in November 2017 we learned that a $216,181 household income is now needed to buy a median-priced home in the San Jose metropolitan area. That was the highest income requirement among the nation’s metros, according to a study by the HSH.com mortgage information website. The San Francisco metro, which includes the East Bay, was second on the list: a $171,330 household income is needed to land a median-priced home there. No other metro was even in the same ballpark; New York lagged far behind, with $99,151 in household income required to snag a typical home.
Zillow crunched data for specific cities: San Francisco (where 69 percent of homes sold for above list), San Jose (72 percent) and Oakland (75.3 percent).
As we’ve heard time and time again, the region’s low home supply is what drives hungry buyers to bid up prices.
Swartz noted that in December 2016, there was a 30-day supply of homes in Santa Clara County. In December 2017, there was only a 12-day supply: “It basically means,” he said, “if no new homes come on the market, it would only take 12 days for there to be no inventory. It’s pretty shocking.”
“Even homes that are very expensive are harder to find,” Cheryl Young, senior economist at Trulia, told us last month. “There’s sort of nothing out there, even if you have cash to burn.”