<\/p>\n
The nation\u2019s largest companies, including <\/span>Google<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>Microsoft<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>Facebook<\/span><\/a>, \u00a0have pledged billions of dollars to create affordable housing near their campuses, acknowledging their part in the housing affordability crisis facing the Silicon Valley, Seattle and San Francisco areas. But, this may be a savvy business strategy, and not just a pure charity effort. <\/span>
\nIn order to recruit talent, tech companies have to pay high salaries so that employees can afford housing and an overall high cost of living with money left over for savings. Investing in housing near headquarters could bring down the cost of recruiting and paying talent over time. It could also help with employee retention if people are less likely to eventually need to either leave the area in search of affordability or quit in favor of a higher-paying job. But it\u2019s possible demand for housing could outpace these increases in housing supply, to the point that these new units remain unaffordable to most of the people who would want to live in them.<\/span>
\nLet\u2019s look at Google, which most recently announced their <\/span>housing plan<\/span><\/a>, as an example. According to <\/span>Glassdoor<\/span><\/a>, the typical Google software engineer in <\/span>San Jose<\/span><\/a> earns $135,174 in base pay. On that salary, one could afford only 16.5 percent of homes for sale in the San Jose metro where the <\/span>median priced home<\/span><\/a> costs $1.15 million. Most of the affordable homes in the San Jose metro are located near <\/span>Hollister, CA<\/span><\/a> where the median home price is $550,000, which is an hour commute from Google\u2019s campus in <\/span>Mountain View<\/span><\/a> without traffic. <\/span><\/p>\n