FAIRFIELD — Solano County continues to show a healthy growth in many areas which are markers for a sustainable future.
Robert Eyler, the principal at Economic Forensics and Analytics out of Petaluma, recently reported on the areas of growth to the Solano County Board of Supervisors.
While Solano County has not reached the housing value it had at the start of the Great Recession, median home prices have climbed steadily since 2012.
“Housing markets in 2018 experienced another year of rising median prices for single-family homes in Solano County. An estimated 9,750 single-family homes in Solano County for 2018 were sold, slightly more than in 2017. Home prices increased by 8.6 percent in Solano County in 2018,” the economic index states.
The median price for a detached, single-family homes – a point at which half the sales are above and half are below – was approximately $450,000 as of December.
The comparable statewide median home price was $557,600, the report states.
This growth is proving to be both good and bad. Many of the buyers are coming from outside the county, where prices are even higher. The buyers are essentially trading the need to commute back to their job counties for the more affordable housing in Solano.
This is causing a problem for existing Solano County residents who do not have the same wage levels and are being “squeezed” out of the market, Eyler said.
The report also noted that rental prices are also rising.
“For Solano County, the median rental price for any style of home available for rent was approximately $2,160 (per month) in December 2018 . . . This rental price is less than half of the same measure in San Francisco County,” the report states.
Eyler described 2018 as a good year for Solano County – hitting positive marks for housing prices, per capita income, job creation and the rising rate in the gross domestic product.
The report estimates that Solano County’s population is forecasted to grow from 2018 to 2030, with 64,420 more residents over those 12 years, with percentage growth faster than the state average.
Solano County’s unemployment rate was 3.8 percent at the start of 2019, the lowest rate on record for the county economy which is good news. Approximately 205,000 residents of Solano County were employed in 2018 after growth of 5,700 more working residents from 2017.
As jobs go, Solano County private‐sector employers hired 4,000 more workers in 2018; this is a 3.5 percent increase from 2017. The public sector hired 300 more workers in 2018.
Farm jobs fell by 300 in 2018, while non‐farm jobs increased by 4,300 workers (3.1 percent growth) for Solano County businesses, government, and nonprofit employers to a total employment level of 143,900 as 2018 ended.
He forecast no economic downturn until 2021 with Solano County remaining poised to use its regional advantages as shown in this year’s Index to create more businesses and job opportunities as this decade ends.
