San Francisco Real Estate - Janice Lee

Typical U.S. homeowners are gaining more than $50 of equity in their homes during every eight-hour workday, according to an analysis from Zillow.  Price gains in some parts of the country have been significantly higher. In booming tech cities San Jose, San Francisco and Seattle, appreciation of the typical home added the equivalent in wealth of a six-figure annual salary.  Zillow senior economist Aaron Terrazas said, "For homeowners that have already or are very close to paying off a mortgage, this supplemental ‘income’ – especially if allowed to accumulate over several years – can essentially serve as a kind of second job that pays directly to a homeowner’s bottom line, without nearly as much actual work involved in collecting it."

After a year that saw rents reach new heights in San Francisco, prices have largely stabilized in the city, according to data from real estate listings site Zumper. While it’s hard to make the argument that the city is becoming more affordable – especially since San Francisco’s rents still remain the highest in the entire country – the statistics do ease some concerns that rental prices are still on a strong upward trajectory. Out of the 43 neighborhoods identified by the company, 26 of them have either seen no year-over-year rental increases or rental declines. Of the remaining neighborhoods the median year-over-year rental increase was 2.95 percent. The only neighborhood seeing double-digit percentage rent increases from last year was Lower Pacific Heights, where its median one-bedroom rents of $3,630 is a 10 percent jump from last year. Next on the list of the highest rental growth neighborhoods is Bayview, followed by the Tenderloin and the Lower Haight, seeing annual incre...