Bay Area Apartment Construction Up In 2019, But Lags Other Major Areas
SAN JOSE (CBS SF) – The number of apartments to be built in the Bay Area is expected to rise in 2019, with more than 11,000 units being built.
According to a survey of 134 metropolitan areas by Rent Café, the San Jose area is expected to add 6,044 apartments this year, a rise of 283 percent compared to last year. The bulk of new apartments in Silicon Valley (2,290 units) are being built in San Jose, but 1,685 units are being built in neighboring Milpitas, 814 apartments are being built in Mountain View and 718 units in Sunnyvale.
Apartment construction is also up in San Francisco-Oakland area, which was measured separately. The area, which encompasses San Francisco, along with Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin and San Mateo Counties, is expected to add 5,334 apartments, up 22 percent. The bulk of the construction, Rent Café noted, is in Oakland, where 1,850 units are being built. Across the bay in San Francisco, 1,204 new apartments are expected.
San Mateo County is expected to add around 1,000 apartments after two years of decline, Rent Cafe said in an email to CBS San Francisco.
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The increase in apartment building comes despite a slowdown in the number of building permits in California and a slowdown in building nationally.
While the San Francisco-Oakland and San Jose areas are expected to add a combined 11,378 new apartments in the midst of the state's major housing shortage, construction still lags when compared to other major cities.
The Dallas-Fort Worth area is expected to lead the nation in apartment building this year, with 22,196 apartments expected to be complete in 2019, nearly double the amount of units compared to the Bay Area. Meanwhile, the Seattle metropolitan area is expected to add 13,000 units, with about half in Seattle proper. New York and Miami are also expected to the beat the Bay Area in apartment building in 2019.
Nationally, Rent Café said 2.34 million apartment units have been built this decade, the highest number since the 1980s.
