The tech boom has pumped up Bay Area real estate prices so much that $1 million will get you a fixer-upper — if you can find one.
OK, that may be an exaggeration, but not by much. In Palo Alto, $1 million gets you a nice condo. Over-asking price bids on homes priced at more than $1 million are common in other hot spots like Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Mountain View and Menlo Park.
The online real estate site Trulia has analyzed this, coming up with the following: In San Francisco, the Peninsula and the East Bay, 43.5 percent of the homes for listed sale are priced above $1 million. In the South Bay, 23.7 percent are.
In “pricey” U.S. markets like the Bay Area, “you’ll need more than a ‘one’ in front of six zeros to buy a mansion,” Trulia chief economist Jed Kolko reports.
The typical million-dollar home is 1,489 square feet in New York City; 1,774 square feet in San Francisco and the East Bay; and 2,161 square feet in the South Bay.
But in 68 of the 100 largest metro areas, $1 million homes are less than 5 percent of the total market. In Colorado Springs, $1 million gets you 6,023 square feet. In El Paso, it gets you 6,908.
“That means the differences in million-dollar homes across the country are so big, you could actually fit million-dollar properties from New York, San Francisco, Honolulu, and Miami together inside a million-dollar mansion in Birmingham and still have room to spare – that is, if you couldn’t find any better use for 8,000 square feet,” Kolko writes.
Pete Carey covers residential real estate and occasionally reports on tech companies. He wants your tips on market trends, oddball features and things that need investigating..
Article source: http://www.siliconbeat.com/2014/04/03/1-million-for-that-you-dont-get-much-in-the-bay-area-for-1-million-says-trulia/