California’s great price race isn’t new to the pandemic. Prices across the Golden State have been on the up and up for the better part of two decades (minus the market crash a few years back), and no more so than San Francisco.
According to a new report out by Anytime Estimate, San Francisco’s median home is up 290 percent since 2000, from $356,800 to $1,391,474. As a whole, California’s average home price is up 277 percent compared to 22 years ago.
Such huge hikes, coupled with inflation woes, have priced out more and more would-be buyers. The San Francisco Chronicle recently reported that Bay Area households earning $80,000-$165,000 qualify as “middle income,” depending on the location and family size, compared with a national median income of $67,521.
But to qualify for the typical Bay Area home available in today’s market, the Chronicle reports that the average buyer needs to have an annual income of $235,000!
As recently as 2010, 47 of homes for sale in San Francisco were affordable to middle-class buyers, or those making 80-120 percent of the local median income.
Of the top 13 cities in the U.S. where home values have gone up by more than 200 percent, about half were in California, including:
- San Francisco (290 percent increase)
- Los Angeles (280 percent increase)
- Riverside (278 percent increase)
- San Diego (275 percent increase)
- San Jose (261 percent increase)
- Sacramento (237 percent increase)