6 of the 10 most expensive housing markets are in Silicon Valley

Los Altos leads the nation as the most expensive housing market, compared with almost 2,000 other markets across the U.S. Recent numbers for communities throughout the country puts Los Altos home prices at an average of $1,963,099. (The report focused only on 4-bedroom, 2-bath homes.)

Of the 10 most expensive communities on the list, six are here in Silicon Valley:

#1 Los Altos: $1,963,099
#3 Saratoga: $1,867,979
#4 Redwood City/Woodside: $1,430,329
#5 Los Gatos: $1,307,408
#7 Sunnyvale: $1,267,184
#9 San Mateo: $1,093,346

Only one of the top 10 communities was located outside California – #10 Wellesley, Mass., where the average home price is $1,090,088.

It’s no secret that homes of all sizes in Silicon Valley have seen an enormous increase in price over the last three years. Look at three of our communities as examples, comparing the median sold prices in third quarter 2011 to those in third quarter 2014. (These numbers include all sizes of homes.)

Mountain View
2011: $957.500
2014: $1,511,000

Menlo Park
2011: $1,025,000
2014: $1,900,000

Palo Alto
2011: $1,380,000
2014: $2,465,000

Atherton, one of the consistently most-expensive Silicon Valley communities, didn’t make the list. That could be because the study included cities/towns above a certain population, or because Atherton might not have had any 4-bedroom, 2-bath homes available. Currently, there are no such homes listed on the MLS in Atherton.

But just to understand the limits of the study’s ranking of the “most expensive communities,” let’s see what’s happening in Atherton right now.

Fifteen homes are currently on the market. The Home Listing Report 2014 places Los Altos on top with an average home price of $1,963,099. You can’t get into an Atherton home for less than $4,695,000. Nine of the 15 listed homes are selling for more than $10 million. The most expensive is $18.8 million and features 6 bedrooms and 6 baths within 8,168 square feet.

But no matter how you slice the statistics, homes just about anywhere in Silicon Valley aren’t cheap. And by what we’ve seen in 2014, it won’t be surprising if the high-price trends continue well into the next year.

Hadar Guibara
Silicon Valley Real Estate