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Bay Area home prices up 6% as wealthy buyers dominate sales

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A drone view of the Sorrento at Dublin Ranch housing development in Dublin, Calif., on Thursday, Feb. 23, 2023. Dublin is now California’s fastest growing city, according to U.S. Census data. (Jane Tyska/Bay Area News Group)

If you feel like only the Bay Area’s wealthiest can afford to buy a home right now, you’re not alone.

Affluent buyers dominated the market in June as the median home sale price in the nine-county Bay Area in June climbed to $1.4 million — a 6% increase from the same time last year.

“The reason we’re seeing these increases in median prices is because we’re seeing more sales in higher-priced areas,” said Oscar Wei, senior economist for the California Association of Realtors, which provided the data.

The median sales price for a single-family home was $1.4 million in Alameda County, $1.7 million in San Francisco, $2.1 million in San Mateo County and $2 million in Santa Clara County, and $903,000 in Contra Costa County.

High-value home sales outpaced the broader market, especially in the South Bay, according to a recent report by real estate brokerage Compass. In San Mateo County, home sales rose 11.5% year over year, while homes selling for more than $5 million jumped 29%. Likewise, in Santa Clara County, sales overall increased 18.5% from 2023, while sales of homes for more than $5 million climbed a stunning 63%.

Chalk it up to well-performing tech stocks, says Hadrien Trempont, a real estate agent with Intero based in Menlo Park.

“When the financial markets do well, we see people pulling money from there and putting it into real estate,” Trempont said. The S&P 500 rose by nearly 15% over the first half of the year, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq climbed by 18%.

Meanwhile, buyers of lower-valued properties — who may be coming in with smaller down payments — may be more influenced by interest rates.

That was the case for George Martines. He started looking for two-bedroom condos around San Jose in January, but soon realized there were few options within his budget of about $500,000.

George Martines, 50, at his one-bedroom condominium, where he lives with his border collie Australian mix, Lani, in San Jose, on Friday, July 26, 2024. (Dai Sugano/Bay Area News Group) 

“I was asking myself, ‘Do I rent for another year and let things calm down?’” he said. “Or do I bite the bullet and try to find something?”



Read More: Bay Area home prices up 6% as wealthy buyers dominate sales

2024-07-30 13:00:18

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