After regularly topping the nation's most unaffordable housing charts, San Francisco has slipped to the fourth most unaffordable city in the US for renting according to a new analysis by real estate company Trulia. San Francisco comes in behind Miami, New York and Los Angeles. Affordability in the study is measured as the median rent for a two-bedroom as a share of the average local wage. In San Francisco the median rent of a two-bedroom is 51% of average wages, which is pretty high, while in Miami it is a whopping 62%. In more affordable cities like Phoenix, Sacramento and Atlanta, the rent for a two-bedroom is only 27% of average income.
San Francisco topped another list in the Trulia study that looked at where construction is highest relative to local norms. In 2013, San Francisco issued 85% more building permits than it did on average during 1990-2012. Of course, as Trulia points out, this building boom is only relative to what's normal in San Francisco, and normal is really low. San Francisco is building, for example, only one-fourth as much as Austin and way less than cities like Houston and even Oklahoma City.
· The Housing Recovery Needs More Than Just Rising Prices [Trulia]
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