Exit, stage right — to anywhere cheaper than the Bay Area, where a typical home tops $1.1 million and the median cost of renting is $3,800 a month.
Nearly half of Bay Area residents want to pack up a moving van and leave town, with 67 percent citing the high cost of housing as the No. 1 reason to seriously contemplate a move, the San Jose Mercury News reported, citing a recent poll.
The poll, taken by the Bay Area News Group and Joint Venture Silicon Valley, found 47 percent of Bay Area residents saying they want to move away from the region in the next few years. That’s down from 52 percent last year and 56 percent in 2022 saying they’re likely to leave.
The No. 1 factor for the wanderlust is a lack of affordability, with the cost of housing cited by two-thirds of residents as a reason to move. Other reasons include quality of life (49 percent), taxes (37 percent), and homelessness and the political environment (both 28 percent).
Unlike during the pandemic, when an exodus fled the Bay Area to remotely work in the suburbs or out of state, 5 percent considered moving for remote work outside the region.
The poll surveyed 1,773 adults in August in five counties across the Bay Area, with a 2.5 percent margin of error.
The tech industry has created thousands of jobs from San Francisco to the East and South bays in the past decade, making some very well off, according to Tim Thomas, research director for the Urban Displacement Project at UC Berkeley.
But the demand for new housing far outstrips supply, leading to soaring housing prices, he said. Those who can’t afford to stay end up leaving, who tend to be mostly Hispanic or Black.
Those moving in tend to be more wealthy and educated. Some, considered part of the Bay Area’s “transient class,” move in to jumpstart their careers at good jobs in tech, then leave in their 30s to start families.
Read more
Residential
San Francisco
Bay Area hit hardest by state’s pandemic population loss
Residential
San Francisco
Bay Area cities among lowest in U.S. for young adult homeownership
Residential
San Francisco
Affordability’s flip side: Bay Area zip codes where big earners live
“What that’s doing is recreating segregation by economic means,” Thomas told the Mercury News.
The median price of a home in the Bay Area this month is $1.14 million, up 2.9 percent from a year ago, according to Zillow. The typical rent for all bedrooms and property types is $3,800, an increase of $505 from a year ago.
— Dana Bartholomew