More fun stats about San Francisco – median household income, median sales price, average rent
What’s your ideal San Francisco neighborhood?
SAN FRANCISCO — San Franciscans love their neighborhoods. Blithely ask a Sunset district resident and a Richmond district resident which has the best inexpensive Asian food and watch the arguments begin. Confuse Cole Valley with Noe Valley in front of someone who calls one of those areas home and you’ll never do it again.
The Examiner compiled a range of facts and figures about neighborhoods across The City — including how much it costs to live there and the percentage of people with access to a supermarket — to show that aside from the commonly held assumptions about the areas, there are vast differences among the places San Franciscans call home.
San Francisco
Population: 808,796
Average household size: 2
Percentage of families with children under 18: 40
Percent married: 34
Violent crimes, Sept.-Dec.*: 1,103
Nonviolent crimes, Sept.-Dec.*: 5,623
Median sales price, Sept.-Nov.*: $640,000
Average rent for two-bedroom apartment*: $2,737
Median household income: $71,451
Percentage of households within half-mile of supermarket: 84
Woot… even more good news for San Francisco. Wow… check out that rent/income spread! The average rent is 46% of the median household income!
Of course, that’s the average rent for a 2 bedroom. As we all know, the Bay Area is one of the greenest places in the world, and we’re all extremely concerned about our carbon footprint. Thus, most people live 4 to a bedroom to keep their footprint small – which means that 2 bedrooms are extravagant. Seriously, who needs 2 bedrooms? The average household size is 2 anyway.
Regardless, these are great stats that should give us optimism for 2010. As rent continues to rise, more people will have no choice but to buy, which will drive up prices, and restore us to our god given 15% YoY appreciation. Woot!
January 3rd, 2010 at 9:44 am
Those stats would bring a big smile to any investor. Wow, average rent of $2737 for a 2br, and a median price of $640K? It’s enough to make me shout: Useless aggregate data!
January 3rd, 2010 at 12:50 pm
SF is a terrible place to purchase a rental property because of rent control and other regulations. The current market rent might look okay but the problem is you can’t raise rent with the market. I have friends that have rented for 10 years and pay dirt cheap rent and will probably never leave for that reason. If fact, I have several friends that have been there even longer that own a house in the burbs and keep their city pad because rent is so cheap. SF housing is probably a better investment for the long-term renter than buyer.