Day 4

Listen Up

Meg: So Todd, I heard that you’re from San Francisco and that it’s really expensive
there maybe to live. Is it – is that true?
Todd: Yeah. It’s ridiculously expensive. It’s obscene actually. It’s so hard to get other
people to(1) To realize life how expensive it is. You (2 )have actually live there and
then you can experience it firsthand. But (3)Basically, you know, your(4) everage
small apartment is a minimum, a minimum of like (5) 3.000 dollar a month.
Meg: Wow. That sounds really expensive.
Todd: Yeah.
Meg: Well, so I don’t know (6) much about the San Francisco area. Is that like just in
the main (7) downtown part or anywhere in the city is it that expensive?
Todd: It’s actually – yeah, it’s pretty much the (8) antire peninsula. And the high (9)
pricing. affects all of Northern California. And the (10) reason is because companies
like Facebook, Google, Apple, Yahoo, Cisco – all these really big rich, rich
companies pay people (11) a lot of money. And so, there’s (12) a lot of money in San
Francisco for the tech world, and that just drives up the prices for everything.
Meg: So everyone who lives there like must be (13) rich ?
Todd: Yeah. So it’s very high income. I think the average income is over (14) 1.100
dollars a year or something crazy like that.
Meg: Wow.
Todd: Yeah, it’s a lot.
Meg: So if apartments are (15) 3.000 dollars a month, what about houses?
Todd: Houses are ridiculously expensive. So your average house is probably – in San
Francisco, a really small rinky-dink house can go for almost(16) 3 million dollars.
Meg: Wow.
Todd: Yeah.
Meg: Wow. That sounds impossible.
Todd: Yeah. It sounds obscene. Yeah. Years ago I worked on the construction crew,
and this was (17) 15 years ago. And we were just (18) renovating or (19) painting a
very small little (20) shack. I mean, the house wasn’t even that big and it was going
for (21) a millions dollars.
Meg: Wow. So when you were working there, were you living in San Francisco also?
Todd: I was. And that’s actually why I became a (22) teacher in Asia, why I moved to
Japan because we were losing our (23) least on our apartment, and I had to go find
new housing. And not only is the house inexpensive but even if you have the money,
you might not get a house because you have to go (24) to this long process. It’s almost
like getting into college. You have to get through this (25) interview process. And just
going and finding an apartment is such a complicated process in San Francisco that I
thought, “Oh, forget it, I’m just (26) gonna take the easy way out and go back and
start teaching overseas again.”
Meg: So if someone were interested in living in San Francisco, what would your
advice be?
Todd: Don’t, or make sure you have a lot of money or you have a really good job. I
guess there are some ways around it. You can rent rooms and things like that. But it’s
(27) do able because there is low-income housing. And if you live in the (28) and if
you are going to (29)_______ into the city, you could probably find something around
(30)______________ a month. But still, it’s pretty expensive.
Meg: So work for Google first, then move to San Francisco.
Todd: Right. Exactly. Make sure you get that job at the tech company. And then once
you have that job, then you’re set.
Meg: Great. Well, thanks for sharing about San Francisco.
Todd: Sure.