Majority of tech workers in Silicon Valley say they can’t afford homes

The median-priced home in San Francisco sells for
$1.6 million, and it’s not uncommon for buyers to bid
hundreds of thousands of dollars above asking and pay in all
cash. As a result, only about
12% of households in San Francisco can afford the
median-priced home.

Some tech workers fare better than others

Tech workers are often paid more than the general population,
though that paycheck doesn’t stretch far in the costly Bay
Area.

The
median-priced home in San Francisco sells for $1.6
million.
Melia Robinson/Business
Insider

According to Blind, Cisco had the highest percentage of
employees (72%) who said they can’t buy a house, followed by
eBay (70%) and Intuit (65%).

People who go to work at Salesforce, Google, and Facebook may
have an easier time of it. Those companies ranked lowest with
52% of Salesforce employees, 51% of Google employees, and 51%
of Facebook employees reporting they can’t afford homes. 

Apple, which became the first company to be
worth $1 trillion on the public markets last week, was
mixed in among startups Airbnb, Uber, and Pinterest, with 63%
of employees unable to buy a house.

The Bay Area is on the brink of an exodus

As the dream of buying a home evades them, tech workers
may be considering a move elsewhere.

A report from real-estate site Redfin revealed that San
Francisco lost
more residents than any other US city in the last
quarter of 2017.

The great migration is far from over. In 2018, 49% of Bay
Area residents said they would consider leaving California
because of the cost of living, according to a survey of 500
residents by public-relations firm Edelman.

They’re cropping up in places like Seattle, Portland,
Denver, and Sacramento, though a
recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle highlights
that people in the Pacific Northwest aren’t exactly pleased to
welcome their new neighbors as their home prices soar.