Nearly 40% of the most expensive zip codes in the U.S. are in the Bay Area, according to a new report, as the region continues to be one of the priciest in the country amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Atherton topped PropertyShark's list of the most expensive zip codes in the nation for the fifth consecutive year. The ranking of 127 zip codes, which compares median sale prices of homes to their listings, had 47 Bay Area zips. Atherton's median sale price in 2021 was $7.47 million, and Los Altos ($4.05 million) finished ninth in the ranking.
A whopping 32 of those entries are from San Francisco (seven), San Mateo (10) and Santa Clara (15) counties alone. For the fifth straight year, San Francisco had more zip codes than any other city on the list.
California, overwhelmingly, was the most expensive state. Eighty-nine of the list’s zip codes were in the Golden State, 68 between Los Angeles County (21, more than any other county in the country) and the Bay Area.
Demand has long exceeded supply for homes in California, leading to a continual shortage of affordable housing. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed bills earlier this year – including some just days after beating back a statewide recall election – that would allow more than one home to be built on land previously zoned for single families and budget $23 billion to build 84,000 housing units.
The new single-family zoning law goes into effect on Jan. 1, and UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation estimated it could lead to the construction of about 700,000 homes that otherwise wouldn’t have been feasible. Opponents of the zoning legislation failed to gather enough signatures for a constitutional amendment that would’ve allowed city and county zoning laws to override the state.
The California Department of Housing Analysis and Community Development reported in 2018 that the state needed to build at least 1.8 million new units by 2025 in order to meet projected population and household growth. Since the report was published, the median sale price of a single-family home in the state has risen from just below $600,000 to over $800,000.
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