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San Francisco's housing market is so dire that people are spending over $1 million on the 'earthquake shacks' built after the 1906 fires by Melia Robinson on Mar 2, 2018, 9:17 AM Advertisement
 Most prospective homebuyers know that "cozy" is real estate code for tiny. In San Francisco real estate, cozy is about all that most residents can afford. A person who wants to buy property in the city needs a household income of $303,000 in order to afford the 20% down payment on a $1.5 million home — the median sale price in San Francisco last quarter. It should come as little surprise that cottages known as "earthquake shacks" are one of the most desirable real estate assets in the city. After the 1906 earthquake and fires decimated some 500 city blocks and left half the population homeless, the city responded by building more than 5,000 small wooden cottages as temporary housing. They came to shelter over 16,000 people. The surviving shacks are scattered across the city and fetch prices above $1 million. Here's the story of how earthquake shacks came to be. SEE ALSO: Go inside the hottest neighborhood in San Francisco, where home prices have risen 75% in the last 5 years On the morning of April 18, 1906, Bay Area residents awoke to an earthquake. It lasted only a minute, but a series of devastating fires followed and decimated 500 city blocks. 
Half of San Francisco's population, or about 250,000 people, was left homeless. Most escaped with only the clothes on their back. They were hungry, filthy, and distressed. 
In the aftermath, the US Army set up 21 relief camps to shelter 20,000 refugees. The tents worked well enough until winter. The city needed a more substantial solution. 
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
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