While there remains a housing shortage in the Bay Area and affordability remains a real issue, slowing population growth combined with new housing supply may be gradually easing the problem. One high level way of looking at the demand to supply ratio is to compare the population to the number of housing units. Population to Housing Unit ratios for Santa Clara and San Mateo counties are shown above. In 2010, there were 2.83 persons per housing unit in Santa Clara and 2.65 persons per housing unit in San Mateo. Santa Clara reached a peak in 2014 with 2.91 persons per housing unit, and San Mateo reached a peak in 2015 with 2.79 persons per housing unit. This has leveled off in the past couple years as population growth has slowed (see chart below) and building has caught up, with 2.86 persons per housing unit in Santa Clara and 2.75 persons per housing unit in San Mateo in 2018.
Sources: Population growth rates obtained from World Population Review
