How much does it cost to buy a four-bedroom, two-bath house?
This year, Los Altos/Los Altos Hills, at an average price of $1,706,688, is the most expensive market in the country when it comes to how much house your dollar will buy, according to Coldwell Banker’s annual Home Listing Report.
By contrast, for an average of $60,490 a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home can be found in Redford, Mich., which is just outside of Detroit. It's a isting price difference of more than $1.6 million.
Cupertino is 9th in California and 12th in the nation with an average price of $1,151,145 for a similar sized home. It sits just above San Francisco with an average of $1,132,086.
In fact, of the nation’s top five most expensive markets, four are on the lower Peninsula and Santa Clara County, and all are in California. Besides Los Altos, they include Saratoga ($1,582,434), Menlo Park ($1,506,909), and Palo Alto ($1,495,364). Newport Beach, in the No. 2 position ($1,658,000), was the only market outside of the Bay Area in the top five.
Coldwell Banker attributes Los Altos' ranking to the confluence of tech and desirable locations. Google, Apple, Facebook and Stanford University are all located within 15 minutes of Los Altos, Coldwell Banker observed. And, so are the other top-five cities Saratoga, Menlo Park and Palo Alto.
And Los Altos Hills is the town that brought you the in 2011.
“The success of many of our native tech companies has shined a spotlight on Silicon Valley and our real estate market in the San Francisco Bay Area,” said Rick Turley, president of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage in the San Francisco Bay Area, in a written statement.
In fact, among the top 20 most expensive markets in the country, 10 of them are on the Peninsula or in Santa Clara Valley. They include the additional cities (in order of price) of Los Gatos, San Carlos, Cupertino, San Francisco and Redwood City.
High demand, low inventory, desirability and population projections all figure into the prices, Turley said.
Conversely, the most affordable was in Redford, Michigan, where the average a four-bedroom, two bath house cost $60,490—or 28 times less than the same house in Los Altos.
Coldwell Banker lists both the top 20 most affordable and the most expensive in the chart below.
For a state-by-state ranking, see this Coldwell Banker link.
Rank
Most Expensive State
Avg Listing Price
Most Affordable States
Avg. Listing Price
1
Los Altos
$1,706,688
Redford, Mich
$60,490
2
Newport Beach, Calif.
$1,658,000
College Park, GA
$62,080
3
Saratoga
$1,582,434
Detroit, Mich.
$65,155
4
Menlo Park
$1,506,909
Cleveland, Ohio
$70,0665
5
Palo Alto
$1,495,464
Poinciana, Fla.
$76,341
6
Los Gatos
$1,444,214
Hastings, Fla
$78,840
7
Rye, N.Y.
$1,312,250
Jonesboro, GA
$79,686
8
Kailua, Hawaii
$1,238,208
Park Forest, Ill.
$81,107
9
Carmel-By-the-Sea
$1,232,167
Augusta, GA
$83,966
10
San Carlos
$1,230,880
Johnstown, Penn.
$84,173
11
Greenwich, Conn.
$1,200,525
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
$84,535
12
Cupertino
$1,151,145
Saginaw, Mich.
$85,345
13
San Francisco
$1,132,086
Fort Pierce, Fla.
$89,292
14
Weston, Mass
$1,105,692
Country Club Hills, Ill.
$90,788
15
Belmont
$1,098,777
Irvington, N.J.
$92,264
16
Boulder, Colo
$1,084,183
Lehigh Acres, Fla
$92,819
17
Orono, Minn.
$1,070,203
Terrell, Texas
$96,329
18
Mercer Island, Wash.
$1,059,411
Warren, Mich.
$96,349
19
Darien, Conn.
$1,056,933
Ellenwood, Ga.
$97,850
20
Redwood City
$1,010,394
Maricopa, Ariz
$97,886
Grace Keng, Keller Williams Realty