Hayward announces lottery system for home buyers

Hayward, like other Bay Area Cities, is struggling to keep up with the ever growing demand for homes.

Currently, there are upwards of 54,000 vacant houses and rental homes across the Bay.

But they have a new plan to address the affordability and availability crisis gripping the state.

According to NBC Bay Area, Hayward is going to try something a little different.

They’ve teamed up with House Keys, an organization that works to help people find affordable homes.

Whether it’s through building houses for low to moderate income households, or setting up programs to help those same people find places that are already available.

Currently, there are 60 new two to three bedroom homes in the city.

All “below market value.”

Just how far below?

Try $170,000 to $300,000.

For reference, Zillow estimates the average Hayward home costs $966,273.

While Redfin estimates it’s around $820,000.

Still, that’s a pretty hefty discount of around 83%.

And all you need to qualify is to make less than $185,000 per year.

It sounds almost too good to be true.

And if you look at the numbers, it kind of is.

With the population of Hayward somewhere around 158,817 (as of 2020), and an average household income somewhere around $106,005, you’re going to be competing with several thousand people who apply.

All for 60 below market rate homes.

Seems like a long shot — but for the 60 or so low to moderate income families who make it through, it’ll be a gamechanger.

How to address the Hayward Housing crisis

The city council knows this is only a minor drop in the bucket to the affordable housing crisis.

Basically, the solution is the same as every other California city dealing with the housing crisis:

They just need to build a lot more housing.

NBC Bay Area quotes Hayward’s Assistant City Manager, Jennifer Ott:

“It’s hard to develop housing, so anything we can try to remove a lot of those barriers, anything the state can do to remove those barriers, anything we can do to bring construction costs down will make it easier for developers to build housing.”

And in the past several years, NBC Bay Area notes that fewer than 600,000 houses were built in California.

A far cry below the estimated 2.5 million that need to be built to address the current crisis by 2030.