By Rachel Ocampo, Courier Staff Writer
Due to the shortage of housing in the Bay Area, prices of homes and apartments have been rising.
The San Francisco Bay Area is one of the most expensive cities to live in along with New York City, Boston, and Miami. Other cities in the Bay Area also have housing prices that have been
rising rapidly. There isn’t enough housing in order to accommodate interested buyers which is behind the reason of these skyrocketing prices.
Prices of homes have been increasing by at least 10% each year. The median price of houses is around $820,000 according to CoreLogic, a corporation that stores property and consumer information.The increase of housing have been halting buyers from buying a house in NorCal. The production of houses also have not been growing as much as before.
Recently, the CA State Sen. Scott Wiener proposed the bill SB 827 which would set affordable housing prices to potential buyers. This would also force local governments to allow more production of housing near public transit areas. Although, it was turned down in its first committee meeting when it was introduced. The committee did give him reconsideration on the bill but will be put off for the remainder of this year. There’s also a possibility that the bill will be brought up to the committee again in the future.
CEO of Yelp, Jeremy Stoppelman is a one of the biggest supporters behind this bill. Moments after he found out about the rejection of the bill, he donated $100,000 toward San Francisco’s YIMBY Party.
When asked whether prices of Bay Area homes will, Senior, Alusa “The prices of homes will continue to increase in the future because of the growth of the tech industry in the Bay Area. Due to that, more people would want to live here in NorCal.”