The housing market exploded as prices surged — until recently. According to the carefully followed S&P Case-Shiller home price index, in most months of this year, home prices rose 20% year over year. That figure has begun to decelerate, mostly because of high mortgage rates. However, prices in some housing markets are so high that median home prices sit well over $1 million. The highest is the Zip code that covers Atherton, California, where the median home price is about $9 million, about 20 times the national number.
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Atherton sits in the middle of Silicon Valley, home to some of the richest people in the world and some of its most successful tech companies. It is just a few miles north of San Jose. The town has less than 7,000 people, with a median income of well over $250,000 and a poverty rate of under 3%. The city has no businesses located there at all.
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Home prices continue to rise in Atherton. According to Realty Hop, they were $8,950, 000 in 2021. While the increase is small, it is amazing with such high prices that it would rise at all.
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California has five of the 10 most expensive Zip codes. Los Angeles ranks third with a median home price of $6,690,500. Montecito ranks seventh with a median home value of $4,995,000. Rose ranks eighth with a median value of $4,699,000. Newport Beach takes the ninth spot with a figure of $4,674,750.
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The rise in mortgage interest rates from 3% last year to 7% now is unlikely to affect these home prices. Only the extraordinarily rich can afford these homes. Presumably, these people could pay cash.
The Most Expensive Housing Market in America
© Holbrook-Palmer Park Atherton California ((CC0 1.0)) by LPS.1
Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
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McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
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