SM labeled as overpriced

In an unrelated survey, the number of people who say the cost of rent would force them to move from the region has nearly doubled in the last three years.

It is believed that a worker must earn more than $28 per hour to rent the standard apartment and maintain a decent quality of life.

Hardest hit by the increasing price of rent are people who hold down traditional civil service jobs. The recruitment efforts of police departments, school districts and hospitals have been severely hampered by the rising cost of property.

Recently, San Mateo Police Department Capt. Ed Trucco stated that recruitment efforts have been exacerbated by the rising cost of rent. Many officers work locally but live as far away as Tracy and Dublin, according to Trucco. This commuter lifestyle has of course contributed to the gridlock the Peninsula is known for. It has also caused San Mateo Police Department's brass to include living quarters for some of their personnel after working double-shifts into the general design plans for a new police station.

City workers have also been hard hit by property cost. Last week San Carlos Mayor David Buckmaster reported he was leaving his position and moving his family due to the housing crunch and his inability to buy a home in the area.

Buckmaster, whose wife is a teacher, said he could simply no longer afford to live in the area. "It is sad to have to leave a place that I've called home my whole life," Buckmaster said.

Also hard hit by the rising cost of rent are minorities - specifically Latinos and African-Americans. Nationally, minorities collectively comprise of one quarter of all homeowners. Most minority households are renters - 55 percent of renters are African-Americans, 57 percent are Latinos. In contrast, only 28 percent of white households rent.

Homeowners are by and large more affluent than renters. In 1997 there were 99.5 million households in the United States. Sixty-six percent of that number were homeowners. The median income for homeowners is $43,840 where the median income of renters is $22,834.

The other side of the housing crunch is the fact that more than 80 percent of people who already own say their property has appreciated greatly.

In San Mateo, slightly more than half of all households are homeowners.

Another factor that must be evaluated in the housing crisis are the elderly, according to Patrick Sullivan of Liberty Realty.

"In San Mateo County, we have this strange dichotomy where many seniors are worth a lot on paper, but are still cash poor. A large number of our elderly are dying alone in a huge home," Sullivan said. Thirty percent of San Mateo County is made up of seniors. Yet many of the seniors who own homes in the area are also living on fixed incomes.

Many residents in the Bay and Peninsula Areas are pointing the finger at dot.coms for the rising cost of rent. Retail business owners are finding it almost as difficult to compete with dot.com's over commercial space as individuals are with high-tech millionaires in the residential market.

Downtown San Mateo has lost several of its pedestrian-friendly establishments due to the rising cost of rent and has recently enacted moratoriums in parts of downtown to taper off some office-space development due to an outcry from residents.

The San Francisco Chronicle conducted an unofficial survey and found that over time middle class, skilled workers like plumbers and electricians will leave the area in increasing numbers. The Chronicle reported that 18 percent of people said they would have to leave the region because of housing costs. That figure climbed to 31 percent this year.