The report concludes that only 15 percent of [Bay] area housing stock is affordable to "workforce households," compared with 50 to 60 percent in "peer metropolitan regions." In the greater Boston area, 61 percent of the housing is affordable to workforce households; in the Washington, D.C., area the number is 65 percent.
The ULI Terwilliger Center for Workforce Housing defines workforce households as those with incomes between 60 and 120 percent of area median income, which is between $56,000 and $112,000. Approximately 30 percent, or 820,000, of the Bay Area's 2.7 million households fell into this income range. The report used a 3.5 income-to-home price multiplier to determine the affordable home price for each income bracket and household size. So a family earning $100,000 could afford a $350,000 home.
Oh, and renters?
More than 30 percent of rental households earning between $50,000 and $75,000 spend more than 30 percent of their income on rent. That is a higher percentage than New York or Los Angeles. And rents are not only high in the neighborhoods of San Francisco closest to downtown; even Napa County, which has the lowest rents in the greater Bay Area, has higher median rents than greater metropolitan Boston, New York, or Los Angeles.
