Can you afford a house in Alameda in 2023? ($1,500,000)
Today, we are coming back with another installment of the “What the Money Bought” series. In today’s video, we’re going to look into the $1.5 million price point here in Alameda.
We’re going to see how it stacks up over the last five years. Also, we’re going to dig into what it actually gets you today and how far that money is going. Let’s dive into the data and find out what you get for $1,500,000 in Alameda, California.
What the 2022 Numbers Tell Us
Here is the data at the end of December 2022 for the $1.5 million price point:
As we can see from the table above, in 2022, we had 19 homes sell right around that $1,500,000 price point. This number reflects homes that sold for +/- $10,000 off the $1,500,000 price point. This gave us a pretty solid dataset to work from.
Based on the data, the days-on-market (DOM) in 2022 increased as well, similar to the million-dollar price point. The average DOM for these houses was 22 days in 2022, which is 5 days longer than in 2021, with 17 days.
In terms of size, it is pretty similar to 2021, with an average of 1,881 square feet in 2022 compared to 1,1970 square feet in 2021. Although, as we’ve seen in past years, the houses on average are getting smaller and are losing bedrooms and bathrooms.
Take note that the average size of houses sold at this same price point in 2018 was 2,559 square feet. That means that on average, the houses sold in 2022 have 678 square feet less compared to 2018. Also, in 2022, these houses only had, on average, 3 bedrooms and 2.1 bathrooms. The year before, houses sold at the same price point had 3.5 bedrooms and 2.2 bathrooms on average. Although that’s almost the same number of bathrooms, that is still a half-bedroom less compared to 2021. Furthermore, if we compare it to 2018’s 3.8 bedrooms and 3.1 bathrooms, there are 0.8 bedrooms and 1 full bathroom less in 2022.
Meanwhile, the average home age is consistent, with an average of 72 years compared to 73 in 2021. Alameda’s housing stock is mostly older, so this comes as no surprise.
Sales-to-List Price Ratio and Price per Square Foot
The final sales price to list price ratio is also worth noting. Unlike the $1,000,000 price point, where we saw this ratio shrink, that is not the case at this price point.
That means that the difference between the average listing price and what a house sold for didn’t decrease. We actually saw a decent increase at the $1.5M price point over the past few years. Granted, 2021 is a bit of an anomaly, as in that year we saw 23% over the list price. However, even though it is less than in 2021, the average sales price in 2022 is still 15% over the list price.
As you can see, historically speaking, 2022 is not that different from recent years. In 2018, the average sales price of the houses was 12.6% over the list price. It was 5.86% in 2019 and 9.87% in 2020. In fact, more so, this has just been a really robust, very competitive price point in Alameda. So I’m honestly not surprised to see that.
With the decrease in average home size or area and increase in the sales-to-list price ratio, the price per square foot also increased in 2022. The average price per square foot in 2022 was $798.12. It is $5 higher per square foot than in 2021 and 2020, which both have an average price of $793/ft2. However, compared to 2018’s $613 per square foot, it’s far higher, by about $185 per square foot in 2022.
In general, you’re paying almost $800 per square foot for these average homes of about 1,881 square feet in 2022. That is a significant increase considering it has risen by nearly $200 per square foot since 2018.
Looking at the Overall Market
Looking at the overall market, one interesting thing to note is that the $1.5 million price point, even as recently as 2018, used to be, honestly, pretty darn close to the top end of the market. Based on the data, only 41 homes were sold over the $1.5 million price point in 2018. That means that only 6.44% of all the properties sold in 2018 were sold for over $1,500,000.
In 2019, it increased by a bit to 9.21%, or 57 out of the total 619 properties. It increased further to 88 out of 624 properties, or 14.10%, in 2020. However, in 2022, there were 162 homes out of a total of 518 properties. In other words, 31% of the market was sold for over $1.5 million that year.
If compared to the 23.17% of the year prior alone, that’s an increase of 8.1% already. Then, if we compare it to 2018, that’s an increase of 24.84%! This shows that we’re seeing the top end grow significantly. And as you may recall, we’ve seen this happen at the million-dollar price point as well. The market has been really pushed up, and a lot of properties are shooting over that million-dollar mark as well.
Trends We’re Seeing
Similar to the million-dollar price point, the trend continues at the $1.5M price point as well. As mentioned earlier, here in Alameda, 31% of the market is over the $1.5 million price point. Back in 2018, it was only 6.4%. According to the data, the properties sold for $1,500,000 were mostly single-family homes. No surprise there. However, we’re also starting to see some townhomes, which we haven’t seen cross that $1,500,000 threshold since 2018. There were two townhomes out of the 19 properties sold at the $1,500,000 price point in 2022. Furthermore, we can see that just the volume of transactions happening at that price point has gone up as well.
To recap, the market has moved significantly upward since 2018. The cost per square foot or dollar per square foot stayed pretty flat overall since 2021, but houses at this price point got smaller over the years. On average, square footage and the number of beds and baths decreased. It’s starting to flatten out, yet we still see a 15% difference between the list price and the sales price. This is happening even though we saw a big dip and decline in the latter part of 2022.
There you have it! That’s what $1,500,000 buys you in Alameda.
WE hope our update on what the money bought series for 2022 has helped you.
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