Rents in the Bay Area are, of course, still highest in San Francisco, followed by Palo Alto (a median of $2,890/month for a single bedroom) and Redwood City ($2,730/month).
Vallejo and Santa Rosa ranked cheapest on the list, coming in at $1,300 and $1,400/month, respectively.
Where things got interesting was the year-over-year comparison. Earliest this month, Zumper reported that they saw a huge nine percent decline in San Francisco prices since 2016.
It turns out this was a region-wide trend: Median rents on Zumper are down 15 percent in Redwood City, Burlingame, and Emeryville, 13 percent in Santa Clara, 12 percent in South San Francisco, ten percent in Fremont, and nine percent in Mountain View.
Prices were up in some cities: Petaluma, San Leandro, Livermore, Vallejo, and most notably Concord (more on that later), but still relatively cheap compared to the rest of the region, hovering around $2,000 or less for a one-bedroom.
RWC is one of the few cities that is doing its civic duty and building housing…All class A midrise apartments…Too expensive for most…The real demand is for cheap class C housing and sfhs…No one building more of either…Almost all new sfhs are replacing teardowns…Just means pricing going up…Class C being upgraded to higher rent properties …Builders want too build more multi family downtown and on El Camino…rents are too high for the typical renter
I think when rents get too high you see pullback in household formation. Adult kids live with their parents longer. People rent with more roommates instead of renting their own place. That makes rents go lower until they reach the point household formation starts again.
Potentially, that’s why then you need to dig perhaps to find the real cause. The real big one that would concern all of us is actual economic slowdown that produces job losses that kills demand and thus reduces rents. But is that what is happening now? Supposedly not. We are hearing that unemployment claims/figures are low. Stock market seems to have recently been leveling off but it had been bonkers since The Donald went in. So, what else? Well, people may be moving to less expensive areas and also more supply of housing like condos that reduces the pricing. Now, let’s keep things in perspective too. A 1 bedroom apt in the Fab 7x7 for over 3k is pretty darn expensive so is it really going down that much even if 10%?
All I know is that I have currently a small studio that is available in the Fab 7x7 due to a tenant who is moving down to the peninsula for a new job and she doesn’t want to commute everyday. Ok, I post her studio for about the same rent since the current market suggests some softening and she was only here slightly over a year. I got tons of calls and emails. Not as many as in prior years but demand is def there. The scary part of that though is I got whole families wanting a small studio. Come on folks, really?
If you guys haven’t read, you won’t understand that part of what sfdragonboy is saying has some parts on my concerns in it.
The possibilities of hundreds, if not thousands of people being moved forcibly via deportation or any other means, which in the immigration community is well known as attrition, are very real. So, people knowingly will look for cheaper areas to rent despite their high earnings. And with you holding expensive suites, guess what, you will be doing that, holding them.
What I am trying to say is that the system has been rigging itself to serve you landlords for a good deal, or for a default. In order for you to keep buying properties to rent, you need more and more people to come to your location. The more demand, the merrier for you. Reverse that trend, worse if it is all the sudden, and you will be crying like a woman in labor. Or a man like me with kidney stones.
Kicking out illegal immigrants will affect class C properties in places like Stockton. .The BA is seeing Class A properties priced too high…still a big shortage of cheap class C muti family and sfhs…
RWC is full of illegal immigrants. They move out, others come if from other parts, and leaving some other landlord with his empty units. It will be a colossal shift of renters.
Whenever a BA vacancy occcurs smart lanlords upgrade and raise rents…Class C becomes Class B for example. …There will never be anymore Class C built…low paid tenants will be pushed out or will have to double up. …
