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Ownership challenges in Hayward
Home ownership has been a cornerstone of the American dream for decades, but high mortgages, rising HOA fees, utilities, and low incomes are hobbling people’s ability to own a home and maintain long-term ownership in Bay Area cities like Hayward, known as the ‘Heart of the Bay.’
At a briefing on October 14, American Community Media hosted housing advocacy groups, local government representatives, and experts to discuss the challenges that small property owners face when trying to secure and hold on to their properties.
Priced out
Hayward resident California Sen. Aisha Wahab noted that the demand for housing outstrips supply: “In 2023, we developed a little over 100,000 units in California. The need is close to 2.5 million units,” she said. This gap puts Bay Area residents who want to buy homes at an acute disadvantage, especially as the cost of living is significantly higher in the region.
Property owners face different levels of struggle. Corporate landlords and larger leasing companies command enough bargaining power in the market to price out smaller “mom-and-pop” businesses that own fewer than four properties. Buried by rising home ownership costs, they struggle to match lower rents set by corporate landlords and are forced to give up their properties.
Derek Barnes, CEO of the East Bay Rental Housing Association (EBRHA), a nonprofit organization that advocates for rental property owners and managers in the East Bay, echoed Wahab’s viewpoint. “The sentiment from about 34% of our smaller owner-operators — who own four or fewer units — was that they are looking to leave the business over the next 24 months,” said Barnes.
In addition, a company that owns and operates hundreds of properties can register each unit as a separate legal entity, making it difficult to pinpoint how many properties an individual or entity owns. No official classification exists to distinguish smaller property owners from larger property owners, said Sen. Wahab, making it more difficult for lawmakers to formulate policies that could protect smaller property owners from the predatory practices of corporate landlords.
“Every single effort [to legislate for this issue] at the state level has been killed by the special interest groups,” she said. “I want to be very clear about transparency and accountability: there is none!”
Hidden costs of home ownership
Mizgon Zahir, a second-generation Afghan-American whose parents came to the United States as refugees, grew up in Hayward. At one point, she was living in a rented home as a single mother of two girls, where she faced discrimination from older neighbors and wealthier homeowners. When she met her current partner, the two families merged their resources and bought a home together, but her anxiety continues.
“We’re constantly under pressure if, for example, my health fails, or he loses his job, or something happens to my job, what will happen to the family dynamic, and will we have to go back to renting?” said Zahir. “It won’t just be myself and my partner who will be displaced, but it will be the children (who) also rely on us because they can’t afford to rent either.”
Like Zahir, many homeowners in Hayward are in danger of losing the homes they have worked hard to own. Part of the problem is that prospective homeowners are unaware of the costs of home ownership, said Gina Di Giusto, Senior Attorney at Housing and Economic Rights Advocates (HERA), a nonprofit that provides legal support to vulnerable homeowners struggling to preserve their homes. Apart from down payments and mortgage payments, Di Giusto explained that homeowners must contend with unpredictable increases in Home Owner Association (HOA) dues and sudden increases in property taxes resulting from home improvements or local measures that pass.
“Utilities are expensive, homeowners’ Insurance is increasingly unaffordable… and then you have all sorts of unpredictable things that happen day-to-day,” she warned.
Ripple effects on future generations
Di Giusto believes that the current struggles of home ownership and rising costs of living will limit the ability of younger generations to own homes in the Bay Area.
“I think that a lot of young people feel like their incomes will never be able to support being able to be a homeowner themselves,” she said. “A lot of young people are also still having to live at home, and they see all of the financial burdens and struggles that their parents and grandparents deal with in order to keep the family home, and that can have a dampening effect on their desire to become homeowners.”
Nancy Rivera, co-founder and Executive Director of A1 Community Housing Services (CHS), an organization that provides counseling services to prospective homebuyers and homeowners, added that the costs of home ownership are so high that it is becoming increasingly common for two or three families to pool their resources to qualify for a mortgage.
She noted that Hayward residents are moving to cities like Modesto and Stockton because Hayward is no longer seen as an affordable option.
Rivers recommended that prospective homebuyers attend housing counseling through organizations like A1 CHS or HERA so they can make informed decisions before investing their money in the housing market. A1 CHS, for example, offers an intensive eight-hour workshop on the process of purchasing a home and preserving ownership.
“You want to take the course today, because you want to understand if home ownership is right for you, not when you’re closing [on the deal],” she said. “It’s always a first step to really understand whether home ownership is right for someone, because home ownership is not for everyone.”
This article was written with support from the American Community Media Fellowship Program.
