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A new report from a CBS affiliate out of San Francisco, California, details the state’s housing crisis brought on by rising home prices and the lack of availability.
The report states the average price of a home in San Francisco is $1.4 million, while San Jose has an average home price of $991,000. Oakland is marginally cheaper, with the average home coming in at $732,000.
Homeownership in California is at its lowest level since 1950 and homelessness is rising across the state. Alameda County has seen homelessness increase 42.5% since 2017, and increases of 31% in Santa Clara County, 6.8% in San Francisco, 20% in San Mateo County, and 42.8% in Contra Costa County have also been reported.
According to the report, California Gov. Gavin Newsom allocated $2 billion toward the housing crisis in 2019.
“I think the housing crisis has been so hard to solve because there are so many entrenched interests in seeing the status quo remain,” said David Garcia, Policy Director for the University of California, Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation.
Not only is price and issue, but availability is another hurdle to overcome. California is on pace to build fewer than 100,000 homes in 2019. The report states that research shows California needs to build 180,000 homes a year to accommodate housing needs. Newsom’s goal is to build 500,000 homes annually and have 3.5 million new home by 2025.
Despite its struggles, a new report from CoreLogic provided positive news on California’s housing market, as home sales in July grew from the year prior for the first time in a year.
CoreLogic states growth was motivated by lower mortgage rates. Home prices across the state were less than 2% above last year, and prices in the Bay Area fell annually for the third-consecutive month.
The nine-county San Francisco Bay Area saw the purchase of 7,404 new and existing houses and condos, which is a 2.2% year-over-year decline. Median-sales prices, though, fell 4.1%—the largest decline December 2011’s 10.5% drop.
The report finds that an estimated 42,432 new and existing homes and condos were sold in July, which is a 5.1% increase from June and up 1.8% from July 2018. The number of homes sold in July was the highest for the month since 46,757 homes were sold in July 2015.
