marcher, it is a common reference that there are 2 bay area's, the one you mention which is the extended nine county area, and then the part of the bay area which is influenced by Silicon Valley. Unfortunately the silicon valley definition of the bay area has obtained the moniker "real" bay area by a few bloggers including burbed and the columnists in the papers. So that is the confusion.
But facts is facts, and for whatever reason the desirable areas of the bay area have not fallen. The overall numbers are down in the bay area if you include places like Sonoma, but what does that have to do with anything? You don't invest in an "overall" house.
San Francisco
"I get buyers who come in thinking they're going to get a real bargain these days because prices are down all over the country, and we just laugh," says Caroline Werboff, an agent with San Francisco real-estate firm Hill & Co.
People want to live in San Francisco's urban core. Median prices around the Financial District, North Beach, Telegraph Hill and Russian Hill are up -- in some case strongly.
Ms. Werboff says a Russian Hill home that sold for $7.7 million in April 2004 sold again in February for $10.3 million. A newly listed house in Pacific Heights, another core neighborhood with strong price appreciation, sold three years ago for $6 million. Ms. Werboff says that the owners "will get $10 million now."
Still, some San Francisco neighborhoods are down, particularly along the edges of the city, such as Portola, Bayview, Hunters Point and Sunset. Edward Leamer, director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, an economic research center at the University of California Los Angeles, warns that "the housing problems won't bypass San Francisco proper. The decline will just take more time."
Meanwhile, both closer-in and distant suburbs are weak, too, often markedly so. On the periphery, San Mateo County and high-end Marin County are doing the best, both down more than 4% between March 2007 and 2008, according to DataQuick. Alameda and Contra Costa, across San Francisco Bay from the city and chockablock with anonymous tract housing, are down 18% and 27%, respectively. Bargains exist, but with so much inventory, prices aren't expected to rebound quickly.
Santa Clara County, home to Silicon Valley, is down more than 9%, though pockets of strength exist in communities such Sunnyvale, Mountain View and Los Altos. Napa County, meanwhile, is one of the weakest in the region, with median prices off more than 20%.
online.wsj.com |
