Bay Area housing: How prices have changed since the '90s
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- We all know home prices in the Bay Area are out of control, but obviously, it wasn't always this way. Let's go back to the '90s.
Those were the days, right? Not only was there great, campy television, but the internet was dial-up, Mark Zuckerberg was a child and in San Francisco it was a pretty amazing time to buy a house.
Look at the numbers: In the mid-'90s, the median price of a home in San Francisco was roughly $300,000.
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Yes, that was more than the current national median home price, but if you tried to get a home for that price now in the city, here's an example of something you might get.
From then on, housing prices only went up thanks to (drum roll): Tech.
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Around 2000, the first tech bubble, home prices in San Francisco did go up to a median price of more than $500,000. But fast-forward a little over 10 years and that's when things really took off.
In 2012, Facebook went public. The next year Twitter did. At the same time, housing prices skyrocketed.
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In the past seven years, the median home price in San Francisco has more than doubled from $600,000 to $1.4 million and the same has happened in cities across the Bay Area.
Bottom line: Enter the big IPOs and the Bay Area housing market has never been the same since.
From Wednesday, July 31 through Wednesday, Aug. 6, ABC7 will have an in-depth look at housing issues throughout the Bay Area. We're searching for real solutions that will impact our communities.
Take a look at ABC7's latest stories and videos about efforts to Build a Better Bay Area.
