Housing costs in California are higher than anywhere else in the country. San Francisco and San Jose typically get all of the attention for the high costs associated with purchasing a home, but places like Palo Alto also have incredibly high housing prices. There, small, two-bedroom homes can cost between $1.5 million and $2 million. Palo Alto has its share of super-rich, but it is also home to teachers, firefighters, and other government workers who don’t earn enough to afford the high cost of homes, HousingWire reports.
With prices rising so high, so quickly, members of the middle class are unable to keep up, and the worry is that if middle-class workers begin leaving, it will hurt the city.
In an effort to prevent this exodus, Palo Alto’s city council has unanimously passed a housing plan that would subsidize new housing for families making between $150,000 and $250,000 a year, which constitutes the middle class in this area. Smaller, downtown units would be built close to public transportation for people who do not own cars. Additionally, mixed-use retail and residential developments would be constructed.
For all of California, the median home price in January was $400,000, which was down 2.4 percent from the December 2015 price of $410,000 and the median price of a condominium was $385,000, which was down 3.8 percent for the month. However, median prices were up 8.1 percent and condominium prices rose 6.6 percent from one year ago.
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