Families Moving Out of San Francisco Due to Lack of Living Options

For more than a decade, Yat-Pang Au has led Veritas Investments as the founder and CEO. In this capacity, he oversees the company’s real estate acquisitions, investments, and development. Yat-Pang Au focuses on investing in real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area, and has grown his company’s assets to nearly $2 billion.

The San Francisco Planning Department recently released its Family Friendly Briefing report. This report includes information about the number of families living in the San Francisco area, along with reports on resident income levels.

According to this report, families occupy just 30 percent of all three-bedroom homes in the city of San Francisco. Meanwhile, just 18 percent of households in San Francisco have children. Compared to the 1980s, this number is 18.9 percent lower, suggesting that families have been moving out of the city. Adding further support to this hypothesis is the fact that middle-income families are decreasing within the city while high- and low-income families are increasing.

The small number of families now residing in the city is believed to be caused by the lack of family housing. The report notes that over 60 percent of new development in San Francisco has been one-bedroom units and studios. This trend has been continuing since 2010, and has likely resulted in San Francisco families moving to nearby neighborhoods such as Bayview, Crocker-Amazon, and Excelsior. Based on these results, the San Francisco Planning Department is stressing the need for more family-friendly neighborhoods in the city.