San Francisco Is Becoming Manhattan with Homes Too Expensive for Locals to Buy

Homes in San Francisco are too pricey for its dwellers to afford which has become a huge problem for the city. The situation is made worse with the continued influx of people who are after big salaried jobs in the tech industry that is currently booming in San Francisco.

In a post by Inman, San Francisco is a unique city because of its diversity and it has long stood as an icon of the USA. It is not surprising to note that in the last few years, the tech industry has found a home in these parts and foreign investors have been on a mad scramble to own a piece of land in the Bay Area. With these developments, the city is now known for having exceptionally high priced homes. And this has become a huge problem because the income of most people does not match the price tags of houses. This means more people are renting rather than buying their own homes.

In the same report, comparing prices from 2012, current home rates are at 120 percent higher with the average at $1.16 million. With the average income of households at only $77,734 it is not hard to understand why only 10 percent of the city's income earning population can afford to buy a house of their own.

Meanwhile, according to SF Examiner, San Francisco has recorded the highest inventory of houses since the Urban Renewal in the 1960s. The City Planning Department's Housing Inventory reported that in 2014 there were around 3,500 units made while in 2015 there was an estimated 3,500 more finished. Currently, there are thousands being constructed and there are more that have been given the go signal for the projects to start. The CPD also released the actual number of houses in various stages of planning and building and they report about 9,000 units with 4,300 still to start.