homesmillbrae.com

Frustration with the Bay Area’s housing market has surged in 2018, hitting a four-year high, according to new data that reveals just how widespread the struggle to afford lodging really is.

Fifty-three percent of voters said it’s “much harder” to find a place to live compared to a year ago — up from 36 percent of voters in 2017, according to a poll released Wednesday by business-backed public policy advocacy group the Bay Area Council. The data quantifies the unsettling trend residents have been experiencing for months — the housing shortage has expanded to impact nearly everyone in the Bay Area, from fast-food workers to tech employees.

“It’s a classic supply/demand mismatch, and it’s having societal impacts,” said Matt Regan, senior vice president of public policy for the Bay Area Council. “Far too many people are considering leaving the Bay Area, which is tragic, and those who are staying are having to pay higher prices than ever before.”

The data comes on the heels of a Bay Area Council poll released Sunday that showed nearly half the region’s residents said they are likely to move away in the next few years, largely because of the high cost of housing.

In the poll released Wednesday, 76 percent of voters surveyed said it’s gotten “much” or “somewhat” harder to find housing — up from 64 percent last year. The poll, conducted online by Oakland-based EMC Research from March 20 through April 3, surveyed 1,000 registered voters in the nine-county Bay Area.

The high cost of housing recently prompted Angie Chua and her husband to uproot their lives, moving out of the two-bedroom Santa Clara condo they’d lived in for 12 years, and into a 218-square-foot Airstream trailer. They made the move after realizing it had become untenable for Chua, who quit her tech job last year to pursue her dream of being an artist, and her husband, who works for Tesla, to continue paying $3,000 a month in rent.

“So much of the income that my husband and I were generating was going to housing,” said Chua, who now runs bobo design studio, selling clothing and accessories she designs herself, out of the MOMENT pop-up retail incubator in San Jose.

The couple bought an Airstream for $52,000, parked it in Chua’s parents’ yard in San Jose, and moved in their two dachshunds and the small fraction of their possessions that would fit into the tiny space. In the process, the couple redefined what success in the Bay Area means for them — but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t a tough adjustment.

“At 37, I’m trying to come to terms with the fact that I’m moving back home,” Chua said.

Nevertheless, Chua, who was born and raised in Silicon Valley, says downsizing has allowed them to stay in an area they otherwise couldn’t afford.

Chua and her husband aren’t alone — 41 percent of voters surveyed said they spend more than the recommended 30 percent of their household income on housing.

As housing woes intensify, more residents say they’re willing to do something to fix the problem. Seventy-three percent of voters said they supported policies that would make it easier to build housing near transit hubs and commercial centers, compared to 68 percent in 2016. Meanwhile, 29 percent of homeowners said they would consider adding an in-law unit to their property, up from 25 percent last year.

Regan hopes politicians will see those numbers, realize there is broad support for additional residential development, and craft policies to help make that construction happen. There’s no way to end the region’s dire housing shortage, and the sky-high prices that go with it, without building more housing, he said.

“There’s definitely a willingness … of the Bay Area’s residents to see more homes built,” Regan said. “Unfortunately when it gets to the political arena, it’s generally those 25 percent of opponents who tend to show up at meetings and make their voice heard.”

On the other hand, the share of residents willing to welcome that new development into their own neighborhoods dropped — from 62 percent in 2017 to 59 percent this year.

Meanwhile, families trying to buy a home in the Bay Area continue to struggle. Ryan Lillis and his wife closed on a new house in Dublin in April, with help from a down payment loan from Unison, a San Francisco-based company that helps clients afford down payments on new homes or tap into their existing homes’ equity. But due to the hyper-competitive market, finding that home was a long, emotionally tolling road.

“It was a lot of up and down,” Lillis said. “It just felt like we got our hopes up, and then we got outbid.”

The grueling process forced the couple to gradually pare back the list of attributes they wanted in their dream home.

“That was tough,” Lillis said.

Article source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/06/frustration-spikes-in-bay-area-house-hunting/

Article source: http://www.northbaybusinessjournal.com/industrynews/realestate/8401240-181/sf-bay-area-residents-want-leave

Despite the Bay Area’s natural beauty and booming job market, nearly half of its residents now want to get out, citing a creeping disillusionment with the high cost of housing.

Forty-six percent of Bay Area residents surveyed said they are likely to move out of the region in the next few years — up from 40 percent last year and 34 percent in 2016, according to a poll released Sunday by business-backed public policy advocacy group the Bay Area Council.

The numbers show a disturbing trend in one of the nation’s most expensive housing markets: Workers desperate for a better quality of life and without housing options will go elsewhere, potentially plunging the region into a financial downturn.

“They couldn’t be more clear what the big problems are — and it is exclusively about the cost of housing,” said John Grubb, chief operating officer for the Bay Area Council. “They don’t see…enough action coming, and so they’re looking at taking matters into their own hands. And unfortunately, what they’re going to take into their hands is the steering wheel of a U-Haul to go somewhere else where there’s a better combination of salary and lower housing costs.”

Bay Area home prices have been climbing for six years, setting another record in April, when the median sale price hit $850,000 — up 13 percent from a year ago, according to real estate data firm CoreLogic. Rents are soaring too, and workers are forced to move farther away to find affordable housing and commute on already crowded Bay Area roads and freeways to get to their jobs.

Meanwhile, recent efforts by policy makers, affordable housing organizations, developers and others apparently have yet to make a dent in residents’ concerns.

The Bay Area Council has thrown its support behind several housing-focused bills that it says will help, including SB 831, which eliminates some fees for building in-law units; SB 1227, intended to increase the supply of affordable student housing; and SB 828, which would force cities to rezone land to allow more homes to be built.

Researchers have been worrying about the Bay Area exodus for some time. A recent report from Joint Venture Silicon Valley found more people left Silicon Valley in both 2016 and 2017 than in any year since 2006. Still, Silicon Valley is gaining more residents than it’s losing — the region welcomed 44,732 newcomers between July 2015 and July 2017, and lost 44,102. But the ominous new data from the Bay Area Council suggests that could change quickly, as the out-migration shows no sign of slowing down.

When asked to pinpoint the most important problem facing the Bay Area, 42 percent of those surveyed said housing — a dramatic jump from 28 percent last year. Meanwhile, 18 percent said traffic and congestion, 14 percent cited poverty and homelessness, and 12 percent said the cost of living.

Those problems spell serious disillusionment for Bay Area residents. Fifty-five percent of residents polled said they feel the Bay Area has “gotten pretty seriously off on the wrong track,” compared to 42 percent last year.

“It’s so expensive,” said 38-year-old software engineer Travis Dobbs, who moved his family from Berkeley to Portland last year. “My wife and I both make good money, relatively speaking, and we can’t afford a house there.”

VIDEO: A different poll conducted for the Silicon Valley Leadership Group and this news organization also found that more than one-third of Bay Area apartment renters and one-quarter of residents in their 20s and 30s say they are struggling to afford their housing.

Of those who are likely to move out in the near future, 24 percent of the 1,000 registered voters surveyed in the nine-county Bay Area said they plan to stay in California, including 5 percent who said they would head to Sacramento. Texas, Oregon and Nevada were the most popular out-of-state destinations, capturing 10 percent, 9 percent and 8 percent of potential movers, respectively.

Over the past two or three years, Sacramento-based real estate agent Craig Diez has been flooded with Bay Area residents interested in relocating to his town. He estimates they now make up a quarter of his clients. They’re drawn by significantly cheaper prices, he said. Homes are selling for a median price of $867,000 in the Bay Area, compared to $300,000 in Sacramento, according to Zillow.

Diez remembers one client whose house burned down in the wine country wildfires.

“He couldn’t rebuild even half of his house in the lot he has now in Santa Rosa, so he came to Sacramento looking at larger properties,” Diez said, “and he just can’t believe what he can get for his money.”

Another client sold the house she’d been renting out in Fremont for just over $1 million and used the money to buy two much-larger homes for $500,000 each in the Sacramento area — one of which has a koi pond.

“You can just step up your lifestyle drastically,” Diez said.

With such a large gap in prices, it’s no wonder Bay Area residents — particularly young people, who are less likely to have bought a home before prices spiked — want to leave. Fifty-two percent of millennials said they will be attempting to leave the region in the next few years, up from 46 percent in 2017. That’s particularly troubling because it means the young people who should be driving the region’s workforce for decades to come instead are seeking opportunities elsewhere, said Grubb.

“Losing our youth is a very bad economic strategy,” Grubb said, adding that if housing prices continue to soar, the Bay Area could be in for a recession.

Just 16 percent of residents think there will be no downturn, with 35 percent expecting one in the next three years.

Already, the local businesses that back the Bay Area Council are struggling to recruit young people, Grubb said. The region has become a tough sell, and those who do want to work here demand high salaries to compensate for the exorbitant cost of living. As a result, companies increasingly are opening offices outside the Bay Area.

Of course if the economy tanks, housing prices will go down. But that, Grubb said, conjures up images of mass layoffs and families struggling to make ends meet — a sacrifice no one should want to make.

The 2018 Bay Area Council Poll was conducted online by Oakland-based public
opinion research firm EMC Research from March 20 through April 3.

Article source: https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/06/03/nearly-half-of-bay-area-residents-say-they-want-to-leave/

Fed up with the Bay Area’s high housing costs, 46% of residents say they plan to move elsewhere soon — up from 40% last year and 34% in 2016.

That’s according to a survey by the Bay Area Council that suggests the Bay Area exodus is getting even more dire.

When asked why they want to leave, 45% of residents cited high living costs and 27% said rising housing prices. Nine percent said traffic and congestion, too many taxes, and overpopulation.

Census data shows that net migration to the Bay Area peaked in 2014 and has been declining every year since.

As Business Insider’s Melia Robinson has reported, researchers have for some time been concerned about a mass departure from the Bay Area. Earlier this year, the real-estate site Redfin found that San Francisco lost more residents than any other US city in the last quarter of 2017.

A new report from the same team may suggest where Bay Area residents could be moving. Redfin analyzed searches from more than 1 million users looking for homes across 75 metro areas from January to March.

Nearly 21% of users searching for homes elsewhere came from Bay Area IP addresses, the report found. The top-searched destination for these users was Sacramento, California, and the top out-of-state destination was Seattle. San Franciscans also considered Austin, Texas; Portland, Oregon; and Las Vegas.

All five of these metro areas generally have lower housing costs than the Bay Area, where the median price of a home recently hit a record high of $820,000. In Las Vegas, meanwhile, people could find a home for about $252,000.

Seattle — home to Microsoft and Amazon — is a slightly less expensive city than San Francisco that has seen an influx of tech workers in the past decade. But Seattle is not immune to high housing costs. From 2005 to 2015, Seattle’s median rent rose to $1,280 from $968, an increase nearly three times the national median.

Recent data also shows Seattle’s median home price hit an all-time high of $777,000 in February — $20,000 more than the previous record set a month before. According to Redfin, Seattle residents looking to leave mostly searched for homes in areas that are more affordable and less competitive, like Phoenix, Arizona, and Chicago.

The Bay Area, considered the nation’s tech capital, could also lose top tech workers if they can’t afford to live there, even on six-figure salaries.

Article source: http://www.businessinsider.com/san-francisco-housing-high-cost-residents-leaving-2018-6

A new poll shows that more than half of Bay Area residents think the region is going in the wrong direction, so much so that many plan on leaving the Bay Area. Not even the beauty of the region is enough for people to want to stay. 46 percent of those polled say they plan to move in the next few years. High cost of housing is the number one reason.

“You kill yourself trying to pay for the housing and then you leave because it’s just ridiculous, right? So I mean, it sounds about right,” said Ben Imadal of San Francisco.

RELATED: Lower income families priced out of California housing market

“The cost and the value don’t equate out for some of us. Especially if we don’t have cushy jobs that pay an arm and a leg,” said South Bay Resident DJ Seafood.

In addition to the high cost of housing, voters cited traffic and homelessness as other reasons for leaving the Bay Area. Popular moving destinations include Texas, Oregon, Nevada and Arizona.

The Bay Area Council conducted the poll which they say is a big wake up call. The advocacy organization is hoping state legislation aimed at expanding the housing supply will help, as well as Regional Measure 3, which if approved by voters on Tuesday, will inject 4.5 billion dollars for transportation projects.

RELATED: Condemned Fremont home sells for $1.2 million

“We’re seeing a lot of good high paying jobs which is great news, but the high housing costs and the traffic make it harder for lower and middle incomes to stay here,” said Rufus Jeffris, a spokesperson for the Bay Area Council.

It’s the harsh realities of living in the Bay Area.

“We’re making it work for now. Cross my fingers, but it’s hard,” said Jack Hickox of San Francisco. “Almost all of my daughter’s friends and their parents have left.”

Click here for more stories, videos and pictures on the housing market.

Article source: http://abc7news.com/realestate/new-poll-46-percent-of-bay-area-residents-plan-to-move/3557649/