It’s Thanksgiving!
The best part about Thanksgiving is how much work you’re able to get done because your lazy, slacker, co-workers aren’t around to bug you. So keep going Bay Area Work Bee! We give our thanks to you – helping build the next AppleGoogleFacebook which will continue to fuel housing prices!
Enjoy the day of productivity, while the rest of us enjoy the day off!
And you know what that means! It means no zip codes today.
Today’s first search term that bought an Escondido reader to Burbed was more business and people leaving california. That’s negative talk, and we don’t need no negativity on Burbed. We do snark and sneer, not doom and gloom. Besides, if more business and people are leaving California, that means everyone left is going to have low Prop 13 tax bases and nobody will ever sell. BAD IDEA!
Our second interesting search term that brought a San Francisco someone to Burbed is most intelligent city san francisco. Our readers sure are confident! And modest! Yet the search makes perfect sense. With all the foolish business and people leaving California, the only ones staying are the smart folks. End result: San Francisco is the most intelligent city.
This is an open thread (like we ever had one that wasn’t).
Hey everyone! Don’t forget to vote today!
Now, I know the cool thing to do amongst the nerd elite is to use Pete Rates the Propositions as a guide to voting.
Here’s his guide:
However, this guide takes into effect strange things like reason and logic.
Here’s the Burbed guide, based purely on property values! Remember, Prop 13 was the best thing to happen to the state – by driving up prices, which should be your only goal!
Proposition 19: Sort-of Legalization of Marijuana – Yes
By legalizing marijuana, we will reduce the price of marijuana, thus freeing up more income for people to spend on housing. And, while they’re high on the wacky tobacky, prospective buyers won’t even realize what they’re signing at closing time. If the California Association of Realtors isn’t for this, they must be high… oh wait…
Proposition 20: Commission to Draw Congressional Districts – Doesn’t matter, but may be No
I can’t figure out which would increase property values more. So vote either way. Maybe No so that we can protect our very senior politicians so they can get more funding for our areas. More pork = higher property values?
Proposition 21: Vehicle License Fee for Parks and Wildlife – No
Another fee means another $18 that would be taken away from prospective buyers looking to buy a house. That $18 could mean the difference of getting a loan or not!
Proposition 22: State to Keep Its Paws Off Local Budgets – No
If I’m reading this right, a vote of Yes may help encourage development. As we all know, development is the anathema to housing prices – basic supply and demand. Let’s ensure that Cupertino doesn’t become Condotino, and Palo Alto doesn’t became Condo Alto. NO NEW HOUSES.
Proposition 23: Suspension of Greenhouse Gas Law – Yes
Sure Greenhouse Gases are a problem – but not in the Real Bay Area. I’m sure the same people who came up with Facebook and Google will come up with innovative ways to keep the rising waters away from our real estate. (Sorry East Bay.) And, maybe this will help keep the price of gas down so that people can spend more on housing!
Proposition 24: Repeal of Big-Business Tax Breaks – No
This is obvious. We should be funneling more money to big business (especially from useless schools) so that they’ll create more jobs here, so that more people will compete for housing, so that property values will go up. Duh!
Proposition 25: Simple Majority to Pass State Budget – I don’t know
Would a vote of Yes or No help property prices more? I’m at a loss.
Proposition 26: Two-Thirds Vote to Impose Fees – Yes
We must keep companies fee free (see Prop 24) to encourage them to create jobs and increase house prices.
Proposition 27: Kill the Redistricting Commission – Yes
See Prop 20.
I hope this has been helpful!
Now go vote!
Welcome to Part 5 of the least popular series ever on burbed, ever. You’re welcome. Forbes thanks you too, since we’re making fun of their mistakes when they wrote an article on the 500 most expensive zips, and hired Altos Research to do their data crunching.
Here are the first four parts for you masochists who can’t get enough numbers, maps, and boring fascinating statistics.
Today we’re going to cover the zips ranked 151-200. But to reduce the complaining just a tiny bit, we’ll leave out anywhere that isn’t within reasonable commuting distance to the Googleplex. Actually if I left out everywhere more than 10 miles from Google we’d only have four cities today, which might not be such a bad thing.
#151 – 94306 Palo Alto
At least this time we’re going to start much closer to where the jobs are. This is a very important zip code. If you remember this article, 94306 is the only zip code that’s left in the Real Bay Area (RBA) anymore, if you define RBA as the place where prices don’t go down. So despite being the #2 zip in Palo Alto (94301 came in at #73 on the list), it’s #1 in the RBA. It’s also last in the RBA, because none of the other zips qualified at all.
The real reason 94306 went up while prices everywhere else collapsed is because it’s the cheap section of Palo Alto. This area, formerly the city of Mayfield, featured small homes on small lots which people now tear down and put in oversized mini-mansions that loom over the remaining bungalows. Unfortunately, real estate statistics are oblivious to such trends, such as someone paying money to remodel or replace a house. Instead you see crazy price increases and think the neighborhood is red-hot rather than full of sawdust and paint fumes. If the sale price stats subtracted out the money paid for construction, there’s a good chance 94306 would have dropped as much or even more than the other zips around it.
#173 – 94303 Palo AltoIt’s a pretty safe bet that the median home price hasn’t been contaminated by East Palo Alto (which shares this zip code), but take a look at that median household income. It’s about $20,000 less than 94306, which has a fairly similar set of residents (in the Palo Alto part of the zip, anyway).
While the zip shares with the Oaklandesque East Palo Alto (hey, at least it brought you IKEA), it also has some nice areas in midtown as well as the West Marine on San Antonio Road. (Remember, yachties spend like drunken sailors because they are drunken sailors.)
Since 94303 has just everything in the whole city that hugs US 101, that isn’t helping matters. Some of the lower-cost Eichlers in South Palo Alto that get torn down and replaced by monster houses are in 94303, too. Hope they put in triple-pane windows like they did at Gables End.
#184 – 94025 Menlo ParkWhen you realize that this zip stretches from the foothills near I-280 all the way to the slums of Belle Haven, that median home price is rather impressive. Not every city the size of Menlo Park has to make due with a single zip code. Palo Alto has four distinct zips, and Redwood City has five.
And while a ranking of 184th most expensive zip code in the country is clearly not good enough for the RBA, perhaps Menlo Park could petition the
postal service to split the city into East and West postal zones, in hope of the western half aspiring to the RBA.
Nah, prices down 9%. Forget it.
#185 – 94062 Redwood CityHa ha! What was I just talking about above? Redwood City is nowhere as high on the snootiness index as Menlo Park, and yet by having several zip codes, they managed to get one of them to qualify for the Forbes list. And this is the one zip that shares with Woodside, which is quite a bit higher in the rankings (#41).
Oh, speaking of Woodside, you’ll never guess what Forbes says their median household income is. That’s right. $96,677. Nice going, Forbes. That means the Woodside median should be higher and the Redwood city number lower, but you managed to miss yet another muck-up.
This part of Redwood City includes the Emerald Lake Hills area, which is a delightful mix of new construction and bizarre old places featuring old cars in the front yard. You know how some places in Atherton look like Greenwich, Connecticut? Well, Emerald Lake Hills looks like Appalachia where half the residents won the lottery.
#199 – 95032 Los GatosIt’s the home of Netflix! Woo-hoo!
The second-best zip in Los Gatos (95030 came in at #38), this zip features delightful estates in the foothills and higher, as well as ho-hum tract houses in the flats near freeways.
Now, take a look at that median home price, above. It’s barely over a million smackeroos, and we’ve almost hit the 200 mark. That means the next installment (if there is one) will feature houses in “expensive zip codes” that are under a million dollars dollars for a median price.
Think about that for a moment. Where we live is so Special that we think of houses under a million dollars as not particularly worth commenting on. At least most of the zips we’ve shown so far are above the average price for a house in this area. But as we work our way down that list of 500 zips, we’re going to start to see some very ordinary places that are still more expensive than 44,000 other zip codes in the entire country.
Coming Soon: burbed guest editor forcibly retired for not stopping worst series ever, assailed by mob with pitchforks and torches. Plus, Part 716 of Bing Maps Galore!
We can thank Forbes Magazine’s The Most Expensive Zip Codes for selecting the prestige postal zones and then managing to mess them up. So far we’ve caught them describing one town while showing houses from another, forgetting the difference between a zip code and a town boundary, mixing up their data sets, and showing a zip code 10 miles and $2 million away from what they labeled.
Since we don’t concern ourselves with other parts of the country where prices go down, homes need maintenance, streets get busy, and airports allow planes to land while children are sleeping, we’ve been looking at the Bay Area zips only. In case you want to refer to the previous articles, you can click over to:
Again, data crunched by Altos Research, info prepared (not always perfectly) by Forbes, criticisms (I’m starting early today) entirely home-grown at burbed. The very first entry on Forbes’ Page 2 list is one of our own! We may not be in the Real Bay Area (RBA) anymore, but remember, these zip codes are still more expensive than at least 44,000 others!
![image_thumb[1]](file:///C:/Documents and Settings/mhs/Local Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/supfiles21282CA/image[3].png "image_thumb[1]")
#101 – 94507 AlamoI just said we weren’t in the RBA anymore. It’s never a good sign when the very first listing is in the East Bay. That 11% drop isn’t surprising anybody.
Besides, pretty soon the home price medians are going to drop below a million and a half, and then where would we be?
Right. In the East Bay.
![image_thumb[3]](file:///C:/Documents and Settings/mhs/Local Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/supfiles21282CA/image[7].png "image_thumb[3]")
#106 – 94946 NicasioYou should have heard of this town before. It was featured in burbed because of this listing. Jerry Garcia’s house has been holding up this zip’s entire market.
Clearly Alamo and Nicasio are for two different demographics. Alamo is for people earning good money now. Nicasio is for people who already earned good money and want to get away from the people in Alamo still earning. Then they can chillax and just enjoy it. The money, I mean. I’m still getting my head around trying to fill the closet in Jerry’s master bedroom.
Unfortunately, by not keeping enough cash coming into town, the residents of Nicasio let down the team. Yes, the median home price is under one and a half million now. Who knows what kind of vagrants and transients are living in those houses? It’s not surprising one of them joined a rock band.
![image_thumb[5]](file:///C:/Documents and Settings/mhs/Local Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/supfiles21282CA/image[11].png "image_thumb[5]")
#120 – 93921 CarmelThe income is down even more here at the other end of the Bay Area. The Monterey Bay Area.
Carmel is a touristy little town that is expensive to live in, doesn’t sell anything useful to residents, and has a beach nobody can use since parking is between impossible and utterly impossible. You shouldn’t have taken your time reading this. They just ticketed your car.
Does that little bit right outside the zip environs, lower right corner, really say Trailer Park?
![image_thumb[7]](file:///C:/Documents and Settings/mhs/Local Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/supfiles21282CA/image[15].png "image_thumb[7]")
#120 – 93921 Carmel-By-The-SeaThis is only a test to see if you’re paying better attention than Forbes did when they put this article together.
Yes, it is entirely possible that two cities can share a common zip code. We’ve had many examples of it in the first hundred entries.
But what are the odds of the same zip code, the same ranking, the same data, and the same map just sitting there for two cities with practically the same name, and nobody noticed a damned thing?
![image_thumb[9]](file:///C:/Documents and Settings/mhs/Local Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/supfiles21282CA/image[19].png "image_thumb[9]")
#121 – 92603 IrvineIrvine has entered the building!
No, I have not taken leave of my senses. I know that Irvine is not in the Bay Area, Real or otherwise.
But Irvine’s real estate issues have been so instructive, and the seminal Irvine Housing Blog so important to anyone trying to make sense of what happens when bubble
s pop.
And as much as there have been problems with the real estate market up here, one of our zip codes doesn’t have 227 properties in inventory, and so far we’ve avoided Mello-Roos taxes, too. There’s a good reason we’ve avoided Irvine’s problems. It’s because they’re not making any more land up here. And that’s because they’re making it all down there, complete with Mello-Roos!
We now return you to our regular Bay Area real estate presentation, already in progress.
![image_thumb[11]](file:///C:/Documents and Settings/mhs/Local Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/supfiles21282CA/image[23].png "image_thumb[11]")
#125 – 93923 CarmelNow if i am reading this map correctly, this zip code includes Carmel and Carmel Highlands, but not Carmel-by-the-Sea or Carmel Valley. Or the other part of Carmel that is covered by a simple street map and includes all the high-priced art galleries and jewelry stores.
This zip also has a bigger inventory than Irvine’s. Thanks for making us look bad, Carmel, when everyone at IHB clicked over to read this. You’re making all of us look really pathetic to those Southern Californians. We might have to ask you to move over there, permanently. You and your 298 unsold properties. Maybe when you get they’re you’ll be placed in a Mello-Roos district, too.
(I thought those 298 listings had to be a mistake on Forbes’ part, but it isn’t. Entering this zip into Redfin yields 270 listings. And just because the zip covers around 200 square miles isn’t going to get it off the hook.)
![image_thumb[13]](file:///C:/Documents and Settings/mhs/Local Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/supfiles21282CA/image[27].png "image_thumb[13]")
#131 – 94104 San FranciscoFinally! A zip that makes you really sit up and take notice.
A zip that not only includes a bunch of ginormous skyscrapers (well, ginormous as long as we don’t go comparing them with anything in Los Angeles, or Chicago, or Manhattan), but has the brass rivets to say LOOK AT ME. The median home price here is $1.36 million and the median income is $14,609. That’s right! It would take the average resident here a hundred years to buy the average residence.
Only a zip code with serious chutzpah could issue a message like that, a message that says, “Want to buy here? Sorry. You’ve been Priced Out Forever.”
![image_thumb[15]](file:///C:/Documents and Settings/mhs/Local Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/supfiles21282CA/image[31].png "image_thumb[15]")
#132 – 94965 Muir BeachThis tiny town is located right where California Route 1 cuts overland to the Pacific and heads north up the coast (that line mislabeled 1 is actually US 101. I’m watching you Forbes. Always watching.) This tiny town has about six streets. Muir Beach shares a zip with Sausalito, which ought to be showing up at some point.
Muir Beach. Like Bolinas, only closer and more expensive. Water meters not included.
![image_thumb[17]](file:///C:/Documents and Settings/mhs/Local Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/supfiles21282CA/image[35].png "image_thumb[17]")
#134 – 94574 Saint HelenaLooks like it takes half a year to sell a typical property in Saint Helena. That means they named the place well.
Saint Helena was the second and final place that Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to, and he died five and a half years later. And there isn’t anywhere nearby called Elba, because that would mean you could escape. Although you can at least drink heavily.
Able I was ere I bought in St. Helena.
![image_thumb[21]](file:///C:/Documents and Settings/mhs/Local Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/supfiles21282CA/image[43].png "image_thumb[21]")
#147 – 95452 KenwoodHoney, I shrank the zip code.
I had to. When it took up about 20% of the page, the only thing I could find was State Highway 12 and Mt Hood Regional Park. I figured Kenwood was somewhere between Santa Rosa and Fairfield but wasn’t quite sure which was closer.
And St. Helena is in convenient exile distance. I suppose I should find something nice to say about the place because the prices are up 46%, but seriously, unless you’re cultivating 200 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon or really want the Smothers Brothers as neighbors, you should be looking a little closer to Facebook HQ.
![image_thumb[23]](file:///C:/Documents and Settings/mhs/Local Settings/Temp/WindowsLiveWriter-429641856/supfiles21282CA/image[47].png "image_thumb[23]")
#150 – 94705 OaklandSomebody is playing a joke, but I can’t figure out who the joke is on.
We started today’s batch of runner-ups to the runner-ups in the East Bay. Not only are we going t
o finish there, we’re going to finish in one of the least RBA-like cities in the East Bay.
Then again, the zip includes a bunch of UC property in Berkeley, so that’s kind of cheating. Plus the Claremont Hotel. I bet the Claremont Hotel would sell for more than $1,283,731.
And the zip is up… twenty eight percent. With the same kind of unobtanium inventory we saw in Muir Beach. That’s it. I’m out of here. I know when I’m licked.
Next installment: The Most Expensive Zip Codes in the Richmond Flats between Cutting Boulevard and Solano Avenue.
Any zip that isn’t in the Top 50 shouldn’t qualify for Real Bay Area (RBA) status, right? Here are the Bay Area zips in Forbes Magazine’s Most Expensive Zip Codes #51 through 100. Since these aren’t good enough to have made the cut, we can assume any city featured here is no longer fit to inhabit the RBA. So enjoy reading about these loservilles, that are still more expensive than most anywhere else in the country.
In case you missed the previous entries in this series, the Top 25 appear here, and #26-50 can be found here. I encourage you to check them out, as obviously they are better places to live than what you’ll find in this article.
#53 – 94920 TiburonYeesh, down 22%. No RBA for you, Tiburon. Wait, we already saw this zip. It’s also #8. So, um, they split Belvedere from Tiburon?
Well, well, well, there are 39 properties for sale in Belvedere (median home price, $3.28 million), and 116 here. And yet both places have (what a surprise) the exact same median household income.
You blew it again, Forbes. Am I going to have to rewrite that entire article for you?
#59 – 94588 DanvilleBe sure to check out this East Bay interloper: the idiots at Forbes got the wrong map. They can’t tell Danville from Dublin. And with only 4 properties on the market, they have no idea if it’s up or down.
Maybe those East Coast provincials ought to be told they’ve managed the equivalent of confusing Westhampton Beach with Levittown.
#62 – 94904 KentfieldThis Marin County city is right next to Ross and may even manage to get more precipitation. Why people would want to live here when they could buy a palace in San Jose is beyond me. Plus San Jose only gets 11 inches of rain a year.
And San Jose is so much closer to Google! Priorities, people!
#69 – 94970 Stinson BeachStinson Beach can’t be in the RBA, it’s down 7%, and next to Bolinas, home of the high-priced water meter.
First one to make a joke about this zip code’s ranking and “Sex on the Beach” is going to be asked to leave the room.
No, I do not want to hear about what that peninsula with Seadrift Road looks like. You all have filthy minds. Yes, especially you.
#71 – 94024 Los AltosDown 6%, and another zip-splitter.
Seriously, is there anything funny to say about Los Altos? Other than the featured listing that’s running tomorrow, that is?
Well, that and the dude with the cellular antenna farm.
And the fact that this same zip in Los Altos Hills is ranked so much higher at #18. And that Forbes couldn’t tell the difference between the two and showed houses from Los Altos when featuring The Hills Hills. And yet, 67 properties here, 15 properties there. Household income, not available here, not available there. Oh, oh. They match.
#73 – 94301 Palo AltoWe already knew this zip code wasn’t in the RBA anymore. Its low ranking merely proves it. As does this listing which hasn’t sold in more than 2 years.
Didn’t we all agree not to talk about Palo Alto anymore? Anyone? Bueller?
Oh yeah, Steve Jobs lives here!
#74 – 94611 PiedmontDown 3%, and suspiciously Bradburylike. Oakland, I tell you, it’s surrounded by Oakland!
And a freeway runs through it! Just like Oakland!
And this place hasn’t sold yet. And neither has this one. This city is FAIL: 100% of its listings on burbed unsold!
#83 – 95070 SaratogaDown 1%. That’s borderline for remaining in the RBA, but coming in at #83 just cannot be allowed.
Can anyone remember why Saratoga used to be in the RBA? What exactly did it do to get there in the first place? Why should a city with seven different school districts thinks it’s real anything?
I say no, not until they manage to sell this house.
#84 – 95030 Monte SerenoStop me if you’ve seen this zip code before.
Down 34%. Wait, it’s right next to Saratoga. Plus borrowing Los Gatos’ zip code. 84 properties? WTF? In a town of 3,483? And only 53 properties listed in Los Gatos (#38), population 28,592? That’s a real knee-slapper! Now can you tell me the one about the Santa Claran, the San Joseite, and the Saratoger?
#92 – 94123 San Franciscoburbed, voted best real estate blog in San Francisco, would like to welcome 94123 to the list of Most Expensive Zip Codes! This is the first zip in San Francisco to make the cut. And that is really awful, because several New York City and Los Angeles zips have already shown up. Congrats, you losers.
Up 9%. This is the Marina District and includes some of Billionaire’s Row. Yes, including the place selling for $45 million.
#93 – 94506 BlackhawkUp 19%. Wait, this is the East Bay. Prices don’t go up in the East Bay. The proper expression is “Blackhawk down.”
Seriously, this is a developer-designed golf-course community that didn’t even exist before 1980. Having this zip appear right after one full of history, architecture, design, and taste is just wrong.
#94 – 94022 Los AltosWait, is today Groundhog Day? Didn’t I just say something about Los Altos Hills, and that we already saw this zip, and that… someone must have hit me over the head, because I’m seeing double. Los Altos Hills in this same zip is #15 on this list, with a median home price of $3.04 million. And (what a coincidence), 58 properties. Sloppy work, Forbes, very sloppy.
This place doesn’t even have the cell phone antenna farm!
And that’s it for the Also Rans of the Most Expensive Zip Codes in the Whole Fracking Country. Except… the list goes to 500 zips. If you don’t want to see anymore of these Bing Maps, commence whining.
Next installment in this thrilling series: The Most Expensive Zip Codes, Volume 714,
burbed has been publishing since February of 2006. In honor of today’s date, here are ten things everyone should have learned from regularly visiting this site.
10. It’s Special here.
9. Our great weather makes people overlook tiny lots, tiny homes, tiny rooms, and tiny discretionary income. We won’t mention this summer’s weather, okay?
8. Put this number in a listing price to make it lucky.
7. TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK WHEN ENTERING LISTING COPY OR WE WILL MAKE FUN OF YOU RELENTLESSLY.
6. A short sale is a home that will be selling shortly.
5. Installing a $5,000 refrigerator justifies a $50,000 price increase.
4. Don’t ever use this number. If it’s in your address, move your house to another lot. Or another zip code. Bad zip codes: 94301, 95014, 94040.
3. Angry renters have been replaced by smug renters.
2. If you can’t take some decent photos of a listing, don’t post anything at all.
1. Housing prices have always gone up, so why shouldn’t they continue to go up? If they go down, see rule #1.
What’s on your top ten list for RBA Real Estate?
My apologies for the downtime as of late. I wish I could be a better admin.
Thanks to the anonymous Burbed reader who sent this in.
Uh… so… yeah it turns out that there may be some negative equity here in the Bay Area after all. But this is just a snap shot in time. And it’s probably skewed by places like Gilroy. Come winter bounce, this will all be gone! You just wait.
In fact, they’ll need to come up with a new chart to show how awesome house prices are in the Bay Area!
It’s Labor Day! Everyone’s favorite holiday!
This is the day where we celebrate our privilege to work in Silicon Valley!
It’s where we celebrate the fact that we can spend all year, working in cubes (if you’re lucky), on the next game changing disruptive social sharing music video coupon synergy open graph mobile app! And BECOME RICH from it!
That’s why you’re reading this at work. Because you want to!
So… what do you do for a living? And how many hundreds of thousands of dollars do you get paid?
(Do you agree with the assessments on glassdoor.com?)
Location, location, location! Burbed is everywhere you click.
