It is no secret that
finding a place to call home in the Bay Area has become a problem, both as a
purchase and as a rental. Rents have
gone up very significantly in the past 3 to 4 years, with a steep acceleration
as early as mid 2012. The front page of the San Jose Mercury News today 4/16/14 talks about it and prints: " Region's average asking rent is now $2,043 after three years of double-digit annual growth".
But this is not
limited at all to our area. Nationwide, there is a similar problem, as studied
and explained in the Rental Housing Report of the Harvard’s Joint Center for
Housing Studies (Dec. of 2013). In many ways, the situation has to give us
pause.
- Half of US renters pay more than 30% of their income on rent,
- 19% of all renters 10 years
ago were paying more than ½ their income on rent; they represent 27% now.
- 31 % of Americans were renting in 2004, they are 35% in 2012.
- Between 2000 and 2013, median rents nationally (adjusted for inflation) increased by 6%, while the median income of renters dropped by 13%.
- The shortfall in the
number of units affordable to extremely low-income renters in the U.S.
(those earning no more than 30 percent of the area median) more than
doubled from 1.9 million in 2001 to 4.9 million in 2011.
If you want a copy of the SJ Merc. article let me know.
Francis
Silicon Valley real estate specialist
Detailed, local trends etc...
Current mortgage rates
non-profit organization worth noting: Partners for New Generations.
