Posted on 05/06/2018 11:09:27 AM PDT by artichokegrower
So which is it: Are people fleeing California and the Bay Area for cheaper housing, or swarming here for high-paying jobs?
The answer is: both. A flurry of recent population reports have painted a confusing picture.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
Liberal utopias usually have the super rich right next to the super poor. Every city has this demographic disparity. This is by design.
I agree with your take on it, and meant to address it also until I got sidetracked.
We are experiencing the opposite phenomena here on the SF peninsula. Slums are disappearing, and neighborhoods are gentrifying with more upscale residents. The poorer residents are leaving for other areas, began with flight to the East Bay and those areas experienced a huge increase in crime and gang activity. A few decades ago there was about 15 percent population in SF was black, now it's about 5 percent and declining. The worst slum in SF (Hunters Point/Bayview) is looking pretty nice now with asians moving in and gentrification happening. Too bad southern California is in decline.
Gov’t creates the higher prices so they can get higher taxes.
There is plenty of land everywhere but you are not allowed to build the factory or the homes or the shops etc. as that would lower prices and ease traffic and loosen control by the gov’t.
I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with that. What’s happening here is that the up-scale middle class is shrinking at the same time illegal immigrants are flooding the area.
While property values remain high, there are now two and three families living in homes that were formerly supported by one.
Family income has dropped, but they can still afford the homes because there are three or four (even up to six) incomes in those homes.
Supply and demand...
Thanks for the mention. I wouldn’t be surprised if certain areas do well in this process, but I don’t see it as the overall case.
Didn’t silicone valley have a sharp downturn?
Most of those ‘high paid’ workers CANNOT AFFORD a house in the Bay Area. The majority of houses (at least in many Bay Area communities) are being purchased by foreigners, The escrow offices have had to print Chinese language instructions NOT to bring in suitcases of (hot) cash.
The escrow offices do not have security for multi=millions of dollars to be received or stored, even temporarily, on site.
(Even married couples where both work...at “high paid” professional jobs...if they insist on purchasing a house they mostly have to buy 50 to 100 miles OUT, away from Palo Alto/San Jose where most of them work. THOSE houses are mostly being purchased by communist Chinese money. Many of the neighborhoods are now Majority Chinese, though not all of the buyers come to USA...and other neighborhoods are now over 30 percent Chinese and Rising rapidly. There is also other foreign money buying up the houses, but most of its coming from communist China). FYI. Realtors are all trying to hire Mandarin speaking sales agents and clericals, and some brokers are now flying to Shanghai and Beijing to hold house sales seminars THERE. The realtors rent a fancy hotel conference room and serve nice free food and they sign up the investors to California houses...make the sales...right there at the hotels in communist China.
I don't know. All I know is that the economy in Silicon Valley is strong, companies are doing well now and there are want-ads for workers everywhere. There is a lot of building going on from SF down to SJ, cranes are in evidence building everywhere. In my town of SSF there are many large-scale projects being worked on, including a new rail station with surrounding hotels and residential towers, and a new marina. The downtown business district has gone upscale with multiple new restaurants and stores. Changes happening all around here, more than I've seen in decades.
The numbers for 2017 alone:
Roughly 5m homes were sold in 2017. Assuming the median price of $200K was the average home sold, total transaction value would have been $1T. In other words, foreign transactions amounted to $153b out of $1T, or 15%. That's a pretty big number. If the units sold mirrored the dollars involved, 1 out of every 6 homes was sold to a foreigner.
Bums don’t raise housing prices.
Some reports are quite negative and others appear not to be bad at all.
Interesting.
Thanks for mentioning what you're seeing. Actually glad to hear some areas are doing better.
Others may not share my view of Southern California, but I'm not impressed by what I'm seeing.
Geez those amounts are incredible.
For those prices I can see relocating to a cheaper area.
For those prices, you could buy an upscale home somewhere else, and still have money to go back to visit the bay area several times a year, if so inclined to come back to visit family and friends, and visit favorite places in your old hometown.
$200,000 won’t buy an imported plastic communist Chinese dog house in Palo Alto/Silly-Con Valley.
at least not since so many imported plastic communist Chinese dogs have been buying up the (real) houses there
Wait til the High Tech relocate to China. Soon California will be a ghost state once the state goes broke and can’t pay for Welfare.
“$200,000 won’t buy an imported plastic communist Chinese dog house in Palo Alto/Silly-Con Valley.
at least not since so many imported plastic communist Chinese dogs have been buying up the (real) houses there”
We are experiencing the opposite phenomena here on the SF peninsula. Slums are disappearing, and neighborhoods are gentrifying with more upscale residents.
“I recently sold my home in Campbell Ca to a couple from India with school-age kids. “
God bless you. They’ll be bringing their entire clan here shortly.
Actually, I moved from Southern California to the SF Peninsula a little over 2 years ago, and the dynamics there are basically the same, just a little less dramatic. Anything within a few miles of the coast, on a hill, or walking distance to a decent commercial district is becoming ultra-expensive, with the poor being pushed into the few remaining inner-city slums or way inland, and the middle class into other states.
All
Mostly true. But the Chinese are very noticeable because of the sheer numbers of houses they’re buying up. Also, entire cities are turning Chinese - communities which until recently had few or none. The Indians from Asis are mostly ( not entirely) in one town but the Chinese are now the largest group or nearly so (and increasing in quite a number of communities that were formerly much more Caucasian/Latino/whatever. Also, as others have noted too, many houses are being gobbled up by Chinese still in communist China , often for all cash and sight- unseen ( tho the realtors now pick them up at the airports for quick buying tours, they reportedly often buy several houses in a single day’s looksee before flying home again). Latinos are mostly priced out of the market and many are being forced out along with many black people and even more caucasian workers who can’t afford to stay. One bedroom apartments now 3000 to 4000 a month. California’s loss is Texas’ gain ( plus several more ststes).
This is another great point rarely mentioned and that is the MULTIPLE hispanic families living in very small homes in California (And I guess in many other states.) But it does have an impact here on a variety of levels.
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