These numbers show some of the biggest tech companies are driving Bay Area's housing prices to crazy levels
A lot of things are driving the boom, but high salaries for tech industry workers is at least partly to blame - and online real estate service Zillow has some numbers to prove it.
The report says Silicon Valley home values in general have recovered much faster than other parts of the country after the recession. The nationwide median home value is still 8% below its pre-recession peak, while median home values in San Francisco and San Jose are both 7% and 21% above its pre-recession peak, it said.
The average price of homes in areas where big tech companies are located seem to have gone up even faster:
- The typical worker living in and around Apple's Cupertino campus lives in a home that's worth about $1.14 million, or $241,000 (27 percent) more than the median home in the already-pricey San Jose metro area and $380,000 (50 percent) above the median home value in the San Francisco metro area.
The iPhone boost
Also worth noting is the fact that the home values of Apple workers soared much faster after the first iPhone's release in 2007. Before 2007, average Apple workers lived in homes that were 13% more expensive than those in San Jose, but now that gap has widened to 20%, Zillow's report says.