Make California Post a Preferred Source A stunning new survey found that nearly half of Bay Area residents believe they’ll likely move out of the region in the next few years, despite most feeling like they belong in their communities.
In a poll released this week by Joint Venture Silicon Valley and the Bay Area News Group, 46% of the 1,801 adults surveyed said they’re feeling forced out of the pricey California region.
“What they’re concerned about is our inability to solve our basic problem, which is housing — housing and the high cost of living here,” Russell Hancock, president and CEO of regional think-tank Joint Venture Silicon Valley, told the news group. “That’s what’s driving people out.”
Even among those likely to leave, 66% said they felt like they still belonged in the Bay Area.
Electrician David Collins, 53, told the news group that he’s in love with the nature of the region, where his family has lived for five generations. Still, he said he’s leaving.
“I’d love to stay. I worked seven days a week trying to save money to buy a house, and it just kept being unattainable,” he said. “How am I going to retire?”
Renters were more likely to want to leave compared to homeowners, according to the poll.
Gina Bidinger, 59, lives in a $2,600-per-month, two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in Alameda with an adult daughter and 76-year-old mother. She said she was shocked by the much cheaper housing prices in states like Nevada and Texas, including a six-bedroom, four-bathroom house for $300,000.
“It’s a little hard to make that decision to move out of California, because this is really all I’ve ever known,” Bidinger told the news group. “The only thing that really holds me back is my children that are here.”
Last month, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie declared a “rent emergency” and proposed several actions to combat evictions amid shocking headlines of rents in the city hitting more than $5,000 for one-bedroom apartments.
“Today, most San Franciscans feel our city is finally moving in the right direction, but many are also asking whether they can still afford to live here,” Lurie said in a statement. “We are taking action to tackle San Francisco’s rent emergency head-on and help San Franciscans stay in their homes.”
Rents in San Francisco are spiking more than anywhere else in the country, the mayor’s office said. According to Apartment List, the apartment vacancy rate in the city fell to just 2% in August, while rent prices have skyrocketed 26% in the past year.
“This leads the nation and represents the fastest post-pandemic rent growth captured by our model,” the Apartment List analysis said.
Outside of affordability, politics is another factor pulling Bay Area residents from the region, according to the poll. Some said that policies such as the proposed billionaires tax or sanctuary city laws have upset them.
