Sunday, September 13, 2015

In the Bay Area, where the median price for a single-family home is $700,000 -- and tilts a good deal higher in Silicon Valley, San Francisco and much of Berkeley and Oakland -- the American dream of homeownership can seem like a pipe dream.



Indeed, the vast majority of millennials -- typically defined as age 34 and under -- plan to buy a home at some point in the future: 91 percent, according to Fannie Mae's latest National Housing Survey. Yet homeownership for adults under that age threshold has trended downward for 40 years and now stands at 34.8 percent, a drop from 39 percent in 2009. Buried in student debt or beholden to flat wage growth, many millennials are late to launch careers, marriage and parenthood, the markers that historically coincide with homeownership.

In the Bay Area, where the median price for a single-family home is $700,000 -- and tilts a good deal higher in Silicon Valley, San Francisco and much of Berkeley and Oakland -- the American dream of homeownership can seem like a pipe dream.

"The juice isn't worth the squeeze," said Darin Alpert, 29, a sales director in San Francisco for the tech company Bazaarvoice. He chooses to rent in the Russian Hill neighborhood because he "can't justify" spending $1 million for a one-bedroom condo. Instead, he owns an investment property in San Diego.

A national survey by ApartmentList.com, a real estate website, recently found that 74 percent of millennial renters intend to buy homes, though few plan to do so within the next three years....
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