SFist checks out the 510: The Vibrant Economy Edition
The Wall Street Journal's East Bay Journal showed us a little love this week with a two-part series on the residential and commercial real estate markets in the Five-and-Dime.
See "East Bay: More Affordable, But Only Compared to Its Neighbors" (January 18, 2006) and "California's East Bay Area Offers Relative Bargains" (January 19, 2006).
SFist is always interested to read about bargains in the area, if only because they're rarer than a morning when there isn't a stall in the right lane on the Bay Bridge. We're also interested to read about the economic growth in the area, if only because it's a refreshing change of pace from dire stories about assorted bubbles popping. Witness:
The East Bay underwent a milder recession than San Francisco and Silicon Valley and is now on course for a quicker, stronger recovery than its counterparts, (Kenneth T. Rosen, chairman of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics at the University of California, Berkeley) said. Living costs in the East Bay are 36% above the national average, though still lower than in San Francisco and San Jose, according to consulting firm Economy.com.
Image of the Oakland Postcard from the Curt Teich checklist of large letter linen postcards.
By SFist Lisa, contributing
We are not so thrilled about the crazy-high living costs on a national level, but regionally, SFist is quite willing to put up with jokes about there being no "there" there if it saves us a buck or two.
Other items of interest in these articles:
- Job growth in the East Bay rocks! "November job growth rate of 1.8% edged out the national pace of 1.5%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. By contrast, San Francisco's November employment was still 13.6% below the 2000 level, while Silicon Valley was 19% off."
- The office-dependent real estate market does not rock! It's lagging the retail and warehouse sectors, and the average building price per square foot is $191, compared with San Jose's $232 and San Francisco's $277.
- Housing prices rock! Median house prices in the East Bay hit $677,559 in Q3 this year, which is three times the national average, but well below the $800,000 median in San Francisco.
- The housing market does not entirely rock! As one article notes: "If mortgage rates rise to the mid-7% range, some pockets of the market for single-family homes in the East Bay might start to see price declines of as much as 5%"
SFist wonders if maybe now is the time to start a Fed Watch, if only to see when those rising interest rates and falling markets are likely to hit.