I do not know how much of the story above correctly portrays the trend. But, I know two families who have bought big homes east of Altamont in last six months. They used to rent in South Bay.
Added Later: someone nicely put it. Now a days when you buy a home, besides kitchen, bedrooms, and bathrooms, you also need to look for home office, a small gym, and a storage. The specification of what a home should has changed.
Reading the reader comments I sense the car and highway haters are not happy with the development. They would want to cram entire population into a 1 acre lot on a building with 50 levels of 500 sq feet apartments.
The million dollar question is when will this transition stabilize? 1, 2, 3… decades? Anyhoo I don’t have any houses in exurbs or urbanized cities, all in suburbs
Year over year price increase in Austin is running at 40-60%… can’t be sustainable for long.
Have been the case in Austin. Just started in CA? That is the reason why many of my SFHs in Austin is over 3000+ square footage. Need that much built-in to fit in 4 bedrooms, 3.5 baths, + all these, and 2.5-3 cars garage. 0.5 to 1 car garage is for storage or gym or man’s den. The “gym” is usually in the smallest bedroom or together with the game’s room.
Btw, no new insights posted yet Merely iterations/confirmations of known insights.
All have media rooms, study rooms (aka home office), game rooms (card games, karaoke, video games), mud rooms, laundry/ironing rooms (not in garage), … Some of them have pre-kitchen (forgot the name) rooms where you prepare food out of sight of guests.
I met a few Indian ICs from SV who are renting apartments previously. They bought huge houses (4500-5000 sqft built-in) that cost about $700k-$800k. They came before the Covid. They are laughing to the bank and congratulate themselves for the good luck of coming here early. They couldn’t afford the $2-$3M houses in SV but can afford easily $700k-$800k luxury houses in Austin.
California is busy killing the neighborhoods with high density housing. No new highways or no new lanes to the existing highways. Many cities are converting the existing lanes in city roads to bike only lanes. Will bikes solve the transportation needs of these cities?
They turned to a real estate advisory company called Suburban Jungle, which helps people decide which suburb might be a good fit. San Ramon, which has multiple parks and top-ranked schools, felt right. The fact that Ms. Mittal’s sister was already living there sweetened the deal.
Wut? They need to hire a company to tell them San Ramon is good? SMH… They could have come here and have me yell in their faces!
“Overwhelmingly, the people who have left California have been those who make $50,000 a year or less, while until recently, we still had immigration from many people making $200,000 a year or more,” Dr. Green said. “The tax story is not a very compelling story but the cost of housing story is.”
What I have been saying all along.
“When companies like Facebook, Google and Apple shift to a model where employees are in the office only three days a week, it reduces traffic by 40 percent,” Mr. Taplin said. “The decreased congestion doubles the radius of reasonable housing and puts less expensive places like Concord and Stockton within a reasonable commute.”
But I feel that this narrative of moving farther away from RBA is getting overdone. People are over optimistic about their WFH time. Even if your boss says you don’t need to come in much if at all, it’s like those unlimited vacation days companies like Netflix offer. Theoretically you can do it, but in practice your boss and coworkers may not be too happy and come review time you may regret not showing your face in the office more.
Now that prices in Tri-Valley have rocketed up so much, value is to be found in the good 'o 101 corridor, especially San Francisco. Death of SF is overhyped.
Are the companies that are opening offices in TX, whether new or by relocation from CA, only paying 50,000 pa to their employees? How do salaries in TX compare to those in CA f?
In SV, $2-3M buys starter houses (2.5M in 94087 and 95014 for 1500 sq ft houses). That much I know to b we true at the moment
Are 4000-5000 sq ft luxury houses in Austin only $700-800k??? I thought Austin was roughly 50% of Silicon Valley, so my impression was that starter home in Austin (1500 sq ft on 6000-7000 sq ft lot) cost around 1.2M. But luxury houses for 700-800k in Austin … ???
Median home price is more like $1.2M in South bay.
Median price in US is $300K.
Median price in Austin is $450K.
These are median prices not take into account the square footage nor it take into account good school district. It feel more expensive to live in Austin in good school district than living in Eastbay.
you have to use Median. the quantity. not Avg price. Expensive homes can move up the Averages…
it is not just money printing. there is huge crime wave. that is raising the price of doing business.
Tools for painting are stolen this time. not even freeways are safe. random shootings. we need access control new freeway system that avoid cities.
Merely iterations/confirmations of known insights.