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The Bay Area is so expensive, earning $117,400 a year qualifies you as “low income” in some counties.

Every year the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development releases “income limits,” the minimum income level required to qualify for some affordable housing programs.

To be considered “low income” in San Francisco, San Mateo and Marin counties, a family of four must earn $117,400 a year. “Very low income” is considered $73,300.

For California, statewide “low income” limit for a family of four is $62,000. “Very low income” is $38,750.

The Bay Area figures are the highest in the country and continue to increase year over year. Income limits in some Bay Area cities increased by 10 percent just in the last year.

Most residents will roll their eyes at such figures — they’re used to seeing the cost of rent and home ownership increase with the years. In May, the median home price in the Bay Area hit a record high at $935,000.

The high cost of living likely accounts for what some perceive to be a “Bay Area exodus.” It’s hard to quantify such a trend with limited census data, but multiple reports imply Bay Area residents are at least thinking about leaving. Real estate site Redfin determined the Bay Area as the top region for “outward migration” in the nation by analyzing where people were searching for homes.

“Jobs and housing are really the primary criteria driving people’s decisions,” Hans Johnson, a senior fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California, told The Chronicle in March. “It’s kind of a balancing act between the two. If jobs predominate, people are moving in. If housing predominates, you have less people moving in.”

Here’s the list of counties and the annual salaries that qualify as low income for a four-person family:

• Alameda County: $89,600
• Amador: $58,900
• Butte: $48,400
• Calaveras: $57,850
• Contra Costa County: $89,600
• Marin County: $117,400
• Merced: $47,750
• Napa County: $73,450
• Nevada: $58,000
• Sacramento: $64,100 (includes El Dorado and Placer counties)
• San Francisco County: $117,400
• San Joaquin: $50,950
• San Mateo County: $117,400
• Santa Clara County: $94,450
• Solano County: $66,950
• Stanislaus: $48,550
• Tuolumne: $50,550
• Yolo: $66,550
• Yuba/Sutter: $48,000

—

Michelle Robertson is an SFGATE staff writer. Email her at mrobertson@sfchronicle.com or find her on Twitter at @mrobertsonsf.

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Article source: http://www.kcra.com/article/a-six-figure-salary-is-considered-low-income-in-san-francisco-and-the-threshold-is-rising/21940645

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An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

An undeveloped piece of 767-acre land spanning Sunol and Milpitas, Calif., has been in the same family since the 1900s and is listed for $13.9 million.

Photo: California Outdoor Properties

A rare chunk of undeveloped Bay Area land, stretching across 767 acres of oak-studded grassy hills, is on the market for $13.9 million.

The Wool Ranch spanning Milpitas and Sunol is selling for the first time since Ernest Wool purchased the property to raise sheep in the 1900s.

The sheep business failed when coyotes killed off the flock, and Wool transitioned to cattle.

Wool’s grandchildren now lease the land to a cattle rancher and they are ready to pass their stewardship to a new owner.

The land is zoned for agricultural use and the property includes facilities for raising cattle. There’s no residence, but a buyer could build several homes or agricultural buildings.

The Cliff May-designed home in Montecito was originally built in 1952 for $125,000. Following a restoration and expansion, it’s now for sale at $19.5 million.

Media: LATimes

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“I think they’d like to see it developed as far as fixed up the way it was. Make it a working ranch,” says listing agent Todd Renfrew, owner of California Outdoor Properties. “Someone who will build a home and live here. Someone from the Bay Area is the most likely person who wants a ranch and a place to escape and not that far from the Bay Area.”

The property is a relic of California’s old Spanish land grants. This particular property was part of a 4,394-acre concession known as Rancho Los Tularcitos and given in 1821 to José Loreto Higuera by the last Spanish governor of Alta California, Pablo Vicente de Solá.

The land feels incredibly private as it’s surrounded by vast swaths of undeveloped land owned by the San Francisco Water District, East Bay Municipal Utility District and East Bay Regional Parks.

“People can’t hunt on the water district land so there’s a lot of wildlife,” says Renfrew. “There are lots of wild deer, pig, turkey, quail, doves.”

Yet while the property is relatively remote for the Bay Area, it’s also only a couple minutes’ drive to modern-day conveniences. The closest school is 7 miles away in Fremont. The San Jose Airport is 22 miles away, and it’s a 20-minute drive to downtown Sunol.

Article source: https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Wool-Ranch-Ernest-for-sale-Milpitas-Sunol-CA-13008193.php

The Bay Area’s already stratospheric home prices continued their steady upward march in May, but the latest data shows a possible glimmer of hope for wannabe buyers — an uptick in the number of sales.

The median price for a single-family resale home in the Bay Area hit a record $935,000 last month, according to a report released Friday by real estate data firm CoreLogic. Santa Clara County’s median price tag saw the biggest year-over-year increase, jumping a staggering 23 percent to $1.4 million. In Alameda County, the median price shot up 19 percent to $950,000 — a record for the county.

“No surprise,” said CoreLogic analyst Andrew LePage. “With inventory as tight as it is in most markets, we continue to see significant price gains across the Bay Area.”

Nearly 8,500 homes, including new and resale houses and condos, changed hands last month in the nine-county Bay Area — up 12 percent from April, according to CoreLogic. More homes were sold in the Bay Area last month than in any prior May since 2013,  according to CoreLogic. The upward trend in sales, which began earlier this year, suggests inventory is increasing — good news for families struggling to buy in the region’s cut-throat market, where a shortage of homes has driven prices to dizzying heights.

Some real estate agents say they’ve noticed the market recently becoming slightly less competitive.

“Things have changed here,” said Renee Levy, a Realtor with Sereno Group who, with her husband Skip Levy, represents buyers and sellers in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. “People are just not getting the prices that they were getting six weeks ago.”

Renee Levy said she’s noticed an increase in the number of homes for sale in Sunnyvale, especially over the past week. That may be because more home owners, after watching prices soar for months, are deciding they want to cash in. At the same time, Levy suspects some prospective buyers, weary of constantly being beaten on bids in the hyper-competitive market, have pulled out.

“Maybe we’re getting back into a more normal market,” she said.

Despite the recent uptick in sales, the total number of homes sold last month still lags behind the region’s 30-year average. Year-over-year, home sales last month were up by not quite 1 percent.

“The big picture is: in a historical perspective, inventory remains tight,” LePage said.

Prices continue to reflect that.

May marks the 74th consecutive month of prices increases in the Bay Area. The median price of a resale, single family home began rising in April 2012, and hasn’t stopped since, according to CoreLogic.

In San Francisco, the median price for a resale, single-family home was $1.6 million last month — up 17 percent from the same time last year. In Contra Costa County, the median price was $650,000 — up 10 percent from the year before. In San Mateo County it was $1.5 million — up 4 percent.

Fewer than one in five of all Bay Area homes sold for less than $500,000 last month — and the number of homes selling below $500,000 dropped 25 percent compared to May of last year.

Mike Martinez, a 37-year-old project manager at Sony, has seen first-hand how daunting the Bay Area’s housing market can be. He spent five years off and on looking for a home, living in a series of apartments in San Francisco and San Mateo County in the meantime, hoping the market would cool.

In January, Martinez decided the housing market wouldn’t turn and ramped up his efforts, attending open houses every weekend. He figures he’s looked at about 70 homes over the years, enough to have a five-minute routine down to inspect a property for major flaws.

Martinez and his agent Tony Ngai put in about 15 offers. Martinez slowly rose through the bid rankings, from an also-ran to a third and second-place finisher on a few homes.

Finally, he won a $900,000 bid on a four-bedroom home in Visitacion Valley in San Francisco. He wrote a letter to the owners, convincing them he wanted to be a long-term owner and raise a family in the house.

Martinez closed on the property Thursday. He had an unusual celebration planned.

“I’m just going to lay on the floor and roll around,” he said. “Then just get to work.”

Article source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/22/median-price-tag-for-a-bay-area-home-hits-a-record-shattering-935000/

The Bay Area’s already stratospheric home prices continued their steady upward march in May, but the latest data shows a possible glimmer of hope for wannabe buyers — an uptick in the number of sales.

The median price for a single-family resale home in the Bay Area hit a record $935,000 last month, according to a report released Friday by real estate data firm CoreLogic. Santa Clara County’s median price tag saw the biggest year-over-year increase, jumping a staggering 23 percent to $1.4 million. In Alameda County, the median price shot up 19 percent to $950,000 — a record for the county.

“No surprise,” said CoreLogic analyst Andrew LePage. “With inventory as tight as it is in most markets, we continue to see significant price gains across the Bay Area.”

Nearly 8,500 homes, including new and resale houses and condos, changed hands last month in the nine-county Bay Area — up 12 percent from April, according to CoreLogic. More homes were sold in the Bay Area last month than in any prior May since 2013,  according to CoreLogic. The upward trend in sales, which began earlier this year, suggests inventory is increasing — good news for families struggling to buy in the region’s cut-throat market, where a shortage of homes has driven prices to dizzying heights.

Some real estate agents say they’ve noticed the market recently becoming slightly less competitive.

“Things have changed here,” said Renee Levy, a Realtor with Sereno Group who, with her husband Skip Levy, represents buyers and sellers in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. “People are just not getting the prices that they were getting six weeks ago.”

Renee Levy said she’s noticed an increase in the number of homes for sale in Sunnyvale, especially over the past week. That may be because more home owners, after watching prices soar for months, are deciding they want to cash in. At the same time, Levy suspects some prospective buyers, weary of constantly being beaten on bids in the hyper-competitive market, have pulled out.

“Maybe we’re getting back into a more normal market,” she said.

Despite the recent uptick in sales, the total number of homes sold last month still lags behind the region’s 30-year average. Year-over-year, home sales last month were up by not quite 1 percent.

“The big picture is: in a historical perspective, inventory remains tight,” LePage said.

Prices continue to reflect that.

May marks the 74th consecutive month of prices increases in the Bay Area. The median price of a resale, single family home began rising in April 2012, and hasn’t stopped since, according to CoreLogic.

In San Francisco, the median price for a resale, single-family home was $1.6 million last month — up 17 percent from the same time last year. In Contra Costa County, the median price was $650,000 — up 10 percent from the year before. In San Mateo County it was $1.5 million — up 4 percent.

Fewer than one in five of all Bay Area homes sold for less than $500,000 last month — and the number of homes selling below $500,000 dropped 25 percent compared to May of last year.

Mike Martinez, a 37-year-old project manager at Sony, has seen first-hand how daunting the Bay Area’s housing market can be. He spent five years off and on looking for a home, living in a series of apartments in San Francisco and San Mateo County in the meantime, hoping the market would cool.

In January, Martinez decided the housing market wouldn’t turn and ramped up his efforts, attending open houses every weekend. He figures he’s looked at about 70 homes over the years, enough to have a five-minute routine down to inspect a property for major flaws.

Martinez and his agent Tony Ngai put in about 15 offers. Martinez slowly rose through the bid rankings, from an also-ran to a third and second-place finisher on a few homes.

Finally, he won a $900,000 bid on a four-bedroom home in Visitacion Valley in San Francisco. He wrote a letter to the owners, convincing them he wanted to be a long-term owner and raise a family in the house.

Martinez closed on the property Thursday. He had an unusual celebration planned.

“I’m just going to lay on the floor and roll around,” he said. “Then just get to work.”

Article source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/22/median-price-tag-for-a-bay-area-home-hits-a-record-shattering-935000/

The Bay Area’s already stratospheric home prices continued their steady upward march in May, but the latest data shows a possible glimmer of hope for wannabe buyers — an uptick in the number of sales.

The median price for a single-family resale home in the Bay Area hit a record $935,000 last month, according to a report released Friday by real estate data firm CoreLogic. Santa Clara County’s median price tag saw the biggest year-over-year increase, jumping a staggering 23 percent to $1.4 million. In Alameda County, the median price shot up 19 percent to $950,000 — a record for the county.

“No surprise,” said CoreLogic analyst Andrew LePage. “With inventory as tight as it is in most markets, we continue to see significant price gains across the Bay Area.”

Nearly 8,500 homes, including new and resale houses and condos, changed hands last month in the nine-county Bay Area — up 12 percent from April, according to CoreLogic. More homes were sold in the Bay Area last month than in any prior May since 2013,  according to CoreLogic. The upward trend in sales, which began earlier this year, suggests inventory is increasing — good news for families struggling to buy in the region’s cut-throat market, where a shortage of homes has driven prices to dizzying heights.

Some real estate agents say they’ve noticed the market recently becoming slightly less competitive.

“Things have changed here,” said Renee Levy, a Realtor with Sereno Group who, with her husband Skip Levy, represents buyers and sellers in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. “People are just not getting the prices that they were getting six weeks ago.”

Renee Levy said she’s noticed an increase in the number of homes for sale in Sunnyvale, especially over the past week. That may be because more home owners, after watching prices soar for months, are deciding they want to cash in. At the same time, Levy suspects some prospective buyers, weary of constantly being beaten on bids in the hyper-competitive market, have pulled out.

“Maybe we’re getting back into a more normal market,” she said.

Despite the recent uptick in sales, the total number of homes sold last month still lags behind the region’s 30-year average. Year-over-year, home sales last month were up by not quite 1 percent.

“The big picture is: in a historical perspective, inventory remains tight,” LePage said.

Prices continue to reflect that.

May marks the 74th consecutive month of prices increases in the Bay Area. The median price of a resale, single family home began rising in April 2012, and hasn’t stopped since, according to CoreLogic.

In San Francisco, the median price for a resale, single-family home was $1.6 million last month — up 17 percent from the same time last year. In Contra Costa County, the median price was $650,000 — up 10 percent from the year before. In San Mateo County it was $1.5 million — up 4 percent.

Fewer than one in five of all Bay Area homes sold for less than $500,000 last month — and the number of homes selling below $500,000 dropped 25 percent compared to May of last year.

Mike Martinez, a 37-year-old project manager at Sony, has seen first-hand how daunting the Bay Area’s housing market can be. He spent five years off and on looking for a home, living in a series of apartments in San Francisco and San Mateo County in the meantime, hoping the market would cool.

In January, Martinez decided the housing market wouldn’t turn and ramped up his efforts, attending open houses every weekend. He figures he’s looked at about 70 homes over the years, enough to have a five-minute routine down to inspect a property for major flaws.

Martinez and his agent Tony Ngai put in about 15 offers. Martinez slowly rose through the bid rankings, from an also-ran to a third and second-place finisher on a few homes.

Finally, he won a $900,000 bid on a four-bedroom home in Visitacion Valley in San Francisco. He wrote a letter to the owners, convincing them he wanted to be a long-term owner and raise a family in the house.

Martinez closed on the property Thursday. He had an unusual celebration planned.

“I’m just going to lay on the floor and roll around,” he said. “Then just get to work.”

Article source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/22/median-price-tag-for-a-bay-area-home-hits-a-record-shattering-935000/