The 10 most expensive cities for family-size homes
What are the three rules of real estate? Say it with us now:
Location, location, location.
Just-released numbers aim to put a dollar figure to the old adage. By looking across the nation at the average cost of a specific size of home -- four bedrooms, two baths -- the Coldwell Banker Home Listing Report tries to zero in on the value that the location is conferring on the home.
True, the average-priced four-bedroom, two-bath house in, say, Silicon Valley is likely to be newer and fancier than one in the Rust Belt, so it's not quite accurate (or possible) to say that the same house would cost $X in Cleveland but $30X in Silicon Valley. Still, location plays a role even in such a case: The economy is stronger in pricey areas than in struggling spots, so homeowners have more money to put into renovations, not to mention more incentive to invest because of the likelihood of profit.
In the most expensive city, Los Altos, California, the $1,963,100 average cost of a four-bedroom, two-bath home would buy you six (and two-thirds!) homes at the national average of $295,317. And it'd buy you more than thirty homes in the nation's cheapest city for family-size homes. (Click here or on the photo above to see the most expensive cities.)
As Silicon Valley's boom keeps reverberating, the housing prices have climbed into the stratosphere. Seven out of the nation's 10 most expensive cities are in Northern California's tech center.
You might be surprised to see that places like Manhattan and Beverly Hills aren't on the list. That's not because they've suddenly become affordable; on the contrary, they didn't qualify for the list at all because they lacked the requisite 10 listings for four-bedroom, two-bath homes in the first six months of the year. Coldwell Banker wants to zero in on true family homes for a more apples-to-apples comparison of cities, and the 10-listing requirement tends to filter out cities at the extremes.
Click here or on the photo above to see America's 10 most expensive cities for family-size homes.
And to see America's 10 cheapest cities for family-size homes, click here or on the image below:
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