Can San Francisco Bay Area residential real estate price growth be sustained? What about all this talk of a bubble, which seems to be getting more strident with every passing month?

If interest rates rise or lending gets more restrictive--or both!--could we be due for a collapse in pricing?

Are prices getting too expensive? Can people here in the Bay Area afford these prices? Is the Bay Area a good bet in the long run? Should I buy now or rent?

Feedback from the WCNC's panel discussion on residential real estate on December 7th told us that attendees were hungry for an opportunity to hear more from panel participant and Wharton Real Estate Professor Todd Sinai. With this in mind, we have scheduled a follow-on, one-on-one event with Prof. Sinai. This will give us the opportunity to go into greater depth on a variety of topics brought up by our members and attendees that time constaints and format during the first event prevented us from addressing.

Prof. Sinai will have points of discussion that will speak to each viewpoint and will welcome your questions. Make plans now to join us on Tuesday, January 25th!

Professor Todd Sinai
Prof. Sinai is the Abraham Mitchell Term Assistant Professor of Real Estate at Wharton. His other positions include Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and Visiting Scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. Prof. Sinai is widely considered to be a thought leader in the area of housing markets, and his research on the subject has been published in some of the top academic journals. His housing research considers whether house price growth is sustainable, how risky homeownership actually is, and how the U.S. tax system subsidizes homeownership.

Currently, he has been asked to write a treatise for other economists on assessing house price bubbles for the Journal of Economic Perspectives. In addition, Prof. Sinai has written on real estate investment trusts, low-income housing, how the Internet affects cities, and air delays. Prof. Sinai received his BA from Yale University and his PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The San Francisco Jewish Community Center
3200 California Street, San Francisco 94118
Discounted parking is available in the garage immediately below the JCC.