San Francisco housing inventory has risen 96% year-over-year, meaning there are nearly twice as many homes listed for sale as there were this time last year, per a Zillow report.- The statistic is just one of the latest in a growing pile of evidence that the pandemic and a rise in remote work are allowing residents to leave for more affordable places.
- San Francisco is just one of the major cities across the country is at the center of a debate around the post-coronavirus future of urban areas.
Nearly twice as many homes are for sale in San Francisco as residents continue to leave one of the most expensive cities in the country amid a pandemic-driven exodus.
According to a Zillow report published last week, housing inventory is up 96% from this time last year, and listing prices have also dropped by 5%. Though you'll still spot San Francisco's infamously high price tags on online housing sites — Zillow lists the city's median home value at about $1.45 million.
The report points out that other metro areas are not seeing the flood of new listings that San Francisco is experiencing — inventory in and around cities like Los Angeles, Seattle, and Boston is either steady or dropping.
The Zillow report is just the latest data point in a growing consensus that more people are leaving San Francisco during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reports of residents leaving the city are nothing new and predate the COVID-19 pandemic — soaring housing prices, a high cost of living, and other factors have been cited as key drivers to people exiting the city in recent years. But the "urban flight" from the city has been accelerated as some of the city's most attractive amenities — like museums, indoor restaurants, and bars — remain shuttered and as the rise of remote work has allowed workers in tech and other sectors to move to places with cheaper costs of living.
Moving companies in the
Since the onset of the pandemic, a debate has ensued on whether or not people will want to live in major US metro areas in the short and long term.