Modest Bay Area homes hit mind-boggling prices - Inside Bay Area

Modest Bay Area homes hit mind-boggling prices - Inside Bay Area: ""We had one just last week that went $500,000 over asking," said Philip Weingrow of Alain Pinel in Oakland. The house is in coveted Rockridge.

"It's a nice house, but the underlying cause is very, very tight inventory and an awful lot of people coming into our area from San Francisco, where they are priced out because they have a mere $2 million to spend. That can buy you an awful lot more home in Oakland and Berkeley."

A house in the Oakland hills sold this summer for $839,000, or $280,000 over the asking price, according to data gathered by real estate firm Pacific Union. That was $730 a square foot in a ZIP code where the median price per square foot was only $457 in the second quarter. And a 940-square-foot, two-bedroom, one-bath home built in 1925 in Oakland's Fruitvale district sold in October for $700,000 -- $141,000 over the asking price and $744 per square foot.

Just off popular Solano Avenue in Berkeley, a small house on a cul-de-sac sold for $1.1 million in September, or $331,000 over asking price. On the flatlands of West Berkeley, a 1,300-square-foot home on a tiny lot fetched $905,000 this summer, almost $700 a square foot."



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