Rob AriasEmeryville made recent headlines for something we’ve been sounding the alarms on for over a decade. A whopping 70% of Emeryville residents now rent their homes. Another way to frame it is that Emeryville’s for-sale housing stock has plummeted below 30%.
A new study from real estate listing portal Point2Homes shows that suburban communities are increasingly becoming renter majority. Their data shows Emeryville leading all suburban cities in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metropolitan area by a significant amount (the data excludes The South Bay which is tallied as a separate metropolitan area).
Emeryville’s percentage of owner-occupied units has been trending downward for over two decades. This percentage “peaked” in 2000 at 37.1%, dropped to 35.4% in 2010 and currently hovers at 29.7%.
Most of the recent decline can be attributed to the completion of the 500-unit Emery and 186-unit Bayview apartments which account for most of the housing built in the city over the past decade. Emeryville has not built any significant ownership homes since Adeline Place in 2009. The Bridgewater complex completed their condominium conversion in 2015.
This percentage is expected to continue to decline with most Emeryville’s current housing pipeline slated for rentals.
Interestingly, the next four communities in the ranking – Cherryland (66%), Ashland (64%), San Pablo (57%) and East Palo Alto (52%), are largely considered lower-income communities (both Cherryland and Ashland are unincorporated areas between Hayward and San Leandro). Emeryville’s median household income in 2023 was $120,302 placing it above average for the region.
Emeryville is not a prototypical “suburb” as described but more of an “edge city.” Emeryville’s urban density and mixed-use character distinguishes it from more traditional suburban communities.
Renting Becoming Preferred Choice?
Based on the data, The Chronicle and The NY Times covered the phenomenon as “renters taking over the suburbs” but in many cases, those looking for housing are being presented with fewer options.
Condominiums have traditionally been popular for first-time buyers and an important rung on the ladder toward building equity and avoiding unpredictable rent increases. Still, many prefer to rent and it fits their lifestyle just fine and it comes with its own advantages.
Younger renters are said to be drawn toward amenities and The Emery Apartments are hard to top with a rooftop pool, bowling alley and a co-working space among among others.
While there are many outliers, renters tend to be more transient making continuity in the community more challenging. Statistically, renters tend to be less civically engaged than homeowners (though renters are equally socially engaged). Other studies have questioned this.
Emeryville might be concerned that a such a high percentage of their housing stock is owned by corporate landlords and institutional investors. Corporate Landlords tend to evict more tenants and more aggressively raise rents.
A full 1/5 of housing in California are now owned by investors.
Is it too late for Emeryville to Course Correct?
Emeryville residents have persistently advocated for increased opportunities for home ownership including in the most recent Housing Element and other surveys. Despite this, the city and it leaders over the past decade have been unable to deliver this and have instead been fixated on building standalone affordable rental units for those earning below the AMI.
Whatever incentives the city is providing through its development bonus system are clearly not compelling enough for developers to instead build condos.
The city did recently make a stipulation of the extension of the Public Market development agreement that they include a feasibility study for the residential units to be condominiums instead of apartments. This study might provide the bitter pill the city needs to swallow to get to the root of why developers are so reluctant to build condominiums in the city.
Will CEQA and the “Right to Repair Act’’ Reform Spur More Condos?
While Emeryville’s local incentives and other market conditions are partially to blame, there are other, larger statewide issues at play notably CEQA and the 2002 “Right to Repair Act” (SB 800).
One of CEQAs flaws is that is can be exploited by neighbors trying to prevent growth and labor unions attempting to extract concessions. Impacts of the recent CEQA reform should further streamline projects in Emeryville but whether this cost savings for developers translates to more ownership housing remains to be seen.
The “Right to Repair Act” which gives homeowners a 10 year window to file suit against builders but may as a consequence shifted building to apartments.
“The scope of California’s construction defect liability laws pose a significant disincentive for developers and contractors to build new condominiums.” a 2024 report by the Terner Center details. “They apply for ten years once construction is complete, versus only four years for rental housing.”
The report concludes and recommends reforms to this bill that they think could spur ownership housing including graduated statute of limitations—shorter for minor defects, a new home warranty program and a “Right-to-Repair” process that mandates mediation before lawsuits.
A bill introduced last year by State Senator Steve Glazer to address some of these issues failed to clear committee signaling a long fight ahead on this reform.
For now, unfortunately, those that want to reap the benefits of home ownership will likely need to look toward other communities.
As a 36 year resident of Emeryville I can tell you that the reason there are so few home buyers in Emeryville is because our school system has been disconnected from our local government! There has been no political and governmental effort, in decades, to foster a joint communication and educative improvement plan between the Emeryville city council and the Emeryville school system. The City has relegated all responsibility and accountability to the State, and thus, Emeryville has no intimate feeling of connection, accountability, and responsibility to our schools and our resident students who are our future! No family is going to purchase homes in Emeryville knowing that the school system is lowly ranked and neglected. I know the schools from the inside. I was the PTA President in 2007 and 2008 and I sent my three children to Emeryville schools. I am a Interdisciplinary Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in Education and Architecture, a city planner and architect. I know the character of Emeryville education. We must bring the city government and the education system together or there will never be an influx of home buyers to Emeryville. We will always be last in home ownership…
Approving and building only apartment buildings for decades is bound to lead to a high percentage of rentals. No surprise there.
Hi Rob, I’d like you to present SF statistics in your article and also for LA and perhaps Santa Monica. Can you send them to me or please add? Also, please check if there is a set period after which these rental built buildings can be converted into condominiums thereby creating a second income stream for builders whose costs of building have increased dramatically and who want to wring as much profit out of these projects as possible. Are there any “conversion to condo” projects in the works?
Fran – I believe you should be able to google census data for these cities but I don’t believe this is relevant to Emeryville. I don’t believe their are any active condo conversions. The last was Bridgewater in 2015:
https://evilleeye.com/news-commentary/development/bridgewater-unit-sales-complete-zero-new-homeownership-opportunities-in-emeryville/