March 2021: California Median Home Price Soars to All-time High of $758,990

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

^ I think they are two separate but related problems. SF has a housing problem, just like Cupertino.

Places like Sunnyvale are actually very dense for suburban American standards. I don't think we're going to solve the problem by destroying the current suburban fabric- but by densifying ''densifiable'' places.

Thats mainly through brownfield redevelopment. We're never going to see leafy Palo Alto full of 20 story towers, and I don't think anyone really thinks we should. We should see better urban development in places where it should be but is lacking. Like all of San Jose and a good portion of Oakland and other East Bay municipalities. The peninsula will be the last place to ever see wide scale development due to its NIMBYism which is at a higher level than anywhere else in the Bay Area and probably the world.

It seems that your argument is to build more SFH. Sure, but there's no space for it. Thats why everyone is suggesting multifamily. Unless you're fine with living in Tracy and working in San Jose.

Plenty of room for multifamily towers even on the Peninsula . . . EAST of US 101. That's "densifiable". Pretty much up and down the Peninsula.

[badrunner]

The Sunset district is about as high density as you can practically build a SFH neighborhood, and isn't SF already the densest city in the country? I don't get this desire to just keep stacking people on top of people, often against the desires of the current residents. I mean yeah, you could theoretically jam another half million people into SF. The demand certainly exists. But just because you can, doesn't mean you should, or that it would be a desirable outcome for anyone except the developers. People seem to mistakenly believe that the free market exists to meet every demand. But the free market doesn't guarantee that every demand will be met by supply. It only guarantees that there will be market equilibrium.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by badrunner

The Sunset district is about as high density as you can practically build a SFH neighborhood, and isn't SF already the densest city in the country?

Nah. San Francisco is the second densest major city, but it's still quite a bit behind NYC. If it were an NYC borough, it would be the second least dense borough, only beating out Staten Island.

[badrunner]

Yeah it's not as dense as NYC, but still, I don't buy the notion that the second densest major city in America needs to be massively upzoned to meet the insatiable demand. Even if you did, it's not like it will ever become affordable. All the same problems will still be there, just with a lot more people.

[Pedestrian]

A new proposal in SF's Mission District is instructive about housing costs (sorry about the size of the images):

New Rendering Revealed For 401 South Van Ness Avenue, Mission District, San Francisco
BY: ANDREW NELSON 5:30 AM ON MAY 5, 2021

Developers have filed a Large Project Authorization request for an eight-story group housing project at 401 South Van Ness Avenue in the Mission District, San Francisco . . . . The corner-lot proposal will become a mixed-use building with 153 bedroom suites, commercial retail, and residential amenities. The Kansas-based Elsey Partners is responsible for the development.

The 99-foot tall proposal yields 63,960 square feet, with 44,190 square feet for residential use and 3,660 square feet for retail. The rooftop includes a 750 square foot amenity terrace with seating and an open kitchen area, while another 856 square feet of the rooftop will be covered with solar panels.

Residential space will be included within the two basement levels and floors two through eight. Each floor will consist of a shared living area open to the dorm-like studios between the second and eighth levels. The basement and sub-basement include several bathrooms, a dining hall with a kitchen, an exercise studio, a courtyard, a gym, and a lounge.

. . . Parking is included for 60 bicycles and no vehicles. Twenty-nine units will be rented as affordable, ranging for residents earning 55%, 80%, or 110% of the Area Median Income.

In the planning document, Elsey Partners describe the intent behind 401 South Van Ness, writing that “the proposed group housing project is a modern-day version of the affordable SRO (single-room occupancy) hotels that were populated by San Francisco’s working classroom, transient laborers, and immigrants during the last century. The same dynamics that attracted the working class to SRO hotels 100 years ago are at play with the current development.” The description goes on to highlight the relative affordability and access to transit . . . .

Construction is expected to cost $25.4 million over an estimated duration of 18 months. The project is two blocks away from the 16th Street Mission BART Station.









(The site now)

https://sfyimby.com/2021/05/new-rend...francisco.html

It's interesting to do the math on this: $25.4 million/202 "beds" = $125,742.57 per "bed" (some of the 153 rooms have 2 beds) or about $166,000 per room (no bathroom or kitchen).

This seems like as far toward "minimalism" as you can go in new housing and it's gonna cost $166,000 per room to build without ensuite kitchens or bathrooms. There are still places you can buy a pretty nice SFH for $166,000. That's about what my AZ desert house is worth and it's a cozy little place that has all the stuff most houses have including not only 2 bathrooms and kitchen but attached garage, central A/C and so on.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

With the exception of Marin County, much of whose land is protected by having sold development rights or because it's parkland of various kinds or zoned agricultural, the "do not build past here" line is usually topographical meaning it's mountains that have only a few passages through them and those passages are already hopelessly congested. Basically, there are 3 routes from the Central Valley into the Bay Area: I-80, I-580 and Highway 152 (north to south). They all rank high in national rankings of congested highways and you can't really cram many more people into the commute from land available for SFH in the CV into the Bay Area. As I said above, expansion of rail transit offers some possibilities: Right now there are 2 commuter rail lines more or less paralleling 2 of the roads: The Capital Corridor in the north (Sacramento to SV via Oakland with options to cross-platform to BART in the Bay Area) and ACE (Altamonte Corridor Express) in the center paralleling I-580 (Stockton to SV, also with some options to transfer to BART at the Trivalleys stations). If CA HSR gets built, it will add a third rail route in the south parallel to Highway 152.

These 3 roads and potentially 3 rail lines are the 3 mountain passes--there aren't any more.

Although Marin does restrict development by law and zoning to a large degree, even if it didn't Highway 101 is pretty packed now and the ferries from Marin to SF don't add that much capacity.

So what appears to be "do not build past here" lines are really practical barriers that exist because in practical terms you can't get from one side of them to the other.

Highway 4 also connects the Central Valley to the Bay Area, and there is currently a third interurban commuter rail line between the Central Valley and Oakland, the San Joaquins. If California High Speed Rail is built, I would imagine the San Joaquins will become a 'last mile(s)' supplemental service based around the relevant CAHSR stations.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

^Another way to look at it: San Francisco tends to be analogized to Manhattan, but if SF's population density were similar to Manhattan's then the city's population would be over 3.4 million versus the current 874k.

Who analogizes Manhattan to San Francisco? That's an apples to oranges comparison, as Manhattan is only the densest part of a municipality while San Francisco is an entire municipality. And in terms of population density, no city in America is as dense as the borough of Manhattan--not even New York City.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by craigs

Highway 4 also connects the Central Valley to the Bay Area, and there is currently a third interurban commuter rail line between the Central Valley and Oakland, the San Joaquins. If California High Speed Rail is built, I would imagine the San Joaquins will become a 'last mile(s)' supplemental service based around the relevant CAHSR stations.

I looked at it as the Sacramento River and its delta cutting the pathway through the coastal hills/mountains and there are, indeed, both road and rail routes to its north (I-80, Capital Corridor) and south (Highway 4 and San Joaquin trains). But technically you are right.

If CA HSR is built, whether the San Joaquins continue seems like it will depend on whether there's a perceived need for service between the Merced area and the northern parts of the East Bay and/or Oakland directly (HSR won't really serve Oakland).

[dimondpark]

Say what?

Reservoir Hills in Oakland is apparently the "hottest" neighborhood in the Bay Area as far as real estate appreciation, at least according to this.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/realesta...l-16155429.php

Reservoir Hills is part of an area colloquially known as 'The Murder Dubs'(20th-29th Avs)because of the extraordinarily high murder rate back in the 1980s, not to mention drug dealing, prostitution and run of the mill robberies, car break ins etc. Crime is still very high in this area btw.

However, Reservoir Hills is the 'quieter' part of the murder dubs tho that borders Glenview(an established affluent area of upper middle class yuppies and wealthier immigrants). Reservoir Hills has long been the area where grandmas(Black and Chinese) live and is really not that bad looking tbh, but now the median home price has shot up to a mindboggling $800,000. Too bad.

My parents bought their first house after getting married in the early 1970s not far from Reservoir Hills-it was a small 2bd craftsman bungalow and cost $12,000. Today that same bungalow is worth around 1 million dollars-in the hood.

Anyhow, this bridge is one of the "border crossings" between Oakland's Hills and the East.
Glenview-to-Reservoir Hills
https://goo.gl/maps/Eybt3MsfhtGpMqXu9