Real Estate Darwinism

Last week Hillsborough had 46 homes for sale and saw 4 houses close escrow.  With a median priced home hovering around $4 Million dollars that's quite a few homes for people with means to choose from.  The lowest priced home in Hillsborough is $1,850,000 and the highest is $18,000,000.  Obviously, there is quite a difference between these two properties both in size and amount of land.  Hillsborough is known for its fabulous schools, privacy, and lovely tree filled hillsides and some great views of the bay.  It's the home to some serious movers and shakers of Fortune 500 companies and is considered "the" move-up place to be by many around here.

What you get for $4 million is a large home likely sitting on half an acre minimum.  The median sized home has 5 bedroom, 4 bathrooms and is about 4700 square feet.  There are several neighborhoods in Hillsborough, but only two, the Carolands, and the Uplands have a real neighborhood feel to them.  Many parts of Hillsborough has homes sitting behind high fences or deep hedges providing privacy to them, but keeping them distant from neighbors.  Sidewalks don't exist, roads can be narrow in places, too.  It's home to some beautiful and old estates including the Chateau Carolands a 98 room mansion built by the heiress to the Pullman Railcar fortune around 1915 and that was totally restored several years ago.

The inventory of houses on the market in Hillsborough has been rising lately.  Some of this is traditional this time of the year, but there may be some sellers who find they're now stretch beyond their means and need to sell.  Altos Research says Hillsborough is a Cool Buyer's Market and that means there are some bargains to be had.  Take the lowest priced home.  A year ago you couldn't find anything under $2 Million there and now, this 3 bedroom, 2 bath 1900 square foot home is for sale at $1,850,000.

If you are a regular reader of my market reports you know that the red line across this chart is the division between a Buyer's Market and a Seller's Market.  Hillsborough dropped out of the Seller's market around March 2007 and hasn't been back since.  Homes are taking longer to sell, averaging 95 days on the market and with money getting tight, the ones that will move are likely the ones on the high end of the market since those buyers are more resistant to swings in the lending industry. 

There are some good buys at the lower end of Hillsborough's homes, but the market really never bottomed out the way our other communities have.  Is Hillsborough insulated?  Probably not if we end up in a deep recession, but this kind of a community is less affected by the lending industry. 

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