sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2004/01/28/MNG9N4JGO01.DTL
An income of $135,500 was needed to purchase a $540,500 home in 2002, $61,000 higher than the $74,500 median income in Oakland and $49,400 higher than the $86,100 median income in San Francisco. But Riches and others say the states affordable housing crisis hasnt eased. Instead, extraordinarily low interest rates are masking the problem. No one would deny there is a growing home ownership gap, and it has been obscured for a few years by interest rates, said John Karevoll, an analyst at DataQuick, a La Jolla real estate research firm. But inevitably, when interest rates go up, the tide will start going back out and all those rocks are going to start to show. Belmont resident Randi Dye, whose husband Jesse makes $35 an hour as a repair foreman at a Mercedes dealer, said the couple hope to move to San Luis Obispo in the next few years, despite the fact that Jesse likely will take a pay cut. Theres no way we could afford a house here for what were looking for, said Randi, 21. Theres no use in paying that when we could have a beautiful, five- bedroom house in San Luis Obispo for a third of that. If the Dyes become homeowners, they will have few peers in their age group. According to the annual study, titled Locked Out 2004, only 267 percent of twenty-somethings in California owned homes in 2002, a 139 percent drop from the 31 percent in 1979. In fact, seniors above 65 were the only demographic group to see a rise in home ownership in that time period. Statewide, the home ownership rate in 2002, the last year for which data are available, was 58 percent, the fourth lowest in the nation. Renters, and specifically poor renters, also face difficult housing choices, say the studys experts. Despite decreases in rents in the last three years, a minimum-wage earner in San Jose would have to work 168 hours a week to afford a one-bedroom apartment. In San Francisco, the workweek would be 160 hours, and in Oakland, 129 hours. Increasingly, economists worry that the Bay Areas skyrocketing housing costs are putting the region at a competitive disadvantage. A study released by the Bay Area Economic Forum earlier this month found the regions productivity advantage over the nation - a measure of the goods and services produced per person - fell from 43 percent in 2000 to 31 percent in 2002, due largely to higher costs of living and, in particular, housing. For the last few years, its gotten more difficult to attract more people to the Bay Area, said Sean Randolph, president of the San Francisco- based forum, a public policy group supported by regional businesses and governments. It doesnt mean theres an exodus of companies from the area, but the question is, when they expand, will they do it here, or somewhere else? Randolph and others blame a chronic shortage of new housing - particularly apartments and condos - for the housing crisis. Although about 186,000 building permits for homes and apartments were filed in 2003, only about 110,600 units were built annually across California through the 1990s. About 230,000 units are needed each year to keep pace with household formation and job growth, experts say. The so-called job-housing imbalance has eased in certain regions, according to the study. However, it is attributed to large-scale job losses rather than higher housing starts.
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