The Bay Area housing market has managed to hit new highs, and new lows, both in the same week. It has become less expensive to rent here, but also more expensive to buy.
For the first time in six years, the average one-bedroom apartment in San Francisco can be yours for less than $3,000 a month.
“They offered me a very good, like 30% discount,” said tech entrepreneur Dominick Malzone.
Malzone's landlord was desperate enough to offer a deep discount, but it wasn't enough. He runs a tech startup and moved to Las Vegas anyway, saying he can do business anywhere.
"We can certainly have people working remotely, have most of those benefits of being in SF without actually being there,” said Malzone. “With benefits of more reasonable living costs and things like this."
Bay Area housing tracker Zumper says the price drop is a combination of tech workers being mobile, and the recession.
"Affordability has become much more important now,” said Chen. “It is both tech workers deciding to leave and people getting priced out of the city."
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The one surprise in all this is housing prices. They’re still high, because fewer people are putting houses on the market. San Jose’s average is now close to $1.1 million.
San Jose was just named the most competitive city in the nation when it comes to buying a home, Lending Tree says for two reasons: one, high credit scores, two, putting down an average 25% down payment. That's between $250 and $275 thousand dollars as a down payment.
