The Bay Area is so expensive that 20% of millennials in San Francisco and San Jose are living at home with their parents
- More than one-fifth of millennials in the San Francisco and San Jose metro areas are living with their parents, reported the Marin Independent Journal.
- It's common for American millennials to leave the nest later in life than previous generations because of today's high cost of living, but San Francisco is particularly expensive.
- Rising costs in big cities like San Francisco and New York City are also driving residents away.
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American millennials aren't in the best financial shape, but those living in the Bay Area may especially be in trouble.
More than one-fifth of San Francisco and San Jose metro area residents ages 23 to 37 lived with their parents in 2017, reported Karen D'Souza for local publication Marin Independent Journal, citing a Zillow analysis of US Census data. That rate has risen by 65% in San Francisco and 56% in San Jose in the past 12 years, she wrote.
Millennials are known to leave the nest later in life than previous generations did - 35% still live with their parents, according to Country Financial Security Index. Living at home gives millennials the chance to catch up in a time when student loan debt, a fallout from the recession, and high housing costs have created an expensive climate that's difficult to save in.
It's even harder to save in San Francisco, a notoriously expensive city. The median monthly San Francisco rent exceeds $4,500 - more than 2.5 times the typical national rent. The typical price of a home listed in the area is $1.3 million and 81% of homes in San Francisco cost $1 million or more, according to a Trulia report.
Read more: 13 mind-blowing facts that show just how expensive San Francisco really is
To buy a typical San Francisco home with a 20% down payment, residents need to earn $303,000. It takes more than six years for the median US worker to earn that much.
San Francisco's housing market is so dire that, in a 2018 survey from the Bay Area Council advocacy group, nearly half of its residents said that they planned to move away soon.
But San Francisco isn't the only city where a high cost of living is driving residents away. New York is the top state rich millennials are moving away from, according to a new SmartAsset study - and it's likely in part because of New York City's high housing prices. Even wealthy bankers are fleeing the city in search of more affordable housing, John Aidan Byrne of the New York Post reported.