House prices and rental rates have been increasing to a level that most residents of Bay Area could not afford. Many of them are ending homeless and pushed out of the city.
San Francisco is the most expensive city to rent in the Bay Area, where real estate market has been boosted by the boom in tech industry. As a result, middle class who are "too rich" to qualify for social housing are having a hard time paying the market-rate prices.
As the housing war continues in the city, San Francisco Association of Realtors has laid out suggestion on two November ballot measures to increase affordable eligibility, San Francisco Business Times reported. The proposal, "Middle Income Inclusionary Rental Housing Eligibility Ordinance," also wants to have more stringent rules on the selection of affordable housing developers.
The Realtors wants to increase the maximum income levels of those who are applying for subsidized housing from 55 percent of the median income in the area to 110 percent per person. In addition, the rental rates will be restricted to a maximum of 30 percent of the tenant's income, San Francisco Business Times noted.
The publication quoted Nathan Ballard, a Democratic strategist advising the ballot measure proposal, saying that "The point of it is to expand the pool of housing options available to San Franciscans. The goal of this ballot measure was to target a very specific, modest number of units and open them up for middle-class housing."
Meanwhile, as recently covered here on Realty Today, San Francisco home prices dropped for the first time in four years, recording a 1.8 percent decline in March. This is based on a report from real estate brokerage Redfin, which said that this could be one of the signs that the market is finally starting to cool down.
