Dive Brief:
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Silicon Valley already boasts the most-expensive housing in the country, and as Facebook, Google, and Apple expand their campuses, well-paid tech workers will displace middle-income families in the San Francisco Bay Area, The International Business Times reported.
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“Any sort of really intense job creation of this sort without a concomitant increase in housing supply is obviously going to put pressure on an already overburdened housing market,” Daniel Saver, a housing attorney at Community Legal Services in East Palo Alto, CA, told the publication.
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The median home price in Silicon Valley topped $757,000 last year, up more than $50,000 from the year before, according to Joint Venture Silicon Valley. That’s $549,000 higher than the national average home price.
Dive Insight:
Job growth in the area has invited a population boom in the area, and housing inventory has not kept up.
Still, Micah Weinberg, president of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute, told The International Business Times it’s not big technology’s fault. “Facebook has really done its side of the bargain,” he said. “We look at corporations to provide excellent jobs. These are obviously excellent jobs.” He said local governments and communities have fallen short when it comes to keeping home prices affordable.
