5 ms·

They must have major sample bias to rank Orinda below Rockridge.

cjensen 11y ago
Maybe, but keep in mind it's per square foot, and I'd bet the average Orinda residence is 2-3X larger than the average Rockridge residence.
gdudeman 11y ago
We're using price per square foot. We are a member of the MLS, so we have every home and condo for sale. You know what looks crazy? Not factoring in size. We did it and it looked really goofy. (I'm the founder of Estately)
- DannyBee 11y ago
  Price per square foot is .. not always a great metric. Price per square foot tends to goes down as square footage goes up. (For example, a 1700 sq ft home in mountain view will cost you 2 mil. A 3400sq ft one in the same place will cost ~3 mil, not 4 mil).
  - gdudeman 11y ago
    Agreed. It's an imperfect measure. I lobbied to put both on here, but then you end up with an unreadable map.
    - thrownaway2424 11y ago
      You do have to pick something and run with it, I understand that. But price per square foot is pretty bogus because one cannot buy housing by the square foot. You have to buy it per _house_. I think you could make a fair comparison if you went with median 2-bedroom sale price instead.
      - gdudeman 11y ago
        Sure, but there are areas where there really aren't many 2 bedroom houses or they aren't really representative of the local real estate.
        melvinmt 11y ago
        Maybe just an average price per bedroom.
  - declan 11y ago
    Also price per square foot doesn't reflect lot size. Orinda will, I suspect, have larger lots than Rockridge. If you wanted to buy a decrepit 600 sq. ft shack on a 10-acre lot in downtown Woodside, a price per square foot metric might seem like it should be <$1M. In reality the property would sell for $10M+ based on the land value, with the shack having negative value because of the cost to tear it down. (Ob. Steve Jobs Woodside reference here.)
lafay 11y ago
I was also surprised by the $/sqft figures for Orinda and Lafayette. I think there just aren't that many "for sale" samples within 1 mile of those stops. A lot of it is commercial, apartments, or open space. Also, it says this data includes sales from the last six months, which exactly covers the low season for housing sales. I'd be very interested to see this again in September or October. A semi-related factoid about Orinda: lowest % of passengers who get to/from the station by foot of any in the BART system.

Maybe, but keep in mind it's per square foot, and I'd bet the average Orinda residence is 2-3X larger than the average Rockridge residence.

gdudeman 11y ago

We're using price per square foot. We are a member of the MLS, so we have every home and condo for sale. You know what looks crazy? Not factoring in size. We did it and it looked really goofy. (I'm the founder of Estately)

DannyBee 11y ago
Price per square foot is .. not always a great metric. Price per square foot tends to goes down as square footage goes up. (For example, a 1700 sq ft home in mountain view will cost you 2 mil. A 3400sq ft one in the same place will cost ~3 mil, not 4 mil).
- gdudeman 11y ago
  Agreed. It's an imperfect measure. I lobbied to put both on here, but then you end up with an unreadable map.
  - thrownaway2424 11y ago
    You do have to pick something and run with it, I understand that. But price per square foot is pretty bogus because one cannot buy housing by the square foot. You have to buy it per _house_. I think you could make a fair comparison if you went with median 2-bedroom sale price instead.
    - gdudeman 11y ago
      Sure, but there are areas where there really aren't many 2 bedroom houses or they aren't really representative of the local real estate.
      - melvinmt 11y ago
        Maybe just an average price per bedroom.
- declan 11y ago
  Also price per square foot doesn't reflect lot size. Orinda will, I suspect, have larger lots than Rockridge. If you wanted to buy a decrepit 600 sq. ft shack on a 10-acre lot in downtown Woodside, a price per square foot metric might seem like it should be <$1M. In reality the property would sell for $10M+ based on the land value, with the shack having negative value because of the cost to tear it down. (Ob. Steve Jobs Woodside reference here.)

lafay 11y ago

I was also surprised by the $/sqft figures for Orinda and Lafayette. I think there just aren't that many "for sale" samples within 1 mile of those stops. A lot of it is commercial, apartments, or open space. Also, it says this data includes sales from the last six months, which exactly covers the low season for housing sales. I'd be very interested to see this again in September or October. A semi-related factoid about Orinda: lowest % of passengers who get to/from the station by foot of any in the BART system.