One of the most common aspirations of Bay Area residents is to one day own their very own house. The idea of homeownership in the nine counties that make up the Bay Area is, however, just that: a fantasy. According to Vital Signs, the current median house price in the Bay Area is above $996,000, a number that puts homeownership out of reach for those with low and moderate incomes. A runaway success, the Silicon Valley tech boom that occurred in the years after the economic slump led to an extraordinary flood of highly qualified computer engineers, programmers, developers, and business owners. Unfortunately, this led to an over demand for homes, which in turn led to a significant spike in prices.
The housing market in the Bay Area has been unable to keep up with the steadily increasing demand, which has led to the development of exorbitantly expensive houses and rents. In spite of the best efforts of local mayors and the governor of California, a significant lack of available supplies continues to be a problem across the state. While the majority of developers concentrate on the high-end market, some real estate developers have shifted their attention to middle-income workers by providing a bewildering selection of alternatives that are reasonably priced. There have been some noticeable shifts in the property market in the Bay Area, such as a cooling of house prices, and it seems as though the tide may be beginning to turn in a more favorable direction.
Even if the pace of price inflation is slowing down, products and services are still significantly expensive. According to information compiled from credible real estate journals, publications, and online news sources, the cost of housing in the state of California, and most notably in the San Francisco Bay Area, has reached an unsustainable level. When I moved to San Francisco ten years ago, the going rate for an ordinary apartment was roughly $230,000. To construct exactly the same apartment from the ground up in today’s market would cost around $700.000. The rising cost of living in California has made it impossible for many residents to maintain their current standard of life. There are about 1.7 million rent-burdened Californians, which is much greater than the average for the rest of the country. It would seem that the state government of California is unable to tackle this epidemic; as a result, the responsibility for resolving the issue falls on local counties and private property developers.
Efforts Should Be Made to Address the Housing Crisis in the Bay Area
Despite the fact that San Francisco has a significant issue with homelessness, the city’s census in 2018 found that around 38,651 residences remained unoccupied inside the city. Despite the fact that there are currently more empty houses in the Bay Area than there are homeless people, a number of studies suggest that several issues still need to be addressed. According to the definition provided by the United States Census Bureau, unoccupied dwellings may be categorized as either vacant units leased or sold, vacant units for sale, or vacant units for rent. The particulars of why there are so many vacant properties and such a significant issue with homelessness often spill over into peripheral areas such as homes that are currently on the market, homes that are waiting to secure new rentals, homes that are undergoing renovations, and so on and so forth. Regardless of the percentage of vacant units, prices have not decreased.
When asked about the housing situation in California and the Bay Area in particular, many locals feel that the issue is not one of a scarcity of housing; rather, they believe that the issue is one of the high cost of housing. There are properties available, but either buying or renting them would be too costly for most individuals. In steps Danny Haber, founder of oWOW, a forward-thinking real estate development business based in Oakland, California and serving the surrounding area. Haber is the Chief Executive Officer and co-Founder of this rent-burdened market’s vertically integrated organization, therefore he brings a huge amount of knowledge to the forefront of this industry. His area of expertise is in the supply of luxury property at prices lower than the market average. The real estate development business has been entrusted with modernizing the lodgings by utilizing the existing square footage via the use of flexible wall systems (magic walls) and pre-built designs.
The skyrocketing popularity of the projects that this firm has created can be seen in numerous neighborhoods, including 674 23rd Street, 1919 Market Street, 960 Howard Street, and 316 12th Street, respectively. The business has produced a set of repeatable designs via the use of meticulous and deliberate procedures for reinvention. These designs may be completely tailored to the customer’s preferences while saving both time and money in the process. These MacroUnits have the capability to convert regular apartments with one bedroom and two bathrooms into apartments with two bedrooms, three bedrooms, or even four bedrooms without exceeding the allotted square footage. Because of the way that everything is integrated vertically, costs are kept to a minimum so that the savings may be passed on to the end users. Vertical integration helps keep costs down. oWOW is a prime illustration of how private sector can reasonably carve out a niche market in an exorbitant housing market. To far, the company has had numerous launches that were successful.