In these California cities, houses probably earn more per hour than you do

Houses in San Francisco earn more per hour than most of their owners – or anyone else, for that matter, – do at work, a new report finds.A study released by real estate site Zillow finds that houses in the Bay Area city typically appreciate at a rate of $60.13 for each working hour, calculated based on a 40-hour work week. Minimum wage workers in San Francisco currently take home $15 an hour and the average hourly wage in the San Francisco-San Mateo metro area was $36.61 in 2016, reported the U.S. Department of Labor.

In San Jose, the typical homeowner is gaining $99.81 of equity in their home every working-hour, but minimum wage in the city is just $13.50. That means the typical home in San Jose is “earning” over seven times local minimum wage. Even still, the average hourly wage in the San Jose metro is $43.71, which is over two times less than local home value appreciation per working-hour.

San Francisco and San Jose are poised to be among the most expensive markets in the nation throughout 2018, reported Zillow, with median home values of $1.1 million in San Jose and $893,000 in San Francisco. A renter or prospective buyer would need to earn at least $170,000 a year to live comfortably in either market, according to HSH.com.“The way the economy in the Bay Area is right now, it’s like the demand is on steroids,” Michael Rawson, director of the Public Interest Law Project based in the Bay Area, told Newsweek. “It drives the land prices through the roof.”