"[It] will take more than a mild slowdown in tech activity to break down favorable supply demand fundamentals in the Bay Area," wrote Morgan Stanley analyst Vance Edelson in a note to clients sent last week and obtained by Business Insider, which basically means rents aren't going down without a very big slowdown in job growth.
To drive the point home, "We think supply/demand would remain favorable even if current Bay Area job growth forecasts were cut in half," the analysis continued, almost cruelly. Favorable to whom is the question, of course, and the answer is not renters.
In the past, real estate website Zumper has placed some blame on venture capital, as it reportedly fuels job growth in the Bay Area. But for these purposes, one can simply look at the jobs that bring people to the Bay Area — not where those jobs come from, although that is interesting — and compare it to the housing supply, then sigh deeply.
Morgan Stanley says that housing supply is expected to increase by just 15,000 units in 2016-2017, but that 145,000 new jobs in the Bay Area are forecasted in the same period. That creates a job/supply ratio of 9.4x, compared to 2015's ratio of 8.9x, per the note to investors. Perhaps that van a local software engineer is living in to save on rent will have some company soon.
Related: San Francisco Has Always Been A Pretty Expensive Place To Live
Morgan Stanley via Business Insider