There are signs that Google’s shuttles could be affecting — albeit in small ways — the region’s housing market.
When Adam Klein, a 24-year-old software engineer, moved to San Francisco in 2005 to take a job at Google, he looked for a rental apartment within a 15-minute walk of a shuttle stop. His walk to the Civic Center stop turned out to be a bit longer. “I didn’t take into account the hills,” Mr. Klein said. Many of his friends are moving close to other shuttle stops. “Those stops have attracted people,” he said.
The area surrounding one of the shuttle’s Pacific Heights stops had a dozen or so Googlers living nearby in 2005. That number has surged to more than 60.
Generally, the more people demanding homes in a limited area will cause prices to increase.