San Jose comes in seventh on Smart Asset economist Derek Miller’s list of cities millennials are retreating to. Like in Sacramento, you were more likely to see a millennial moving to San Jose from within the state than from outside of it. Of the 20,000 millennials who moved to San Jose, nearly 13,000 came from within California.
Naturally, the most likely explanation for San Jose’s youth boom is Silicon Valley jobs. Market Watch reported in 2017 that “millennials working in tech are being hired almost 50 percent more than their workforce.” The fact that Seattle, another west coast city with a pronounced tech scene, came in first on the list buttresses this impression. Note that Oakland came in 18th place on Miller’s list, while San Francisco failed to break the top 25.
It’s also good to note that, cheaper rents on average than San Francisco, San Jose suffers the third-highest commercial rents in the country on sites like Zumper and ApartmentList (which don’t necessarily reflect the city’s full rental stock but do reveal what many new transplants will encounter while apartment shopping). In 2016, median rents were lower—by nearly $250 on Zumper, for example—but were still the third highest nationwide, behind only SF and New York City.
Does this mean you should run for valley?
In theory? No. From what we’ve interviewed and discussed, millennial tech workers commute long hours from San Francisco into the valley. And in the mean time, rent isn’t lowering any time soon. Finding pockets of luck and landlords who are, actually, saints is a diamond among coal. Whether we favor SJ or favor SF, work in the Bay Area isn’t slowing down any time soon.
// Feature photo via Wikimedia Commons.
