Do Lower Rents Mean The Bay Area is Becoming More Affordable?

KQED's Forum

KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Rental rates for homes are dropping across the Bay Area. They first fell in 2020 during the pandemic and never fully recovered. Some renters are spending less on rent, but nearly half of Bay Area residents are considered rent-burdened. That leaves housing advocates and experts doubtful the region will become more affordable in a meaningful way. We’ll talk about what lower rents could mean long term and how renters can take advantage of the current market. Guests: Ben Metcalf, managing director, Terner Center of Housing Innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, former director of California Department of Housing and Community Development Shanti Singh, communications and legislative director, Tenants Together Chris Salviati, senior housing economist, Apartment List Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Support for Forum comes from Rancho La Puerta, boated the number one wellness resort and spa by readers of travel and leisure magazine in 2024.
0:09.7	In August, three or four people sharing a cassita enjoy special vacation packages that include hiking, mindfulness, and fitness classes, in a garden setting on 4,000 verdant acres of nature preserve.
0:22.4	Check in to summer at Rancho LaPorta.
0:25.1	Rancho LaPorta.com.
0:26.8	Greetings boomtown.
0:28.3	The Xfinity Wi-Fi is booming!
0:30.6	Xfinity combines the power of internet and mobile.
0:33.7	So we've all got lightning fast speeds at home and on the go.
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0:42.3	From KQED.
0:44.3	From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Alexis Madrigal.
1:00.0	We all know that in the Bay Area, housing is not just housing.
1:03.0	Paying for a place to live is so expensive that housing has become a tax on everything else.
1:09.0	Run a restaurant? Your employees need more money to live,
1:11.6	and even then, they probably have to live far outside town.
1:14.6	At exactly the moment when civic groups are trying to liven up downtown,
1:18.6	the very people who would do that are being forced farther and farther outside the core.
1:23.6	But rents are falling.
1:25.6	It's still kind of a small movement, but it may just want to ask
	...

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