Bad news for anyone seeking cheap(ish) rent in Oakland: The city saw a 12.1 percent increase in rent between January 2014 and January 2015. That’s higher than San Francisco's 11.6 percent increase during the same period and the second highest increase nationally (behind Denver’s 14.2 percent).
Job growth may be one reason for climbing rents. San Francisco saw a 4.5 percent change in employment while Oakland saw a 2.7 percent change. Real estate website Trulia, which reported the rent spike, notes that spillover from an increasingly unaffordable SF may be driving up rents in the East Bay.
Home prices are also creeping up. Asking prices in Oakland increased 13.8 percent, ranking the city number four in the nation (with a paltry 8.3 percent change, San Francisco didn’t even crack the top 40).
According to Bloomberg, mean rent in Oakland was $1,787 in November 2014 (SF's was $2,690). That same article quotes a software engineer who moved to Oakland in 2009: "Certainly, the not-being-able-to-afford San Francisco started the whole ball rolling in a big way, but now I feel like people are moving over here because they want to get in on the party."
Seems like the party's almost over.
[via SF Business Times; photo courtesy of Thomas Hawk/Flickr]
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