Today the San Jose Mercury News ran a story (”Million-dollar home sales plummet in California“) about the falling numbers of high end home sales in California, which are down statewide about 43%.   Here in Santa Clara County, million dollar plus real estate sales were down a milder but still quite noticeable 34% in 2008 as compared to 2007, with just 3055 such transactions.  That number is the second highest in the state for numbers of sales of homes over one million dollars, behind only Los Angeles County.

It’s not surprising that there were so many sales in this arena of move-up to luxury homes. Neighborhoods such as Silver Creek, Almaden Valley, Los Gatos, Monte Sereno, Saratoga, Cupertino, Los Altos and more all feature fine homes & neighborhoods and their matching elevated sales prices.  What is perhaps not helpful, actually, is lumping everything over $1,000,000 together. There is an enormous difference between what one million dollars will buy in Silicon Valley versus what three or five or more million will buy. The million dollar home in Silicon Valley is not a luxury home or an estate - often it’s just a solid home in a good school district (and sometimes not even that - it is sometimes a tear down in a good school district).

What about the high end housing market in Silicon Valley?

So what is happening among those sales of homes over one million dollars here?  Are prices falling, holding, or rising among Silicon Valley’s more expensive homes?  As always, it varies by location, price point, school district, land, views, and so on.  Today we’ll have a look at Saratoga, and we’ll consider list prices among Saratoga houses by quartile, since often the luxury or estate market does not behave in the same way as the more affordable market. Most of Saratoga’s houses are worth over a million dollars, but not all of them are luxury or estate properties.
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