This Bay Area city is the fourth-most ‘impossibly unaffordable' place on Earth

San Francisco Chronicle​

23-07-2025

How much do you need to make to afford a house in the wealthiest part of Silicon Valley?
For the median-priced home in San Jose, you'd need an annual household income of $370,000 — one of many eyebrow-raising findings in this year's 'Silicon Valley Pain Index,' an aggregate report of economic data about Santa Clara and San Mateo counties published by researchers at San Jose State University's Human Rights Institute.
That $370,000 figure is up 54% from what it was just six years ago, the first year the 'Pain Index' was put together.
If you're looking to rent, it's also steep: The average San Jose renter needs to bring in $136,532 to keep their payments at 30% of their income, which is the amount most personal finance experts recommend you budget for housing.
The report says San Jose is the most expensive large city in America, and notes that researchers from Chapman University and the Frontier Centre for Public Policy in Canada named it the fourth-most 'impossibly unaffordable' city on Earth, surpassed only by Hong Kong, Sydney and Vancouver.
The wealth divide has grown twice as fast in Silicon Valley compared to the rest of the country, the report says. Just nine households in the region — .01% of residents — hold 15% of all wealth, according to a part of the report citing data from the annual Silicon Valley Index. (Those nine are Mark Zuckerberg, Laurene Powell Jobs, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Jensen Huang, Eric Schmidt, Jan Koum, George Roberts and Robert Pera.)
Housing costs contribute in large part to why the Bay Area is aging so fast, experts say. Beyond the sky-high cost of living here, researchers write that the region is '#1 in societal pain.' It defines that pain as 'representative of both personal and community distress or suffering, resulting in negative impacts on a person's quality of life.'
Some sources of that distress: pay inequality for women and people of color; high numbers of layoffs in the tech sector; increasing numbers of homeless people; and rising rates of sexually transmitted infections and infant mortality.
The report does point out some ways in which the region is improving. The San Jose Police Department reports fewer use-of-force incidents. Services for homeless and housing-insecure people have been expanded. And local officials have launched some pilot programs to address problems like homeless college students and nutritional gaps for CalFresh recipients.
'We know, now more than ever, that it will take cross-sector collaboration to make gradual changes in alleviating the pain in our region,' the report reads.
It's 81% more expensive to live in San Jose compared to the national average.
Average monthly household expenses in San Jose are $3,504.
40% of renters and homeowners in Silicon Valley are considered cost-burdened by their housing, meaning they spend more than 30% of their income on their rent or mortgage payment.
201,000 households in the region have less than $5,000 in assets.
1.8 million people in Santa Clara County face health risks due to poor air quality.
The median home price in Silicon Valley reached $1.92 million in 2024.
The cost to rent a two-bedroom apartment in Santa Clara County has increased 90% over the past 10 years.
San Jose would need to build 7,775 homes every year between now and 2031 to meet the state's housing goals. The most homes that have ever been built in San Jose in a single year is 1,710.