How many years of income it takes to buy a San Francisco home

The median household income in San Francisco was about $10,500 in 1970, meaning it would take less than three years of annual income to afford the median price of a single-family home in the city.

That has changed drastically, of course. In 2022, according to data from the American Community Survey, the annual household income in San Francisco, about $137,000, was only about 10% of the value of a typical home.

Other major Bay Area cities have seen similar trends. The chart below shows how many years of annual earnings it would take the typical household in San Francisco and other Bay Area cities to afford a median-valued home in 1970 and 2022. For the nation overall, that value-to-income ratio was 4.3-1, up from 1.9-1 in 1970. Home values are based on owners’ estimates of how much their house would sell for if it was on the market.

In 1970, the typical San Jose or Oakland household could have purchased a home with just over two years’ earnings. In 2022, that would take more than nine years of income for San Jose households, or nearly 10 for Oakland.

Berkeley, which now has the most expensive housing market among the four cities, saw an even bigger jump in its value-to-income ratio. The typical home was valued at 2.7 times the median household income in 1970 — the same as San Francisco — but in 2022 was valued at more than 15 times the median household income. That gap is likely due partially to the incomes of students attending UC Berkeley, whom the census considers residents of the city.

Though earnings in the Bay Area have risen in the past 50 years, they’ve been outpaced by the surge in home values. In San Francisco, median household income in 2022 was 12 times what it was in 1970, but home values were 47 times higher.