Hello my dear morning cohorts, and welcome back to Bullish, TechCrunch’s first talk show and running experiment concerning how long you are willing to look at my face.
This week we looked into a topic that is for people in the thick of it, painful, and for those not, likely a bit confusing: Rental markets in technology-heavy cities. Of course, as TechCrunch is based in San Francisco, this issue is one that matters quite a bit to me personally.
But, I don’t have all the data at my command, so Anthemos Georgiades, the CEO of Zumper came in to help. Zumper is a popular service that connects renters and landlords, helping both get what they need.
Zumper, as a short aside, has the added bonus of being both an alum, and a runner-up in our recurring Startup Battlefield that takes place at our roving Disrupt conferences.
The numbers are rough. According to one data set, the median price of an apartment in San Francisco rose 50 percent since 2011. Another year of gains, and it could, if my math is correct, nearly reach $4,000 per month.
Hold onto your had indeed.
While dark humor is common among residents who live in San Francisco, the issue of rising rents, housing shortages, and rapid gentrification impact more than just this locale — in other tech hubs, similar tensions are rising.
TechCrunch has worked on this matter for some time, including a number of reports from our own Kim Mai Cutler. There seems to be little in the way of good news. Economic forces that drive people into different regions often operate at a slightly faster clip than builders can secure permits and put up new units.
However, not all is lost. At the end of today’s episode, there is at least one ray of hope.
Bullish airs every Wednesday at 7 am Pacific, 10 am Eastern.