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San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

sfchronicle.com

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Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#21
post #5

Looks like people are really leaving the Bay Area. you don't see 10-15% price drops in a year without corresponding drop in demand.

I suspect a lot of people are going to be leaving major cities in the next few months, especially in the US.

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#23
post #5

Looks like people are really leaving the Bay Area. you don't see 10-15% price drops in a year without corresponding drop in demand.

Lots of employers are remote until the end of the year. There is no good reason to renew or get into a new lease right now. It won't be clear whether rent drop is a real change until things are back to more normal.

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#25

Interesting news. I've heard that real estate prices haven't budged much and with the stock market remaining relatively strong, I wonder if we will see a corresponding rebound in rent sometime soon.

I think real estate will follow later. I've seen price cuts of $100-200K on the units that actually sell. Real estate is sticky - many people hold the line on price hoping that a buyer will come along later - and the economic crisis is just beginning to hit the sector of society that's a potential home-buyer in the Bay Area. There's also a fair bit of pent-up demand that sees this as a bargain-hunting opportunity and will still rush in - price won't drop significantly until those buyers have all bought or changed their minds.

Real estate here bottomed in 2010 after the 08-09 recession. It took about 2 years to make its way from profits to stock prices to layoffs to home prices.

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#26
post #14

I think the reality will set in soon on this once the CARES bonus UI is removed (and if it is not replaced) and the PPP loans run out. Right now everyone I know in real estate is still convinced it was just a minor blip and love to cite cherry picked stats about how a recovery is already under way. Coincidently I have been seeing a lot of fully furnished units coming on the market which I assume were former Airbnbs.

> Coincidently I have been seeing a lot of fully furnished units coming on the market which I assume were former Airbnbs.

I've been noticing this as well (I can still find some of them on Airbnb actually).

I'm currently in the market for a house, but wondering if waiting a year might be a wise move..

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#27
post #14

I think the reality will set in soon on this once the CARES bonus UI is removed (and if it is not replaced) and the PPP loans run out. Right now everyone I know in real estate is still convinced it was just a minor blip and love to cite cherry picked stats about how a recovery is already under way. Coincidently I have been seeing a lot of fully furnished units coming on the market which I assume were former Airbnbs.

> Coincidently I have been seeing a lot of fully furnished units coming on the market which I assume were former Airbnbs.

Wow. Does anyone have an estimate of the cost of living increase caused by Airbnb rentals?

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#28
post #9

> The 9.2% drop in the average one-bedroom San Francisco rent of $3,360 still leaves it unaffordable for the vast majority of city residents. Yeah, that's not much of a drop.

For a 1-bed that's actually $500-700 cheaper than it is in my area (Kendall Sq. in Cambridge).

Re: San Francisco, Silicon Valley rents plunge amid downturn

#29
post #5

Looks like people are really leaving the Bay Area. you don't see 10-15% price drops in a year without corresponding drop in demand.

Might also be that people are preferring to not move in the coming months (thanks to COVID-19) and so the units that _are_ on the market simply aren't finding many buyers.

I'm actually looking for a new place in the Bay Area next month -- some units have their sticker price uncharacteristically low for sure; many have some kind of specials running too, like first month rent free. I asked a few leasing reps if this is due to the current situation and they invariably say these specials have always been in place off-and-on throughout the years, but perhaps that is just a convenient statement to convince prospective tenants that their "desirability" is quite inert to general market conditions?

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