Real estate: A two-tier housing market

It’s a have or have-not housing market out there, said Samantha Delouya in CNN.com. Look no further than San Francisco. Just a few years ago, the City by the Bay was a symbol of “urban decline.” Now it has the hottest housing market in the country. “Fueled by the artificial intelligence boom” that has left tech workers “flush with cash,” home prices are routinely getting bid up more than $1 million above their listing price. The median home in San Francisco now sells for $1.7 million. And the frenzy has “spilled over into the rental market as well.” Rents for one-bedrooms are up nearly 23% this year to $4,180 a month, and two-bedrooms are up nearly 26% to $6,020. And the upcoming initial public offerings from AI startups Anthropic and OpenAI are expected to only increase “the potential buying power.”

The housing market should settle the lingering debate about “whether the K-shaped economy is over,” said Anna-Louise Jackson in Fast Company. It’s “alive and well.” Entry-level homebuyers “have been priced out” and seem to have “stopped searching.” Traffic on listings of homes priced below $370,000 has fallen sharply since 2021, according to Realtor.com. But “the other end of the housing spectrum tells a very different story.” Those shopping for big, expensive houses “remain very much engaged.” Wealthy buyers are “propping up national sales figures,” said Halina Bennet in Slow Boring. Current housing data “looks decent,” but that’s because upper-end strength is masking some serious lower-end weakness. For anyone who has not “become a newly minted tech millionaire,” economic analysts say, this could be “the worst year for the housing market since 2011.”

The newly passed federal housing law could offer a potential solution, said Lily Belle Poling in The Wall Street Journal. The law makes it “easier and cheaper” to manufacture modular and prefabricated homes for assembly “on site.” Such homes “have long been stuck at the fringe of the housing market,” constituting only 3% of new construction in the U.S. But that number could soon soar. Cuts to red tape in the new law should reduce costs by $5,000 to $10,000 a home. For some homebuyers, those savings “could equal more than 10% of the original cost.” Modular homes are also moving out of the trailer parks and increasingly into the suburbs, said Julie Z. Weil in The Washington Post. Several developers are pitching them “as the way of the future,” betting that more homebuyers will be “willing to give manufactured homes” another look. Newer homes “are of a much higher quality than those of past decades,” and some of the nicest ones list for more than $600,000. But on average, a factory-built home can still be had for only $90,700.

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