example, or the Marina, or some of those other neighborhoods that people talk about all the time. So if you want a better picture of a specific neighborhood and not just the overall market, reach out to me. I'd be happy to be a resource for you. I've lived in San Francisco for over 13 years and I've helped numerous people relocate here from all over the country. I'll put my contact info in the description below. Reach out anytime. And remember, if you like videos about San Francisco real estate, lifestyle, history, current events, new developments, subscribe to my channel because I make videos about that stuff every single week. And if you want me to answer other brutal questions about life in the city, drop a comment with your question. I'll collect a few and make another video with some of the best ones. I hope you enjoyed this video, and I'll see you in the next one. Bye!