With the Fed about to increase interest rates another three-quarters of a point, Wall Street is reacting, and not in a good way. The Dow Jones lost 876 points Monday — or nearly 3 percent — Nasdaq fell 4.7%, and the S&P 500 lost nearly 4%. Overall, the market is down 20% since January. Want to get more numbers? Have a listen to the PBS News Hour.
A lot of Bay Area cities are blaming each other for the housing shortage we’re all experiencing, but the truth is we aren’t building enough new housing anywhere, and we haven’t for a while.
Permits were issued for 119,636 new homes statewide in 2021 – just two thirds of the projected need – and this year it’s expected to be even less, with only a fraction in Santa Clara County. If this comes to pass, it will be the 30th year out of the past 35 that California has failed to meet housing production goals. And even permitted projects face false starts and stall outs due to shortages of labor and materials, as well as ever-present community pushback.
Bottom line: Unless hundreds of thousands of new homes are built this year and for many years thereafter, Bay Area home prices will continue to rise, and this will continue to be a seller’s market.
Many homebuyers are hitting the pause button due to rising interest rates, inflation, and other economic fluctuations. But waiting will only make the price tag higher as long as Silicon Valley home values remain immune from market fluctuations. Let’s take a look at a few reasons why this is true:
Wealth: Silicon Valley has the highest level of income and wealth inequality in the U.S., and it increased dramatically during COVID. That means fewer people can afford to buy, and those who can are ready to spend big sums to get what they want.
Jobs: Silicon Valley’s unemployment rate fell to 2.9% at the end of 2021, and tech jobs are now 5% above pre-COVID levels. That means more demand from well-paid workers, and it only deepens as cities continue to miss their housing production goals.
Employer Confidence: Google, LinkedIn, Apple, Amazon, Facebook/Meta and other tech giants made major investments in Silicon Valley real estate in 2021, which means those well-paying jobs aren’t going anywhere, and neither are the service industries that support them.
Investment Housing: The Santa Clara County Housing “Affordability Index” stands at 22%, which means less than 1 in 4 residents can purchase a median priced home. So it should come as no surprise that the share of homes sold for investment hit 9.5% in 2021.
Strong Fundamentals: The housing market boom we’re seeing now in Silicon Valley isn’t a “bubble” like 2007. With the third highest concentration of “equity rich” homes in the country, our region is fundamentally sound and hard to crack.
Future Demand: Over 4.5 million Millennials will turn 30 over the next few years and look to increase wealth through homeownership. And more than a decade of under-building, Capital Gains Tax regulations, and Prop 13 protections are sure to sustain high demand — and prices — for years to come.
It’s the same story we’ve been seeing for a while in the Santa Clara County market, where sold houses in April were down 21% over last year, available houses are spending 33% less time on the market, and average sales prices are up a whopping 21% from ‘21!
Meanwhile, condos are spending less than half the time on the market that they did a year ago, but average sales prices are up just 10% year over year.
According to a new report from Redfin, average monthly mortgage payments are up 39% over just one year ago — a record spike — while interest rates are at their highest mark in more than a decade. But while median sales and asking prices are still rising, home searches, touring activity, and mortgage applications are all in decline, indicating a slowing market as buyers take pause. Get more numbers from Forbes.
