America’s Most Overpriced ZIP Codes - Willow Glen?
America’s Most Overpriced ZIP Codes - Forbes.com
America’s Most Overpriced ZIP Codes
Matt Woolsey, 07.29.08, 4:00 PM ETIn San Jose, Calif., home to Silicon Valley and some of the highest home values in the country, a bumper sticker reads, “Dear God, one more bubble before I die.”
Chances are the car’s driver lives in Willow Glen, a neighborhood with a small-town feel, Spanish-style single family homes and a main street with sidewalk cafes and locally owned shops. To live there, residents are paying the city’s highest prices relative to what they could pay to rent similar properties in the same area. When you compare mortgage payments to the value of a similar home on the rental market, the price to buy is 26.1 times higher, one of the biggest differences in the country.
Willow Glen is one example of a neighborhood where homeowners are still taking chances on future appreciation–and paying a premium above and beyond their neighbors for that confidence.
[snip]
But expensive does not mean always mean overpriced.
Limestone townhouses on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, for example, are listed for ever-dizzying prices. Financier J. Christopher Flowers bought a $53 million townhouse on East 75th Street in 2006, and sold a smaller East 73rd Street townhouse undergoing renovation for $23 million in 2007. Expensive? Yes. Overpriced? Not so much. Consider that a five-bedroom mansion on East 74th Street that once belonged to Eleanor Roosevelt is currently listed for $60,000 a month. Prices may be tops in the city, but prime rental prices are peerless as well.
Instead, the country’s most overpriced areas are ZIP codes like San Francisco’s Outer Sunset neighborhood, 94122, which, given its location near the Pacific Ocean and on the south side of Golden Gate Park, was during the most recent boom widely thought to be up-and-coming. Median prices surged from $560,000 in June of 2003 to a peak of $771,000 in March of 2008, based on Trulia.com price data drawn from California’s multiple-listing service.
Still, it’s not as overpriced as New York’s TriBeCa (10013) or Boston’s Chinatown (02111), where demand for high-end condos, new development and proximity to downtowns have pumped up prices.
Goddamnit. New York beats us again. Heck even Boston’s 1 block of Chinatown beats us. Why can’t we ever win? Why can’t we have the most overpriced Zip Codes?
What can we do as community to win? Let’s think out of the box people!
Thanks to Burbed reader Michelle, Mia, and many more for this find.
August 3rd, 2008 at 10:36 am
I used to live in a rent controlled apartment in 10013. Sometimes I think the dumbest thing I ever did was to give that place up.
August 3rd, 2008 at 1:26 pm
as burbed would say “WOOT!”. WG hardly ever WINS the unaffordability/ridiculously priced sweepstakes here in the bay area- WOW! Now I know what it feels like to be in the winners circle!
I guess they looked at rentals in the area vs buying and decided that meant an area to buy was “overpriced” (if the rentals were much less $$). But an old area like WG has rentals that are the typical 50s era apts… 8-plexes without much in the way of amenities. I actually think renting here is *even more* overpriced than buying.
August 3rd, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Sigh….I have friends in Willow Glen. Maybe if I’m lucky (and if this article hasn’t gone to their heads) I’ll still be able to visit them!
August 3rd, 2008 at 5:04 pm
If the article goes to their heads, simply remind them that they are still in San Jose, which sucks.
August 3rd, 2008 at 5:52 pm
“But expensive does not mean always mean overpriced.”
Hmm, that was the central argument over the turd vs. non-turd debate regarding the last Sunnyvale house featured here.
August 4th, 2008 at 11:14 am
Why WG has not beaten NY/Boston yet?
Because WillowGlenner has single handed dragged down the market by purchasing his properties at 2001 level. We can win if he starts paying peak prices.