As 2024 comes to a close, we take a look back and a look ahead at the Bay Area housing market.
If there was a single message we heard the most about Bay Area housing this year, it's probably this from the Trio family from San Jose: "Renting is the only viable thing right now."
Prices stayed high again this year.
The California Association of Realtors says the median price for a Bay Area home topped $1.3 million, a jump of 5% from a year ago.
"We have decent jobs, but we don't see ourselves buying a house for that amount of money," Marina Trio said.
So, where do we go from here? RE/MAX says it partly depends on mortgage rates.
"The interest rates are definitely keeping people on the sidelines," RE/MAX Gold Bay Area real estate broker Tim Yee said.
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As for how we pay for homes, tech jobs have always meant a twist for much of the home buying in the Bay Area, but it's not just cashing in stock options these days.
"The amount of crypto investors in the Bay Area, the technology, I think there's going to be a lot of money flowing from that into the real estate market," Yee said.
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Between high mortgage rates and a surging crypto market, housing could again be tough to come by in the Bay Area in 2025.
But there could be one minor bright spot. Zillow says San Francisco is the only major U.S. city that has a lower median home price now than it did back in 2019.
