Is Sacramento the next Silicon Valley? Report calls it a ‘market of opportunity’
When it comes to technology and California, most people think about the Bay Area and Silicon Valley, which houses companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook.
But a recent report from professional services firm JLL said that Sacramento could become an attractive option for technology companies due to its high concentration of computer programmers and lower cost of living.
The report, titled “Cracking the Hardest Code: Where to Find Tech Talent” analyzed markets with in-demand, affordable tech talent and available real estate, according to Urbanland Magazine.
“What’s probably more surprising about Sacramento is that it hasn’t come up as a tech hotspot before now,” the report read. “Thanks to spillover from the expensive San Francisco Bay Area, Sacramento is becoming an attractive option for homebuyers and a talented workforce that wants to tap into lower-cost living.”
According to the report, Sacramento currently has 11,510 computer programmers employed in the area and the median salary is $84,350.
The median salary for Sacramento computer programmers is less than both the San Francisco/Oakland area and the Silicon Valley area. Silicon Valley’s average salary is $106,420 and San Francisco/Oakland’s average salary is $107,395.
Due to Sacramento’s lower cost of living relative to the Bay Area and the lower salary, the report said that Bay Area companies looking to expand into new locations could give Sacramento a long look.
However, housing prices have been going up in Sacramento, according to The Bee’s Hudson Sangree. The median price of a resale single family in home in Sacramento County reached $330,000 – the highest for the month since May 2007. And overall, the county’s median home price was up 5 percent in May, according to CoreLogic.
Sacramento wasn’t the only “hidden gem” in the report. The list from Urbanland Magazine also included other cities like Colorado Springs, Colorado; Madison, Wisconsin; Albany, New York; and Columbus, Ohio.
This story was originally published July 7, 2017 at 7:01 PM with the headline "Is Sacramento the next Silicon Valley? Report calls it a ‘market of opportunity’."