Rent in San Mateo County on the rise

Other cities in the county showed similar trends, with rents for a one-bedroom up 15% year-over-year in South San Francisco and 18% in Redwood City, however, data from those cities show median prices farther off from 2018 and 2019 levels.

Redwood City median one-bedroom prices this month were just shy of $2,500, despite having been nearly $3,500 for several months in 2019. And South San Francisco prices, this month $2,300, were well north of $2,500 in the year leading up to the pandemic, according to Zumper.

San Mateo County saw its population decline by roughly 26,500 people, or 3.5%, from April 2020 to July 2021, according to census data. San Francisco, Santa Clara and Alameda counties meanwhile lost a combined 143,312 residents during the span. Remote work allowed many to flee the area’s high cost of living, relocating to cheaper parts of the state or country.

But large tech employers are now looking to bring workers back. Google announced this month most employees would need to return to in-person work at its Mountain View headquarters at least three days per week, and Apple, with its Cupertino headquarters, unveiled a similar plan to take effect this week. Meta, despite reportedly embracing longer term work-from-home arrangements, recently leased more than 1.2 million square feet of office space in Burlingame and Sunnyvale.

And new office construction in the county is expected to continue to usher in tens of thousands of new jobs on top of those returning. With dozens of biotech campuses currently being built or planned, South San Francisco alone expects to bring in 13,000 jobs by 2040.

Between 2010 and 2019, the county added 102,500 new jobs while building only 9,494 new units of housing, according to a report by nonprofit group Sustainable San Mateo County. Meanwhile, median residential rent in the county increased by more than $900 from 2005 to 2019, from $1,593 to $2,497, according to census data.

In 2019, median rents were $1,614 in the state and $1,097 in the nation.

A report from Apartmentlist.com shows San Francisco, which experienced a similar decline in rents during the pandemic, barely trailing rent in the city of San Mateo this month. The report puts San Mateo rents at $2,370 for a one-bedroom, marking a 17% year-over-year increase, while San Francisco’s prices were $2,340, having increased by 16% since last year.

Tenant advocates worry rising rents in the county will continue to put pressure on low-income earners that have already been increasingly squeezed out of the area.

“We’re way behind in creating enough housing,” said Evelyn Stivers, executive director with the Housing Leadership Council of San Mateo County. “We still need to provide enough housing for the people that live here, otherwise people get priced out.”

Stivers emphasized that as rents increase, not all residents are equipped to pay market-rate prices. A top priority of the Housing Leadership Council is ensuring adequate affordability of new housing being built, in line with state housing mandates.

The county will need to construct 44,800 new homes by 2031 to satisfy state housing laws, the majority of which will need to be below-market rate for low earners at various income brackets. There are roughly 270,000 units of housing in the county presently, a figure increasing as many cities have thousands of units under construction, most of which will be rentals.

At the most affordable end of the spectrum, more than a quarter of units required by the state will need to be offered with rents that would consume 30% or less of the earnings for households bringing home 50% or less of the county’s median income. That works out to $1,713 per month for a one-bedroom unit or $2,056 for a two-bedroom unit.

corey@smdailyjournal.com

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