View the San Francisco for Sunday, March 9, 2025
In the South Bay, a frenetic homebuying extravaganza propelled by surging tech-sector stocks is helping to drive up home values. But, at least so far, the tech-fueled housing boom seems to be having only a limited effect on San Francisco’s market.
“We’re actually seeing that the city of San Francisco is slowing down a little bit,” said Hannah Jones, a research analyst with In February, the county’s typical home found a buyer just 20 days after going on the market, according to data fromtech-heavy NASDAQ stock exchange, driven by artificial-intelligence breakthroughs that sent stock prices soaring for companies such as Santa Clara-based Nvidia. The infusion of tech dollars has helped to make the South Bay among the most competitive markets in the country for buyers. In a recent report from Bloomberg, multiple San Jose-area real-estate agents said that they were“When we write an offer, we don’t look at the asking price,” one realtor told the news agency. “It’s meaningless.”Although the AI tech boom has been a bright spot in San Francisco’s own economy, so far, it has not been enough to overcome a number of economic weaknesses that have made The City more vulnerable than many other large metropolitan areas to the shocks unleashed by the COVID-19 pandemic, housing-market experts said. Home values in Santa Clara and San Francisco counties both took hits following the outbreak of COVID-19 five years ago as many workers cleared out of their offices and moved elsewhere in the country. Although South Bay home prices began to recover in 2023, ultimately regaining their pre-pandemic values a year later, The City’s have flatlined. For the past two years, the typical home in San Francisco has sold for about $1.2 million, according to an analysis of market data by real-estate website Zillow. That’s about 12% lower than homes were selling for prior to the pandemic. It’s a significant reversal for the Bay Area’s housing market, in which San Francisco homes once easily outstripped the value of those in Santa Clara County.The divergence between the two cities is just one example of a broader real-estate trend that has seen people move out of urban downtowns in large numbers, and buy homes in more suburban neighborhoods. It’s a shift that favors the sprawling geography of San Jose and the rest of Santa Clara County over the tightly packed houses of San Francisco. “In San Jose and Santa Clara County, that just added to the overall tightness of the market, which has continued now for quite some time,” said Jeff Bellisario, executive director of the Bay Area Council Economic Institute.For the past two years, the typical home in San Francisco has sold for about 12% less than it did before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis by real-estate website Zillow.seems to have progressed more quickly in the San Jose metropolitan area. A recent report from the security firm Kastle said that San Jose-area offices tracked by the company filled up to about 64% capacity on Tuesdays — the busiest days of the week — whereas San Francisco offices reached only a little over 52%. And where workers go, so too goes homebuying. So, that difference “may be enough to tip the scales,” said Skylar Olsen, a chief economist at Zillow. Nevertheless, there are some signs that tech dollars are driving at least some sales in San Francisco, especially on the higher end of the market. “Homes that could not sell last year are now selling this year,” said Alexander Fromm Lurie, a realtor who specializes in selling high-end homes. “There are so many properties like that.” As an example, Lurie pointed to one home in the Marina that was listed earlier this year at just under $6 million. It took only 10 days to close the deal, he said, with the property receiving seven bids and ultimately selling for nearly $1 million over the asking price. Lurie — a brother of San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie — said he believes buyers are attempting to get into the market now before a “Why not buy before others?” he said. “Because when everybody else wants to buy, it’s going to drive prices up that much more.” Other factors, according to Bellisario, also make for promising signs that San Francisco’s housing market might soon rebound. He points to the return of more workers to the office, the apparentAnd given the region’s extremely tight supply of housing, Bellisario said, even a relatively small burst of demand could translate into a major shift in the trajectory of the housing market. “You can almost always project some strength within these markets,” he said. “There’s no real housing market cushion here.”A couple dozen nurses demonstrated at Kaiser San Francisco last month in opposition to President Donald Trump’s policies targeting the transgender and immigrant communities. San Francisco nurses are worried about the safety and well-being of their patients as Donald Trump’s presidential administration continues to roll out policies that target both the transgender community and immigrants. That’s why the California Nurses Association held demonstrations last month in front of Kaiser Permanente’s medical center on Geary Street as well as its South San Francisco location, alongside parents of transgender patients seeking gender-affirming care and immigrant patients who rely on the nurses’ care and support. “One of the things that we do as nurses is, immediately when we intake a patient, is try and let them know that we’re there for them,” said Roxana Rodriguez, a labor and delivery nurse with Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco, in an interview this week.that prevented immigration enforcement officials from exercising their authority within hospitals, schools and other similar places, she’s felt as if some patients might not feel this is still the case. “We were saying that every person, regardless of income, circumstance or background, deserves compassionate care — and, more importantly, a safe place to heal,” she said of the demonstrations that took place Feb. 13. “We wanted to let our patients, our community as a whole, know that as nurses, we would stand as advocates for dignity, equality and access to medical care for all.” Sydney Simpson, a registered-nurse quality liaison at Kaiser and one of the organizers of last month’s demonstration, said this is just the beginning of what they hope will be a growing shift in how nurses can further advocate for their patients during this time. While Simpson, who uses they/them pronouns, doesn’t work directly with patients, they do work on projects that are patient-facing, and said they often hear about specific concerns patients are dealing with.Kaiser South San Francisco nurses demonstrate in Februrary to support patients who fear Trump-administration policies targeting both transgender and immigrant communities., and San Francisco is a sanctuary city, that makes our hospital a sanctuary hospital,” Simpson said. “So we just wanted to make sure that the patients know they’re safe with us, regardless of the executive orders.” To get ahead of misconceptions about changes in immigration enforcement, the California Nurses Association printed out flyers in February to distribute to patients,in case immigration-enforcement officials were to approach them in the hospital, plus a similar version “empowering nurses to protect patients and not be bullied by immigration officers,” according to Simpson. Despite how much they’ve tried to spread the word, Simpson said so far they’ve been frustrated by what they called a lack of leadership from Kaiser on these issues, saying that communication has been vague as far as what actions might be taken if patients are put at risk. In late January, the union sent a letter to Kaiser leadership with a list of demands for the hospital system, including a clear non-discrimination policy and staff training on advocacy for undocumented patients. Leadership did not respond until Feb. 21, Simpson said. While The Examiner was not able to review the response, Simpson said it emphasized that immigration officials are not allowed to enter any facilities without warrants. Simpson said other communication has been kind of “milquetoast,” but the letter was a “step in the right direction.”“I know people in The City who moved to San Francisco from Texas, and I just can’t imagine being a parent and now thinking, you’re not safe here either,” Simpson said. It’s an issue that hits close to home for Simpson, who is transgender and helped found the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club’s Trans Caucus. “Even before the executive orders came out, I was working on projects around quality of care for transgender patients in San Francisco and South San Francisco,” they said. “People are terrified.” One such person is the mother of a 19-year-old transgender patient who asked to remain anonymous for privacy concerns. She was present at last month’s demonstration because she’s worried about how the events of the last couple of months are affecting her son. “He’s definitely asked what happens” if he can’t get care, she said. “I can’t give him those answers. That’s what’s really terrifying.” Her son started his gender-affirming care journey at Kaiser around two years ago. The extensive process included counseling and a screening process for hormone therapy before he was approved, and he continues with regular counseling and medical checkups. Throughout the whole process, she said, Kaiser was incredibly helpful and supportive. But because her son is on Medi-Cal, she’s worried that if federal funding gets cut for such of care, there might be a gap in coverage unless the state decides to step in and fill it. “If that happens, then, you know, my son and other families that are getting gender-affirming care through Medi-Cal may lose out,” she said. “For all of the talk about the state boosting funding for fighting Trump, that’s only been for legal cases.” While she appreciates that the legal battles are an important first step, they haven’t assuaged her anxiety about the future of her son’s care.Such fears are part of what is pushing Simpson and their colleagues to sound the alarm not just in The City, but in chapters across the region. At a monthly meeting last week, Simpson presented their thoughts to other quality liaisons throughout the state on how to better take care of transgender patients since Trump took office. “The science regarding the efficacy of gender-affirming care is very clear,” they said. “Unfortunately, what is also clear is the current administration’s lack of respect for science. When it comes to nursing, that is hitting us very hard. We — as in the nurses union — we’re going to do absolutely everything in our power to resist and protect all of our patients.”Click and hold your mouse button on the page to select the area you wish to save or print. You can click and drag the clipping box to move it or click and drag in the bottom right corner to resize it. When you're happy with your selection, click the checkmark icon next to the clipping area to continue.This is the name that will be displayed next to your photo for comments, blog posts, and more. 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