East Bay

Bay Area/Cali

Did you know…

The economy of California is the largest in the United States, boasting a $3.2 trillion gross state product as of 2019. If California were a sovereign nation (2019), it would rank as the world’s fifth-largest economy, ahead of India and behind Germany.

• Did you know that the population of Canada is 37.59 million (2019)
• Did you know that the population of Australia is 24.99 million (2018)
• Did you know that the population of California is 39.51 million (2019)

Real estate follows jobs.  The Bay Area in particular has plentiful jobs.  Alameda County has a great central location.  The population is around 1.7 million.

Here is more info about cities in Alameda County

To help educate you on the area, I have taken excerpts from the Milken Institute annual report.

https://milkeninstitute.org/

The Milken Institute’s Best-Performing Cities series has tracked the economic performance of US metros for two decades using job, wage and salary, and high-tech gross domestic product (GDP) indicators. Metros are ranked on their performance, while indicators help identify the drivers behind their success or failure.

“California secured four (San Francisco Redwood City-South San Francisco, CA; San Jose Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA; Oakland-Hayward Berkeley, CA; and Riverside-San Bernardino Ontario, CA) of the Top 25 spots among large metros. The Bay Area in Northern California consistently shows economic excellence powered by high value-added industries.”

“America’s metropolitan areas are the nation’s economic growth engines. They drive US economic growth by upgrading industries and creating jobs through policy choices and industrial, workforce, and innovation assets. However, not all metro areas grow equally. Some parts of the country are thriving while others are failing to keep up. The Milken Institute’s Best-Performing Cities Index provides an objective benchmark to examine the factors underlying growth in these metros while identifying their unique economic characteristics.”

“Our Best-Performing Cities Index uses an outcomes-based set of metrics—including job creation, wage gains, and technological developments—to evaluate the relative growth of metropolitan areas. While national and international political and economic forces beyond a region’s control can affect near term performance, the top-performing metros have cohesive strategies allowing them to weather economic storms and leverage their assets more effectively. These metros offer important lessons that are helpful to peer regions.”

“The Best-Performing Cities Index’s goal is to help academics, businesses, development agencies, government officials, industry associations, investors, and public-policy groups monitor and evaluate how well their metro promotes economic vitality relative to the rest of the country. The index also provides benchmarking data that can inform approaches to improving a region’s performance over time. The index can serve as a tool for understanding real estate, consumer, and business opportunities by indicating where employment is stable and expanding, wages and salaries are increasing, and economies and businesses are thriving.”

San Francisco and San Mateo County #1.

“The San Francisco Bay Area is also an emerging financing and logistics center for global commerce. The region’s innovative capacity blends well with the heightened demand in blockchain, financial technology, and other data analytic technologies that are reshaping global commerce. The phenomenon is by no means unique in this period to San Francisco but illustrates the richness of the region and its ability to attract and retain talent, despite lackluster commercial space development and low housing affordability.”

“Residential development is consistently a weaker spot in the regional economy. Housing shortages and a lack of affordability continue to cast a shadow over long-term growth prospects of the region. The Bay Area’s median home price is $1,355,200, while median household income is only $110,000. Recent news stories illustrate the dilemma of high-tech growth and housing needs, as the average tech worker pays $2,000 for a room for boarding. Reasons for the severe housing shortage include strict zoning laws, cumbersome regulations, and high construction costs. Homeownership in the San Francisco Bay Area also continues to be a development challenge. It would take a concerted effort by the public and private sectors to address this challenge.”

Santa Clara County #5

“San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, CA, while remaining one of the top performers in the Best-Performing Cities rankings, slips three spots this year to tie for fifth place. The Silicon Valley is home to many of the world’s most famous tech companies, including Adobe, Apple, Alphabet/Google, Cisco, eBay, Facebook, HP, Intel, LinkedIn, Oracle, and Tesla. With these firms in residence, not surprisingly, the region ranks high in all high-tech sector-related metrics, including high-tech GDP concentration and the number of high-tech industries LQ, topping all large MSAs.”

“Many of the aforementioned companies, like Apple and Google, are at the forefront of technological innovation in the high-tech and information services industries. Moreover, the metro is also strong in semiconductor product and equipment design and manufacturing, which are essential to next-generation technologies like artificial intelligence chips. As of 2018, four out of the world’s top-10 integrated circuit design firms (i.e., Broadcom, NVIDIA, AMD, and Xilinx) are based in the region.33 GlobalFoundries, a major pure-play foundry around the globe, has its headquarters in Santa Clara. In addition, the region is home to three of the world’s major semiconductor equipment manufacturers, totaling 42 percent of global market share.”

“The abundance of venture capital, an entrepreneurial milieu, and a deep talent pool have been widely recognized as major factors for the thriving high-tech ecosystem. Although other emerging tech hubs in the US have been recipients of venture capital, Silicon Valley received 18.1 percent of total VC dollars in 2018, second only to San Francisco.35 And with San Jose State University, Stanford University, and the University of California, Berkeley in residence, the region boasts a highly educated workforce. Over half of the population 25 years and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher.”

Alameda County#17

“Oakland-Hayward-Berkeley, CA, ranks 17th this year, a decline of three places from the last rankings. The one-year wage growth ranked 15th with a 2 percent increase; five-year wage growth ranked 22nd while seeing 8.7 percent growth. The metro also boasts the 15th highest ranked location quotient with 1.7. As an integral part of the Bay Area, the metro ranks second in the number of above-average high-tech industries concentrated in the metro with 15. Oakland-Hayward-Berkley ranked 17th in five-year high-tech GDP growth, clocking in 12.7 percent growth over that period.”

“Oakland continues to benefit from broader Bay Area growth and regional spillover effects. The area is still lower cost when compared with San Francisco and San Jose, which provides a continuing competitive advantage as businesses relocate to the Bay Area. Square recently leased office space in downtown Oakland, which continues the trend of large companies looking to the East Bay for lower costs.”

“Among the high-tech sector, the data processing, hosting, and related services subsector stand out, adding 1,160 jobs in the past year and demonstrating continued investment by firms in cloud-related technologies and services. The largest private sector professional, scientific, and technical services firm in the metro added 800 jobs in the past year.”

The link below is a list of apartments sold from 2019-2021 in Alameda County that were 5-50 units.  The screenshots show other details.  Use both to compare and plan.  

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EYBEWR1ShQZMno-HEWi5yhmgYnAOWt3tlDvU88dx7x8/edit#gid=0