Real estate prices in the Bay area go up
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (KRON) – In the Bay Area, rents are down about 15-20% from last year.
However, since the pandemic started to subside, prices are starting to rise again.
So far in 2021, rents are up from last year. Rental prices in San Francisco are up about 5%.
San Jose is up 3% and Oakland is up about 2.5%.
What is not clear at this point is how the high rents will end up going.
“We are clearly seeing some growth. “
Jeff Andrews is a data reporter with Zumper.com, which tracks and lists rental properties. He expects rental prices to continue to rise but not to be as high as before the pandemic.
He says many people have left the Bay Area for good, especially tech workers, and may not return.
We don’t know how far tech companies will adopt work-from-home policies. If that’s very large and people don’t go back to the Bay Area in the same numbers as, say, New York City.
We could see the pandemic as an event that permanently lowered rents in the Bay Area.
The real test of what will happen with the rental market could take place this fall when many companies plan to reopen their offices and recall workers.
Prices could continue to climb until then, but if people don’t come back in large numbers, rents could flatten or maybe even go down.
Another reason rents might not return to where they were before is that even before the pandemic people are leaving the Bay Area and rents are going down.
Nothing has happened that could reverse this trend.