Curbed SF – faithful digester of Zillow housing data – determines that a household would need to earn $126,480 per year – or $63.24 per hour – to be able to live anywhere in the Bay Area. (That number is $175,760 per year, or $84.50 per hour, for San Francisco specifically.) That would be considered “unaffordable” by the common measure of spending more than 30% of income on household expenses.
Curbed notes that these numbers are based on median rental values, and low-income earners generally don’t rent at median rates an any city. That said, Curbed has previously noted that, even where the exact numbers that emerge from these kinds of data are not necessarily accurate, their changes over time are, and this represents an increase of roughly 15% since the end of last year for San Francisco. The good news? This picture presents an elegant solution: just earn more money.
