The modern NBA player is a far superior athlete to his predecessors, so the well-worn trope goes. Retired sharpshooter JJ Redick put a new veneer on the argument recently, when he said Celtics legend Bob Cousy “was being guarded by plumbers and firemen” in the 1950s and 1960s.

Watch a grainy highlight reel of Cousy dribbling in circles, and it’s hard not to give the trope some credence. At least one of Cousy’s Celtics teammates was decidedly springier than the average plumber, though, and the hard proof is in the record books of a completely different sport.

Bill Russell, who died Sunday at the age of 88, still holds the University of San Francisco school record in the high jump. It’s stood for 66 years. Russell was fond of telling younger generations he could hang in any era, once telling a group of Hall of Fame centers that he would kick their asses.

In 2020, Kendrick Perkins said that LeBron James was the “Most Athletic Player in NBA History!!!” Russell, possibly the most dignified man ever to yell at Kendrick Perkins on Twitter, responded with a photo of himself clearing an impossibly high bar, and helpfully provided a brief history of his high jumping exploits. “In 56 I could have made the Olympics in high jump but turned it down to play basketball instead we could only play one sport then,” Russell wrote.

“Track and Field News ranked me #7 high jumper in the world, I was ranked #2 in the US @ the time,” he added. (Pretty much: Seventh in the world and third in the US, according to that year’s Track and Field News.) Russell also only rejoined the USF track team in the spring of his senior year, and only because he could skip workouts, since “ he was too tired from the grind of basketball season,” as recounted in James W. Johnson’s history of that era of USF basketball, “The Dandy Dons.”

In 56 I could have made the Olympics in high jump but turned it down to play basketball instead we could only play one sport then. Track and Field News ranked me #7 high jumper in the world, I was ranked #2 in the US @ the time. @celtics @NBA pic.twitter.com/6FqZjiMlhG

— TheBillRussell (@RealBillRussell) June 17, 2020

At the West Coast Relays in Fresno in May 1956, Russell high-jumped 6 feet, 9.25 inches (2.06 meters) for the still-standing USF school record. He tied that day with Charlie Dumas. Later in ’56, Dumas became the first human being to high-jump 7 feet, and won Olympic gold in Melbourne.

Russell’s school record will not be broken anytime soon, believes USF assistant track and field coach Matthew McGee, who oversees sprints, jumps and hurdles for the USF track program. He was particularly impressed with Russell’s mark considering that it came in the prehistoric era of high jumping, before the sport truly advanced.

“There was a high jump revolution in the late ’60s,” McGee said. “Everyone started using the ‘Fosbury Flop,’ so they’re going backward over the bar as opposed to forward. Russell jumped at a time before that revolution happened; it’s a much more athletically demanding form of high jumping that takes a lot of flexibility and mobility. It’s surprising that he was able to jump as high as he did at his height.”

But as Russell’s own tweet shows, he wasn’t even using the predominant techniques from the time; it almost looks like he was hurdling the bar or doing a “Western” roll instead of the “straddle” roll used by elite jumpers like Dumas.

“Nothing against the basketball players we have at USF,” McGee said, “but there is no one even close to being able to jump that high on the team currently, and this is a team that went to the [NCAA] tournament. … I would guess that a very small percentage of players in the NBA could do that. Just demanding incredibly physically to be able to do that over 2.06 [meters].”

As McGee explained, there’s another reason Russell’s mark will stand: the Dons track and field team is only partially funded, and haven’t recruited a male high jumper in years, essentially sealing Russell’s record in amber. The Dons have excelled in distance events in recent years, with the women’s cross country team even finishing second in the NCAA in 2017. But without a track on campus, or a full complement of scholarships, finding any high jumper — much less one like Russell — is difficult, McGee said. While they have had a select few field event athletes, there hasn’t been a high jumper on the men’s track team since at least 2010, if not longer.

The high jump is a highly specialized technical event, meaning it’s rare to pair it with a second event and takes intense technical instruction. That also underscores how impressive Russell’s performance was, since it came despite minimal practice or refined technique. (Russell’s tweet at Perkins shows he competed at least once with one shoe missing, for an added degree of difficulty.)

“It’s just not something that happens, ever,” McGee said. “It’d be like if a player on the USF basketball team jumped 7-foot-6 today. Unbelievable.”

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A great record shop is like a time machine, a portal to another world. In the right hands, these spaces are capable of fostering a deep connection to the overlapping worlds of music and art, and nurturing a community around expression. In our ever more technological world, they stand as meaningful anachronisms made modern by new generations of listeners, reaching beyond the digitizing of music and performance and grounding us in the aural physicality of music.

Such is the scene at Dark Entries, a new shop and gallery in the Tenderloin. It’s the work of Josh Cheon, a longtime DJ and founder of the archival and reissue label Dark Entries Records. Housed inside a former tattoo parlor at 910 Larkin St., not far from where Cheon has lived and worked for a decade, in the historically queer Tenderloin neighborhood, the shop officially opens its doors to crate diggers Saturday, Dec. 10

“I always imagined this as being a place where someday we could host events,” said Cheon, who acquired the space in early 2021 when rents dropped amid pandemic uncertainty. “It’s a modular space, and I want to keep it in flux.”

Josh Cheon, a longtime San Francisco nightlife DJ and founder of the archival and reissue label Dark Entries Records, is opening a record shop in the Tenderloin. Photo: Carlo Velasquez / Dark Entries Records

This block of Larkin has become something of a “corridor of art,” Cheon said, anchored by the Magazine SF (home to the Bob Mizer Foundation) and the Moth Belly Gallery.

“Before the Castro was gay, this was the gay neighborhood — the first gay pride parade in America was on Polk Street, and the first gay riot was here as well,” Cheon said. “The Gangway, the oldest gay bar in SF, was right down the street. I knew I wanted to be here, in the tenderloin, to keep it queer… and to host artists and events in the space that reflect this history.”

To further the art gallery aesthetic, the record shop’s visual identity is anchored by two original collage works from Gwenaël Rattke, a Berlin visual artist represented by Romer Young Gallery of San Francisco.

Josh Cheon’s Dark Entries Records is located at 910 Larkin St. Photo: Carlo Velasquez / Dark Entries Records

The shop will offer titles from the Dark Entries catalog — more than 300 releases since 2009 — as well as favorites from Cheon’s expansive personal archives, collected over his decades of work as an archivist and DJ. But of particular focus at Dark Entries is the music of Patrick Cowley, a San Francisco electronic music composer and recording artist. Thanks to several posthumous releases, his body of work — and influence — has only grown in the 21st century, some 40 years after his death.

An early victim of the AIDS pandemic, Cowley became famous as a composer and performer in collaboration with Sylvester, the iconic San Francisco disco chanteuse. Cowley composed Sylvester’s 1982 hit “Do Ya Wanna Funk?” which rose to the no. 4 spot on the Billboard dance music chart, and toured the world as a member of Sylvester’s live band in 1979. Other notable Cowley tracks from the era include a remix of Donna Summer’s iconic Giorgio Moroder-penned single “I Feel Love” (dubbed the “definitive” remix by MixMag), as well as the original composition “Right on Target,” performed by San Francisco singer Paul Parker. It reached no. 1 on the Billboard dance chart shortly before Cowley’s death in the autumn of 1982.

Exploring the sonic world of the late EDM pioneer Patrick Cowley

Patrick Cowley, a San Francisco electronic music composer and recording artist, died November 1982. Now 40 years later, his music is a focus at Dark Entries, a new record shop in the Tenderloin. Photo: Dark Entries Records

In his lifetime, Cowley released just three solo LPs: “Megatron Man” and “Menergy,” both from 1981, plus “Mind Warp,” composed and released in 1982. And things might have ended there, if not for Cheon’s label.

In 2007, Cheon, then a member of local queer DJ collective Honey Soundsystem, was introduced to John Hedges, the former owner of Megatone Records, the San Francisco music label founded by Cowley and Marty Blecman in 1981. By the mid-1990s, the Independent label was sold to Unidisc Records, a Montreal company that owns the publishing rights to a diverse coterie of late 20th century performers.

But Hedges’ private collection included unreleased Cowley recordings on reel-to-reel tapes. Songs from those tapes emerged in 2009 as the album “Catholic,” issued by Berlin-based Macro. Cheon avidly spun Cowley’s music at underground parties across San Francisco, and his work with Honey Soundsystem put him in contact with people from Cowley’s inner circle, including family members, patrons and collaborators.

Patrick Cowley, a San Francisco electronic music composer and recording artist. Photo: Dark Entries Records

One was Maurice Tani, who met Cowley in the early 1970s at City College. “We just called him Pat,” recalled Tani, speaking from his home in Berkeley. Together the duo collaborated during late nights at the campus electronic music lab, and later in studios and early home recording setups across the city. Tani contributed bass and lead guitar work to dozens of Cowley recordings, and kept several boxes of reel-to-reel tapes of Cowley’s compositions following his death.

Another collaborator was John Coletti, who in the late 1970s helmed Fox Studios, a gay pornography studio in Los Angeles. Coletti worked with Cowley on the soundtracks to several films, offering a home for the composer’s original instrumental and atmospheric works, music little heard outside of the late 20th century gay film subculture.

Dark Entries Records is publishing Patrick Cowley’s personal journal, “Mechanical Fantasy Box: The Homoerotic Journal of Patrick Cowley.” Photo: Dark Entries Records

Over the last decade, Cheon has worked with Coletti, Tani, and others to restore, digitize, and release Cowley’s forgotten oeuvre to growing public interest. This work includes hosting nightlife events, promoting the music on social media, publishing Cowley’s intimate personal journal (“Mechanical Fantasy Box: The Homoerotic Journal of Patrick Cowley”), and making his work available to streaming services, all of it under the Dark Entries Records banner.

Along the way, Cowley’s life and work have been reappraised by the contemporary music and cultural press, with major features in Pitchfork, the New York Times, the Guardian, Art Review and on NPR. There are nine Cowley albums now available via Dark Entries, all prominently featured on the shelves at the new shop.

Dark Entries Records released Patrick Cowley’s “Malebox” last month. Photo: Dark Entries Records

The latest, “Malebox,” released last month, is a collection of demos — whose origin story reads like episodic television.

Tipped off to their existence by a follower on social media, Cheon went from haggling with distant descendants of a Megatone Records owner on Craigslist to poring over decaying boxes of tapes in a South Bay storage shed.

“The roof was collapsing, raccoons had made a nest inside, and every single box had some kind of excrement in it,” recalled Cheon. “It’s a miracle we were able to get any tracks from it.”

For Cowley fans, it’s roughly the equivalent of pulling a van Gogh painting from a garbage can.

The album’s centerpiece is “Low Down Dirty Rhythm,” recorded in the fall of 1979. The track wobbles and thumps with a palpable, unshakable sense of rhythmic sleaze; thrilling and sensual, it’s impossible to dislodge from one’s head, requiring repeat listenings. Accompanied by vocalist Jeanie Tracy (a backup singer in Sylvester’s live band), this track anchors Cowley not just as a burgeoning hitmaker cementing his powers, but as a pop compositional auteur nonpareil, evoking the better-known work of multiplatinum legends like Nile Rodgers, Giorgio Moroder and Prince.

Tape loops and layered hand production help provide an organic feel essential to these recordings, what Tani describes as “a frothy combination of synth-based beats with traditional percussion layered on top.” Cowley’s music is a reflection of a place and time, of overlapping San Francisco subcultures and gay liberation, but it also expresses the fascinating sonic milieu of pre-digital dance music in the 1970s and early ’80s.

Patrick Cowley, a San Francisco electronic music composer and recording artist, was 32 when he died in 1982. Photo: Dark Entries Records

Tani calls it “a melding of art and science — experimental music in every sense.” A time of four-track analog tape recorders and magnetic tape sequencing cut by razor blade and splicing block, of great hulking synthesizers like something out of Mission Control. They say each of us now walks around with more computing power in our pocket than it took to land a man on the moon; one can only imagine what Cowley might have done with a copy of Pro Tools.

Cowley was just 32 when he died, with multiple songs on the dance charts and a herculean body of work already on tape. Cheon is keenly aware of the reactions his reissues have engendered from Cowley’s contemporaries: his bandmates; his surviving family; the people who knew him throughout his too-brief life as a composer, friend, brother and son.

“It’s like a double-edged sword,” he said. “There’s excitement but also incredible sadness because he was stolen so early. I feel like I’m a custodian for lost and unreleased music.”

Indeed, Tani believes “this music would have been lost without him. Without Josh, Pat’s stuff would still just be in my attic. He’s the curator. His work has been so incredibly important.”

Josh Cheon, founder of Dark Entries Records, said he chose the Tenderloin for his record shop because, “Before the Castro was gay, this was the gay neighborhood. … I knew I wanted to be here, in the tenderloin, to keep it queer.” Photo: Carlo Velasquez / Dark Entries Records

A great record shop is like a time machine, but no glimpse at the past is truly meaningful without the context of the present. Dark Entries Records serves as a hub of connectivity to San Francisco in an earlier era, drawing a through line to the role of art and music in city life today. It is a reverent platform for the work of Cowley, who at last is being recognized as one of San Francisco’s great composers.

“For a gay man who suffered from AIDS, whose music sat in boxes for decades after his death, the depth and range of his sounds are incredible,” said Cheon.

Forty years later, inside a new record shop on Larkin, San Francisco, can continue listening.

Dark Entries Records Grand Opening Party: DJ sets by Carlos Souffront, Topazu and Jeremy Castillo. 6-9 pm Saturday, Dec. 10. 910 Larkin St., SF Updates on Instagram @darkentriesrecords. www.darktriesrecords.com

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Mark Zuckerberg has a robust real estate portfolio across the West Coast, but could he be saying goodbye to San Francisco?

The Facebook co-founder and his wife, the philanthropist and former pediatrician Priscilla Chan, quietly sold their Golden City pad in an off-market deal worth $31 million, The Post has confirmed.

This marks the largest residential deal in San Francisco this year, beating a pair of penthouses that once belonged to the late Secretary of State George Shultz for a combined $29 million, the real deal first reported.

Zuckerberg, 38, purchased the home in 2012 for $10 million, records show.

Located in the Dolores Heights neighborhood, the home has four bedrooms and four bathrooms, spanning over 7,300 square feet.

The new deed filed on the home was signed by the vice president of operations for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, according to TRD.

Mark Zuckerberg purchased the brick and stucco home back in 2012 for $10 million. Google Maps

Located at 3450 21st St., Zuckerberg purchased the home through SFRP LLC.

While there is no clear reason for Zuckerberg’s move to sell the home, back in 2016, SFist first reported that disgruntled neighbors were up in arms over the parking spaces that his security detail permanently occupied.

This, combined with two years of construction, when they first moved into the brick and stucco home, did not bode well for nearby residents. The work reportedly cost an additional $1.8 million.

“Hi Neighbors,” a January 2016 letter from an anonymous neighbor said. “I’m sure you all agree that it can be cumbersome living next to Zuck. I think we’ve all tried to be as patient and civil as possible during the very long construction, the noise, the trash, the blocking of streets, etc. Now that all that circus is done, we are left with 2 silver SUVs permanently occupying desirable parking spots.”

The post has reached out for comment.

Meanwhile, Zuckerberg still has a four-bedroom, five-bathroom estate in Palo Alto.

The Meta CEO also owns 1,400 acres on the Isle of Kauai, Hawaii after expanding his acreage there last year. In 2019, he purchased two adjacent Lake Tahoe homes.

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A record number of homebuyers are departing from coastal cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco for states like Florida as inflation surges and the housing market shows early signs of a slowdown.

Redfin, a real-estate brokerage, released a report showing that 32.3 percent of users were looking to move to a different metropolitan area in the first quarter of 2022, up from 31.5 percent a year ago and 26 percent in 2019.

The company blames factors like skyrocketing home prices, rising mortgage rates and inflation – which hit a 41-year-high 8.5 percent in March – as families look to find a more affordable place to live. They also note that the ability to work remotely has given people more freedom to move.

The analysis is based on a sample of about two million Redfin users who searched for homes across more than 100 metro areas in the first quarter, singling out what they deemed were serious buyers.

The top cities people are looking to leave, according to their data, are San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC and Seattle.

San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York, Washington DC and Seattle topped the list of cities people are looking to move to, with Miami, Phoenix, Tampa Bay, Sacramento and Las Vegas topping the destinations

While many are looking to relocate, people in Seattle were seen as most frequently searching for a move to Phoenix, while those in Los Angeles wanted to relocate to nearby San Diego and New Yorkers were headed south for Miami and Tampa

Inflation skyrocketed to a 41-year-high of 8.5 percent in March of 2022

Notably, three of the top six cities on the list of high inflows are in the state of Florida.

Redfin suggests that ‘sunny, relatively affordable’ areas are often the most popular places to move, but that the searches for Florida’s biggest cities have skyrocketed. Miami’s at six times the number of searches for people to move than it was two years ago, while Tampa’s numbers have tripled since before the pandemic.

Florida is an especially popular destination for people looking to leave both New York and Chicago.

As recently as March, Governor Ron DeSantis was touting the number of New Yorkers who were fed up and moved to the Sunshine State, according to the New York Post.

Redfin said that the ‘outflow’ is showing ‘early signs of a housing-market slowdown in those’ coastal cities. In general, the brokerage said they’re seeing fewer buyers contacting their agents in 2022 than in years past, in addition to a decline in mortgage applications.

They cited Seattle as particularly troublesome, where home prices rose 15 percent year-over-year to around $750,000 for a typical home. The tech industry Seattle is famous for has gone more toward work from home than most, which has allowed them to seek more affordable areas.

The news comes after it was revealed New York, Los Angeles , San Francisco, Chicago and other large cities lost the most residents during the pandemic city exodus last year

‘I’ve worked with many home sellers recently who are moving to a completely new area,’ said Seattle Redfin agent Nicole McCormick. ‘A lot of them are remote workers or people who feel confident they’ll be able to get a new job–leaving for sunnier places where they can get more home for their money, like Phoenix or Sacramento.’

Phoenix and Sacramento are in the top five of cities with the highest ‘inflow’ or home buyers looking to move there. They’re joined by Miami, Tampa Bay, Las Vegas and Cape Coral.

The most popular destination for people from Seattle has been Phoenix, according to Redfin. Home prices in Phoenix, while also rising, are significantly lower at an average of $456,000.

The news comes after it was revealed New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago and other large cities lost the most residents during the pandemic city exodus last year as about 75 per cent of US counties experienced a loss in population, according to a new report from the US Census Bureau.

The agency revealed on Thursday that Americans fled metropolitan areas between April 2020 to July 2021 in favor of the Southwest, with Dallas, Houston, Austin and Phoenix among those to see the largest growth last year.

The Census Bureau said: ‘In 2021, fewer births, an aging population and increased mortality – intensified by the COVID-19 pandemic – contributed to a rise in natural [population] decrease’ across the country,’ but particular hitting big cities the hardest.’

That saw 75 per cent of all US counties record falling populations in 2021. The figure the year before was 55.5 per cent, and in 2019 it sat at 45.5 per cent. Much of the sharp increase has been blamed on COVID tearing through older populations most vulnerable to the illness, with more than 975,000 Americans confirmed to have died of it.

Last year’s trend generally saw residents of more liberal ‘blue’ cities and states move to conservative ‘red’ states, and could lead to traditionally Republican areas turning Democrat thanks to the influx of newcomers.

Those blue cities have also been in the headlines for the wrong reasons in recent years, thanks to soaring violent crime blamed on progressive district attorneys and slashing of police budgets.

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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF/CNN) — A day after a San Francisco Chronicle article questioned her leadership abilities, Sen. Dianne Feinstein issued a strong statement Friday, proclaiming that she is “an effective representative for 40 million Californians, and the record shows that I am.”

Her statement comes after the Chronicle reported that four unnamed senators, including three Democrats, as well as three former Feinstein aides and a California Democratic member of Congress spoke with the newspaper saying Feinstein’s mental health has gotten worse recently.

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“The real question is whether I’m still an effective representative for 40 million Californians, and the record shows that I am,” the 88-year-old, longstanding member of the Senate said in her Friday statement.

“I remain committed to do what I said I would when I was reelected in 2018: fight for Californians, especially on the economy and the key issues for California of water and fire,” she continued. “While I have focused for much of the past year on my husband’s health and ultimate passing, I have remained committed to achieving results and I’d put my record up against anyone’s.”

The newspaper noted that the comments came before Feinstein’s husband, Richard Blum, died in February following “a long battle with cancer.”

READ MORE: Twitter Adopts ‘Poison Pill’ Defense To Block Elon Musk Takeover Bid

After the report, Feinstein called the newspaper’s editorial board and defended her capacity as senator.

“I meet regularly with leaders,” Feinstein said in the Thursday call. “I’m not isolated. I see people. My attendance is good. I put in the hours. We represent a huge state. And so I’m rather puzzled by all of this.”

Feinstein, who was first elected to the Senate in 1992, faced questions about her ability to serve for a few years.

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CNN reported in 2021 she faced growing questions about her ability to do her job, losing her post as the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee after her Democratic colleagues privately complained about her performance during the confirmation hearings for Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination to the Supreme Court .

The post Sen. Dianne Feinstein Fires Again; ‘Report Reveals That I Am’ Succesful Of Representing California – CBS San Francisco appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

By Anna Bahney, CNN Business

(CNN) — How tough is it to afford a home in this wild housing market? A lot depends on how much you earn and how many houses are for sale where you live.

Record high prices and record low inventory are creating an affordability crisis for homebuyers, according to a new report from the National Association of Realtors.

“With limited supply, the issue of affordability looms even bigger,” said Nadia Evangelou, NAR’s senior economist, director of forecasting and lead author of the report. “Wages may have increased, but not anywhere near the pace of the home prices.”

Nationally, home prices have gone up about 30% since the end of 2019, so that a typical home costs about $80,000 more than pre-pandemic, according to NAR. During the same time, inventory fell to a record low of about 1 million properties available for sale at the end of December last year.

NAR released a report Monday that looked at how this combination of record high home prices and record low inventory has impacted people’s ability to afford a home. Rising prices are already limiting the pool of homes within reach for buyers, the research found, but buyers’ options are even fewer since there are significantly fewer homes available for sale. This has made it increasingly difficult for buyers, particularly Black Americans, to achieve homeownership.

Evangelou said the researchers looked at data from Realtor.com that included an inventory of about 500,000 listings to examine the impact of high prices and low inventory on affordability by income bracket, location and race.

Who is getting squeezed out of the market?

Among the homebuyers hit hardest by high prices and low inventory are those earning $50,000 to $75,000, said Evangelou. The report found that these buyers have a maximum affordable home price of $325,110, and the share of listings that they can afford has dropped by 6% since before the pandemic. The researchers also found there are 63% fewer listings that these prospective buyers can afford than there were in 2019.

Also hurt are homebuyers earning between $75,000 and $100,000. This group, the report found, can afford a maximum home price of $433,480. Researchers determined these prices by making some assumptions, including that the buyer is not spending more than 30% of their income on housing and that the purchase is financed with a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage.

Given that price threshold, homebuyers in this income bracket can afford to buy 51% of homes for sale nationally — or 245,300 of the nearly half a million homes for sale that the report took into account. The same buyers would have been able to afford 58% of the homes for sale in 2019. During the pandemic, affordability for households in this income group dropped by 7%.

As more people compete in the price range for that smaller pool of homes, the prices go up. This makes for fiercer competition for a home. For the $75,000 to $100,000 income group nationally, there is only one listing available for every 65 households. It is a dramatic change in availability from one listing for every 24 households in 2019, according to the report.

“We have seen that affordability has dropped compared to what we saw pre-pandemic,” said Evangelou. “That explains why the housing market is so competitive now.”

Location is key

Where you are buying a home also matters a great deal.

For homebuyers earning $50,000 to $75,000, there are 125 households for every one affordable listing, nationally. But in some cities with greater inventory, the pool of potential competitors drops and affordability improves.

Des Moines, Iowa, has the most homes for sale for this income bracket with one affordable listing for every 78 households. It is followed by Detroit; Augusta, Georgia; Youngstown, Ohio and Scranton, Pennsylvania.

On the other end of the spectrum are places where affordability is the worst for buyers. For homebuyers earning $75,000 to $100,000, the city with the fewest homes to buy is San Jose where there is one affordable home for every 3,528 households, the report found. It is followed by Thousand Oaks and Ventura, California; San Diego; Los Angeles; Seattle; San Francisco; Salt Lake City and Austin.

There are some cities where affordability has improved through the pandemic — like San Francisco, San Jose and Washington, DC. In these places, higher incomes together with lower mortgage rates and prices rising more slowly than other cities helped make homes more affordable. But even though some buyers can afford a greater share of homes, fewer options exist as a result of the record-low inventory.

For example, households earning between $100,000 and $125,000 in San Francisco can afford to buy 180 fewer homes now compared to December 2019. And for households there earning between $125,000 and $150,000, there are about 300 fewer affordable homes available than prior to the pandemic.

“In general, an increase in salary makes housing more affordable to a buyer,” said Danielle Hale, Realtor.com’s chief economist. “But due to the reductions in inventory over the last few years, today’s buyers in large tech markets can actually afford a smaller number of homes than they could two years ago, despite an uptick in wages.”

Affordability by race

The report also found that a persistent racial homeownership gap exists in America. Since 2017, the homeownership rate for White Americans has remained comfortably above 70%, while the rate is just over 40% for Black Americans.

“The low inventory challenge is particularly acute for some racial and ethnic groups who have faced greater hurdles to stemming from homeownership, among other things, lower incomes as a group,” said Hale.

To look at affordability by race, researchers created a scale that accounts for the smaller share of Black, Hispanic and Asian households in the higher income brackets compared with White households.

Approximately half of all homes currently listed for sale are affordable to households with at least $100,000 income and there are big differences in affordability by city. But nationwide, 35% of White households have incomes greater than $100,000, while only 20% of Black households do.

The affordability gap is even larger in some cities like Charleston, South Carolina, or Bridgeport, Connecticut, where White households are more than twice as likely to buy a home as Black households.

“At the same time, there are affordable markets that still provide opportunities to achieve homeownership as inventory at affordable price points is reasonably available,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.

Akron, Ohio, is the most affordable city for Black homebuyers, based on the analysis. Households earning less than $75,000, which accounts for 77% of Black households there, can afford to buy nearly 72% of the listings. Other cities where affordability is strong for Black homebuyers are: Youngstown Ohio; McAllen, Texas; Baltimore and Memphis, Tennessee.

The most affordable city for Hispanic home buyers is Toledo, Ohio, followed by Youngstown, Akron and Baltimore, the report found.

“The housing wealth gain has been sizable over the past two years,” said Yun. “However, due to the ongoing inventory shortage and rising interest rates, homeownership attainment will become especially challenging unless drastically more housing supply is available.”

The CNN Wire
& © 2022 Cable News Network, Inc., a WarnerMedia Company. All rights reserved.

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LATEST Feb 22, 5:25 pm A cold front that finally brought rain into the Bay Area on Tuesday had another surprise: snow and hail.

There were several reports Tuesday afternoon of hail in the East Bay, including in Oakland and San Ramon.

No that’s not snow! We have received several reports of #hail falling all across the East Bay, here’s what it looked like in San Ramon. According to ABC7 Meteorologist @DrewTumaABC7 our best chance for hail is now until 8 pm Latest on winter #storm here: https://t.co/n3QBk9wFzc pic.twitter.com/MVeRP9m9lC

— LiveDoppler7 (@LiveDoppler7) February 23, 2022

There was also seen snow falling near Dublin.

Snow falling now near Dublin! pic.twitter.com/83DXqd2Ddo

— Mike Nicco (@MikeNiccoABC7) February 22, 2022

Feb 22, 1 pm The San Francisco Bay Area could have its coldest night of the year after scattered rain showers passed through the region on Monday, ending a 44-day dry streak for the region.

The National Weather Service’s Bay Area office announced Tuesday that a “freeze warning” is in effect for the interior areas of the Bay Area, the North Bay, and the Central Coast overnight, with freezing temperatures expected in these areas between 2 am on Wednesday and 9 am on Friday.

Sub-freezing temperatures are expected during the overnight & early morning hours over the next several days. A Freeze Warning is in effect for interior areas. Take action now to prepare and check on those without adequate access to shelter, including your pets. #CAwx #BayAreaWX pic.twitter.com/mfLJxk3Ny3

— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) February 22, 2022

Temperatures could fall into the mid-20s to low 30s in some areas. NWS forecaster Brayden Murdoch says the NWS is looking at temperatures hitting as low as 28 degrees in some areas, which, he says, signifies a “hard freeze.” A hard freeze can destroy plants, damage unprotected outdoor equipment and be a danger to people.

The NWS noted Santa Rosa and Gilroy might break record lows overnight. ABC 7 forecaster Drew Tuma also pointed out on Twitter that the low in San Francisco may drop to 39 degrees, which would be the coldest temperature in the city in the past six years.

If San Francisco drops to 39°, it’ll be the coldest night in more than 6 years. We have a chance to drop that low tonight and tomorrow night

— Drew Tuma (@DrewTumaABC7) February 22, 2022

In anticipation of the hard freeze, the weather service warns people to take action now “and check on those without adequate access to shelter, including your pets.”

“This will not be just one night of colder temperatures, but several nights in a row,” the NWS said.

A view of the fresh snowfall at Palisades Tahoe on Feb. 22, 2022. Up to a foot of snow fell on the slopes of Palisades Tahoe from the most recent storm.

Palidades Tahoe

Feb 22, 11 am While San Francisco got its first rain in weeks on Monday night, a storm rolled into the Lake Tahoe region and delivered the first significant snow in weeks. South Tahoe Now reports that many ski areas got a foot of snow overnight. The site also reports that “another 2-5″ of snow at lake level is possible by the time the weather system exits tonight.”

Here are some of the overnight snow totals:

Heavenly — 12″

Kirkwood — 7″

Mount Rose — 12-14″

North Star — 13″

Palisades — 12″

A view of the fresh snowfall at Palisades Tahoe on Feb. 22, 2022. Up to a foot of snow fell on the slopes of Palisades Tahoe from the most recent storm.

Kate Abraham/Palidades Tahoe

Feb 22, 6:30 am Isolated showers fell through parts of the Bay Area overnight, the National Weather Service reported, ending a 44-day streak of zero precipitation from January 8 through February 20. NWS forecaster Brayden Murdoch told SFGate that “this is fairly light” but everyone in the Bay Area should get a little.

But given the long dry spell, even a little rain prompted some serious enthusiasm from the weather service, including a video posted on Twitter that celebrated the glorious .004″ of rain that fell in San Francisco.

Happy 2-22-22! If you can’t tell we’re pretty excited by the rain Here’s the most recent radar loop showing scattered showers and high elevation snow showers. Showers will continue through the day with an afternoon tstorm possible. #cawx pic.twitter.com/PjlpTrzXHR

— NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) February 22, 2022

The weather service says the showers “will continue through the day with an afternoon ‘thunderstorm’ possible.”

The post Report chilly on faucet for San Francisco Bay Space after rain and snow break area’s lengthy dry spell appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.

The first two months of 2022 in San Francisco are on track to be the driest January and February in the city ever, with records going back to the Gold Rush. In a typical year, the downtown gauge records 8.2 inches of rain between Jan. 1 and Feb. 28. This year, only 0.65 inch has fallen since Jan. 1, about 8% of average, the National Weather Service said.

If the city doesn’t see more rain by Monday — which is likely — it will beat the 1852 record for driest January-February ever, when only 0.72 inch was recorded, said Jan Null, a meteorologist who runs private forecasting company Golden Gate Weather services.

A parade of storms is actually approaching the West Coast, but meteorologists say the moisture-rich atmospheric rivers won’t reach the San Francisco Bay Area. There are only a few chances of light sprinkles in the forecast over the next week.

Why is it so dry?

Null explained that a jet stream is pushing storm systems to the north of the Bay Area and into the Pacific Northwest.

During the next few days, the West Coast “will be seeing the same higher-latitude type of systems that we saw a lot of early on in January,” the forecaster said.

There is a slight chance for rainfall in the North Bay on Saturday into Sunday, but Null said confidence is low that even a few hundredths of an inch will fall.

“There’s also something maybe around March 3,” Null added, “but it’s another one of these fly-by systems that might bring a couple hundredths of an inch, if that.”

Null said that as of Friday, the best chance for rain in the long-term forecast is on March 10, but since this date is so far in the future, there is a lot of uncertainty around whether or not the precipitation will materialize.

Predictions coming out of the National Weather Service are equally unhopeful for rain.

“For the most part, we’re not looking at much precipitation forecast in our area,” said Drew Peterson, a forecaster with the weather service. “We have some days where there’s a chance of rain, but it’s been wavering back and forth. Our confidence is pretty low on seeing pretty much anything from that. Right now, the forecast is primarily dry.”

The San Francisco Bay Area saw a promising start to the season, with a historic storm in October and a wet December, and totals for the water year have remained above normal at many locations, despite the prolonged dry period. But those totals are starting to drop below normal levels.

“On Feb. 24, Santa Rosa fell below 100% of normal for the water year, one of the first locations to do so,” Peterson said. “It’s now 90% of normal for the water year.” (The water year is a 12-month period from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 that lines up with the water cycle, starting with the rain and snow seasons and ending with the hottest time of the year, when the snow pack melts.)

San Francisco is poised to drop below 100% of normal for the water year on Sunday.

Peterson said the persistent dry weather could lead to a more severe wildfire season this summer.

“The most immediate concern we have is because we received so much precipitation early in the season that encouraged a lot of plant growth,” he said. “We’ve seen early returns of flowers and there’s a lot of grass; for now things are mostly green, but the big concern is if we don’t have big rain, all that vegetation is going to have a lot of time to cure and dry out. That’s going to exacerbate the upcoming potential for our fire season, essentially fan the flames and put more kindle in the fire season.”

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The San Francisco Bay Area was sunny over the weekend, and the dry and unusually warm conditions are expected to last most of the work week, with afternoon temperatures 10 to 15 degrees above normal, the National Weather Service said.

The sunny weather is the result of a high pressure ridge stretching across California and the southwestern desert. The ridge prevents storms from entering California from the Pacific Ocean.

“It acts like a blocking mechanism and directs all of the moisture into the Pacific Northwest,” said Sarah McCorkle, a meteorologist with the Meteorological Service.

A temperature gauge at the Oakland Museum peaked at 73 degrees, breaking the previous record of 70 degrees on the same day in 2002.

San Francisco International Airport recorded a high of 70 on Saturday, following the same daily record from 1995.

A new high temp record (73 degrees) was set in Downtown Oakland today and 2 records were set equal (SFO and Salinas Arpt). The above average temps will last all week. #Cawx pic.twitter.com/yzyuFuVItS

– NWS Bay Area (@NWSBayArea) November 29, 2021

Afternoon temperatures are expected to stay above average through Thursday, with afternoon highs between the mid-60s and mid-70s. Wednesday is likely to be the hottest day of the week. San Francisco is projected to peak at 68, Oakland 69, San Jose 73, and Santa Rosa 74. In the south of the Bay Area, Monterey County could see 80s in the inland valleys.

While the weather is great if you want to dine and hike al fresco, it’s not what the region needs in a drought right now. The Bay Area got off to a wet start to the rainy season, with a moisture-rich atmospheric river that dropped record rainfall in October, but Matt Mehle, a forecaster for the weather service, told KCBS that the benefits will wear off quickly if the dry weather persists.

From Monday through December 6th or 7th there was no sign of rain and the likelihood of significant rainfall remained low.

The post Temperatures break file in San Francisco Bay Space. How scorching will it get this week? appeared first on Los Gatos News And Events.