Uncommon Knowledge
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City authorities permitted the construction of only 16 housing units in San Francisco, one of the most expensive markets in the country, in 2024 as of June—a far cry from what demand would require and what Mayor London Breed has promised.
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Preliminary 2024 data from the States of the Cities Data Systems (SOCDS) Building Permits Database shows that the total housing unit building permits for San Francisco between January and now was 16, split between seven single-family homes, six 2-unit and multi-family homes and three 3- and 4-unit multi-family homes. Among all types of units, six permits were given in January, one in February, seven in March and two in April.
Joseph Politano, an independent writer at Apricitas Economics who first shared the data on X, commented on the data saying that “it’d be hilarious if it weren’t such a nightmare.” Newsweek contacted Politano for comment by direct message on X on Tuesday morning.
San Francisco permitted two (2) housing units in April. The city’s sum total of new housing was one (1) duplex.
It’d be hilarious if it weren’t such a nightmare pic.twitter.com/KD6RLOjfmU
— Joey Politano 🏳️🌈 (@JosephPolitano) May 30, 2024
The data will be subject to revision throughout the rest of the year and might change, but as they are now, they present quite a bleak picture for San Francisco.
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Home prices have been spiraling upward in San Francisco since the Great Recession of 2008-2009 followed the bursting of the U.S. housing bubble, making buying a home in the City by the Bay unaffordable for many. While home prices in the city dropped during the U.S. housing market correction of late summer 2022 and spring 2023, a chronic shortage of homes has kept them from totally plummeting.
As of April, according to the latest Redfin data, the median sale price of a home in San Francisco was $1,400,000, up 3.7 percent compared to a year earlier. It was considerably higher than the national median sale price, which in April was $432,903, up 6.1 percent year-over-year, according to Redfin.
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Last June, Breed introduced legislation boosting the building of new homes in the city by cutting fees and removing laborious requirements for conditional use permits and mandatory public hearings, among other moves. The legislation was designed to help the city meet the state-mandated goal of building 82,000 homes by 2031 to meet the serious need for housing in the city.
But in 2023, the city issued permits for the building of only 1,823 new units, according to the data from San Francisco Planning Department mentioned by the San Francisco Standard. That was about 1,000 short of the units authorized the year before, for a total of 2,701 in 2022.
The number of total new units completed in 2023 was slightly higher, at 1,983, down from 2,893 a year earlier.
In an update in April, Breed didn’t provide concrete details about how many housing units have been authorized in the city, but said that she was “proud to say that over the last year, we’ve started to move San Francisco in the right direction on housing.”
The mayor admitted that “we are not where we need to be, and there is much more work to be done,” adding that her administration continues “to encounter obstruction and delay as we push these solutions forward, but we have made progress. We will continue to make progress.”
Newsweek contacted Breed’s office and the San Francisco Planning Department for comment by email on Tuesday morning.
But the slow pace at which the city has approved new housing units permits this year doesn’t mean that it won’t pick up later in the year. In an article published in April, the SF Standard highlighted how in 2023, the city had approved only 12 units in the first two months of the year—but the number spiked later in the year.
Time will tell whether something similar will happen again this year.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Saturday morning in the Bay Area was muggy and mild, if not warm. Temperatures only cooled down to the upper 50s to low 60s across much of the Bay Area – five to 15 degrees above average for late winter.
For San Francisco and Oakland, it was a record warm start to the last day of the month. With temperatures only dipping down to 62 in San Francisco, it was the warmest morning in recorded history during the month of February, and those records go back to 1875. The old record was 61° in 1985.
Oakland’s old record was also in 1985, when the low was 60°. Now Oakland’s new record for warmest February morning was set on Saturday, with a low of 61. It was also extremely muggy, with dew points in the upper 50s and humidity over 90%.
Why? It mostly has to do with the extremely warm blob of water sitting off the Bay Area’s coast. It’s technically called a “Marine Heatwave” and the one we are currently dealing with began in May 2025.
Normally this time of year, ocean temperatures are near 53 degrees – but it was about 57 near the Golden Gate Bridge as of Saturday morning.
Warmer ocean water warms up the air above it, and then winds carry the warmer air over land and warms us up. The warmer water also increases evaporation, raising moisture content in the air (aka humidity).
So now you know, you can blame the warm blob of ocean water for the reason it was so muggy.
Watch CBS News
Friday, February 27, 2026 9:48PM
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — The San Francisco Giants scratched slugger Rafael Devers from the starting lineup because of a tight hamstring, keeping him out of a spring training game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday.
The three-time All-Star and 2018 World Series champion is starting his first full season with the Giants after they acquired him in a trade with the Boston Red Sox last year.
Devers hit 35 home runs and had 109 RBIs last season, playing 90 games with San Francisco and 73 in Boston. He signed a $313.5 million, 10-year contract in 2023 with the Red Sox.
He was 20 when he made his major league debut in Boston nine years ago, and he helped them win the World Series the following year.
Devers, who has 235 career homers and 747 RBIs, led Boston in RBIs for five straight seasons and has finished in the top 20 in voting for AL MVP five times.
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