Tech Boom Hits San Francisco Rental Prices
The latest technology boom is helping to stem a decadelong exodus of residents from San Francisco, but the influx of well-paid workers is driving up already-high housing costs and straining public resources.
The latest technology boom is helping to stem a decadelong exodus of residents from San Francisco, but the influx of well-paid workers is driving up already-high housing costs. Shira Ovide has details on Lunch Break. Photo: Michael Mullady for the Wall Street Journal.
The promise and perils of the boom are evident in the experience of Genevieve Sheehan and her husband, who are relocating from the Boston area for her new job at social-games maker Zynga Inc. They have endured a grinding hunt for a home.
Ms. Sheehan, a 29-year-old recent Harvard Business School graduate, said open houses were “a zoo.” The couple was forced to boost their rental budget 40% to $3,500 a month before they landed a two-bedroom apartment. “A lot of people want to live here and are willing and able to pay incredibly high prices” to do so, Ms. Sheehan said.
Ian Schugel, outside his new building, moved to San Francisco from New York City and says he found the market ‘more cutthroat’ than Manhattan.
New Yorker Ian Schugel said finding a rental home in San Francisco is “so much more cutthroat” than in Manhattan, from which the 28-year-old and his partner are relocating. After one open house in South of Market, a neighborhood popular with tech firms and workers, they called 20 minutes later to find that the one-bedroom, listed at $3,100 a month, had been snapped up.