The Super Bowl of housing competition
The outcome of Super Bowl XLVII may be in doubt, but that won't keep us from pitting San Francisco vs. Baltimore in other fields of battle such as housing, TV shows (The Wire vs. The Streets of San Francisco) or crab cakes (Blue crab vs. Dungeness).
On second thought, given that this is a real estate blog, and the other two areas are entirely subjective, we'll stick with a housing comparison. Thanks to our friends at Redfin for sharing this infographic with us.
Tale of the Tape: It's significantly less expensive to buy a home in Baltimore and consequently a higher percentage of its residents own rather than rent. In San Francisco there are very few homes on the market and in many cases buyers engage in bidding wars to land a property. If your goal is affordability, it's Baltimore by a few touchdowns. If your goal is rising property values, San Francisco may beat the spread.
As to the other advantages of living on a particular coast, consider that by Sunday night only one of these towns will be able to proclaim itself the home of a Super Bowl champion.
