By Eve Mitchell, BUSINESS WRITER
Inside Bay Area

Janury 25, 2006

The number of million-dollar home sales increased in several Bay Area cities — including a big spike in Fremont— in 2005 as appreciation pushed more homes into the land of seven figures.

In Fremont, 274 homes sold for $1 million or more last year, compared with 208 homes in 2004, according to a report released Tuesday by DataQuick Information Systems.

"A million just isn't what it used to be when it comes to the Bay Area," said Steve Dhillon, a Realtor with Fremont-based ERA, The Property Professionals. "In the old days, a million was kind of 'wow.'"

Year-to-year appreciation and the increased use of alternative mortgages such as interest-only loans, which let borrowers pay interest but not principal for the first few years, are factors that resulted in the Fremont increase, Dhillon said.

Union City was among several new million-dollar markets that emerged in 2005 in California, the report noted. Union City's Ponderosa Cove and Bay Colony neighborhoods are areas where homes have sold in the million-dollar range, Dhillon said.

Statewide, 48,666, or 1 in 13 new and resale houses and condominiums, sold for at least $1 million, resulting in a new peak for the fourth year in a row. That's up from 1 in 20 in 2004.

"In reality, the prestige market remained pretty stable from 2004 to 2005. But because of the increase in home values across the board, more sale prices crossed the million-dollar threshold," said Marshall Prentice, DataQuick president.

The median price for a Bay Area home rose 18.2 percent in 2005, to $597,000 from $505,000 in 2004. The median is the point where half the homes sold for more and half sold for less.

Speaking of more, parts of Hillsborough, Saratoga, Cupertino, Danville, Mill Valley, San Jose, Fremont and Los Altos were included in the list of 25 California ZIP codes with the highest number of million-dollar-plus home sales in 2005. In the Bay Area, all but Los Altos showed year-over-year home sale gains.

While up-and-coming Fremont ranked 21st on the list, old-money Hillsborough came in at No. 3 behind Manhattan Beach and first-place La Jolla. In 2005, 396 homes were sold for over $1 million in Hillsborough.

Eve Mitchell can be reached at (510) 208-6474 or emitchell@angnewspapers.com.