Ken Costa, Special to The Chronicle
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Fairfield: Solano County offers some of the lowest prices, like this Silverado Drive home for $199,000. Photo: Ken Costa / Special to The Chronicle
If you are like the typical American worker, you commute 24 miles round trip to your job each day. Is it financially worthwhile to double that commute?
For San Franciscans looking to flee the city's still relatively high housing prices, the answer depends on which direction they go. Horace Greeley's borrowed advice may have made sense when it ran in the New York Tribune in 1865, but going west isn't an option here unless some affordable housing springs up in the Farallones.
But what about the other directions? Following the three major routes out of San Francisco - north and south on Highway 101 and east on Interstate 80 - not surprisingly, the biggest discounts lie to the east, away from the pricier communities of Marin and San Mateo counties. While the median price of a three-bedroom home in San Francisco is $761,500, according to Zillow.com, the median for the same size house in Pinole, about 25 miles to the east, is just $299,500.
The north also offers a relative bargain for commuters, even with the $6 toll on the Golden Gate Bridge. In Novato, slightly more than 25 miles north of the city, Zillow pegs the median price for a three-bedroom home at $475,500.
Head south and the savings disappear quickly. Just over 25 miles down the Peninsula, Redwood City's median price is $751,000. The savings would pay for your gas and parking, but not much else.
Price isn't everything
Price, of course, isn't everything. More important is what that price buys. For comparison purposes, all the houses cited have three bedrooms and, except where noted, two baths.
Based on recent listings on Realtor.com, one of the homes the median price in Pinole will buy is a 1,395-square-foot house on a 10,450-square-foot lot. Built in 1972, it is about three-quarters of a mile from Pinole Valley High School.
In Novato, the median price will get a 1,241-square-foot house built in 1963. The 7,405-square-foot lot is near Novato High School.
A typical listing for the median price in Redwood City is a 62-year-old house west of El Camino Real near Woodside Road. The 1,230-square-foot home sits on a 6,000-square-foot lot.
Whether great or small, the lower prices available in outlying areas probably won't shrink anytime soon. During the protracted real estate slump, prices in surrounding counties declined far more sharply than in San Francisco. And while the city's prices showed some signs of stabilizing in June, falling just 8.4 percent from the previous year according to MDA DataQuick, the median prices in Contra Costa, Marin and San Mateo counties skidded 31.7, 20 and 17.9 percent respectively.
Before housing prices began their plummet, people desperate to get in on what then seemed to be an ever-increasing investment did whatever was necessary. Sometimes that involved the creative mortgages that now plague so many. Other times they simply moved farther away.
If living 25 miles from San Francisco saves some money, will living 50 miles away save even more? Definitely, particularly in the South Bay.
While Redwood City's prices closely rival San Francisco's, in San Jose the median price for a three-bedroom house, $486,500, is nearly $265,000 less than in the Peninsula city. That price will buy a 1,300-square-foot house on a 5,662-square-foot-lot about 1 1/2 miles northwest of the Santa Teresa Golf Club.
The difference in the North Bay is less dramatic, but Santa Rosa's median, $319,000, is more than $150,000 below Novato's. A typical listing at the median price is a 22-year-old 1,400-square-foot home on a 6,970-square-foot lot near Fulton Road in the northwest part of the city.
Smallest difference
The smallest difference is in the East Bay, where Fairfield's median is barely $100,000 lower than Pinole's. The $198,000 median will buy a 1,050-square-foot house built in 1982. The 5,750-square-foot lot is about a quarter-mile from Angelo Rodriguez High School.
Those willing to take the next 25-mile leap - and check out the deals on a Honda Civic hybrid or Toyota Prius first, because this means driving 750 miles a week just to get to work and back - may be in for a bit of a shock, at least those moving east. Not only will they not save money by looking in Dixon rather than Fairfield, they will spend more.
Home prices in Solano County have been savaged by the real estate slump - they tumbled 34.5 percent more in June, according to MDA DataQuick - but haven't fallen quite as sharply in Dixon, leaving the median there at $246,000, nearly $50,000 higher than in Fairfield. That $246,000 will fetch a 1,738-square-foot bungalow on a 6,534-square-foot lot. Built in 1936, it's about eight blocks south of Northwest Park...
See the complete stort at SFGate.com.
