First Republic’s “Prestige” index for the values of San Francisco Bay Area homes worth at least $1.0 million, and currently averaging $3.3 million, jumped 4.6 percent in the second quarter of 2014 and is running 12.2 percent higher on a year-over-year basis.
Having gained 33.4 percent from the current cycle bottom which occurred in the first quarter of 2011, the luxury home index is now 7.8 percent higher than its previous peak in the third quarter of 2007. Roughly 37 percent of all home sales in San Francisco proper have been above the million dollar mark over the past year.
The San Francisco Bay Area Index includes “a cross-section of luxury homes in Alamo, Atherton, Belvedere, Danville, Healdsburg, Hillsborough, Lafayette, Los Altos, Los Gatos, Mill Valley, Moraga, Orinda, Palo Alto, Piedmont, Portola Valley, Ross, St. Helena, San Francisco, Saratoga, Sonoma, Tiburon and Woodside.”