Can you afford a house in Alameda in 2023? ($1,000,000)
What does a million dollars buy you in 2022 in Alameda? Let’s find out.
We’re back with another installment of “What The Money Bought?” today. We will go over the 2022 numbers in Alameda, California, at the million-dollar price point. We’ll be bringing the new numbers to you so you can see exactly what you get for a million dollars locally.
In case you’re wondering, Hans did a series similar to this in the past. If you want to check those out, we’ll link to some of the past ones here.
What the 2022 Numbers Tell Us
If you’ve seen this series in the past, you’ll recognize the table below. We’re looking at the same spreadsheet but with a new line on it. We’ve added the data for 2022 right at the top, which we will be focusing on in this video.
In 2022, we had 10 properties that sold within around $10,000 of the million-dollar price point. For those properties, the average days-on-market is 29 days, which is significantly higher compared to the previous year’s 14 days. In terms of bedroom and bathrooms, the houses have an average of 2.3 beds and 1.9 baths. However, the bedroom and bathroom count has been pretty similar through recent years.
Another consistency we’re seeing is that homes at this price point have gotten a little smaller year over year. These properties now have an average area of around 1,360 square feet, compared to 1,397 square feet in 2021. That shows that square footage has become more of a premium these days. We’ve already seen that trend before, and it has remained consistent, although it has slowed down a little bit.
In terms of property age, it has remained fairly consistent. The average age of the properties sold for around $1,000,000 in 2022 is 64 years. It is a bit newer than what we experienced over the last five years.
Something We’re Seeing for the First Time Since 2018
Here’s where it starts to get interesting.
For the first time since 2018, these properties on average sold for just under a million dollars. As you can see, in 2022, the houses were sold at an average price of $997,376. Furthermore, the list price-to-sales price ratio of only 107% is the lowest it’s been for the last three years. The list-to-sales price ratio in both 2020 and 2021 was more than 110%. I think we’re going to see more of that 5–10% over the list price as opposed to 10–20% as we go into the new year. Remember, these are only averages, but that is what we’re seeing on the ground and what we’re predicting in the future.
Also in 2022, the average price per square foot increased to $733.63 from $716.33 per square foot in 2021. There was a time when anything good was selling for $1,000 a square foot. Keep that in mind as it relates to historical data.
Overall Market Averages
Let’s now look at the overall market averages. As of early December 2022, 370 of the 518 properties closed in 2022 were sold above the million-dollar mark.
That means that 71% of the market sold for over a million dollars that year. This is where it gets really interesting in Alameda, because if you go back to 2018, only 42% of the market was over a million dollars. 2022 is the highest it’s been, as it was only 49.76% in 2019, 56.25% in 2020, and 67.13% in 2021.
Also, we’re starting to see more condos, townhouses, and duets sell consistently at that million-dollar price point. In 2022, four single-family houses, four condos, one townhouse, and one duet sold for $1,000,000. Whereas before, it was almost all, if not nearly all, single-family homes, and occasionally a condo would sneak in there.
Summary
What we’re clearly seeing is that the market in Alameda has moved up. The million-dollar price point is now solidly in that bottom third of price points, as opposed to more in that top half like you were in 2018. As we’ve seen, houses at this price point have shrunk to two bedrooms and two bathrooms, or in that ballpark. In terms of size, they also got smaller, to around 1,300–1,400 square feet, priced at $733.63 a square foot. So, at the million-dollar price point in Alameda, if you get $700–$800 a square foot, that’s considered average here right now.
This is something that we will continue to track year over year. The more you know and the more you understand the market, the more you can make informed decisions.
WE hope our update on what the money bought series for 2022 has helped you.
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