Bay Area Home Prices by Transit Stop (opens in new tab)

And here's one for London:

https://www.thrillist.com/lifestyle/london/london-undergroun...

Direct link to large-scale map:

http://assets3.thrillist.com/v1/image/1560005

Note we tend to think of flats in terms of number of bedrooms. Hatton Cross is right next to Heathrow airport, if you're wondering why it is so cheap.

It is fun to play "who will get off at which stop" on marta Red line because of this effect.

The income disparity in atlanta is insane and getting worse.

Here's one for New York:

http://projects.newyorker.com/story/subway/

And Chicago:

http://youarehere.cc/j/subway/chicago.html

Here's one for DC: http://www.estately.com/washington-dc-real-estate-by-transit...

Hahaha Washington & Stone represent!

Surprised no one has mentioned the Delmar divide in St Louis.

> edit: Keep down voting squares.

One for Greater Boston http://www.wbur.org/2013/01/30/boston-apartments-heat-map

There's a sort of "feedback loop inversion" effect in play where transit caters to extremes of poverty and wealth and not the middle. For example, Palo Alto's Caltrain stops are not high-end real estate because transit runs through it - they're high-end because they have become a major destination for tech workers over the course of a few decades. On the other hand, West Oakland BART is within easy reach of many major destinations but it's been heavily resistant to gentrification: major firms do not have a presence there, and it's historically a working-class community, not a wealthy suburb. BART's deployment there is effectively transit as a "handout" policy, a way to make sure low-income workers get to their low-income jobs.

But places that are a bit outlying and don't have a big job market, like much of Marin, sit in a nebulous zone in between: they aren't really "in demand" right now, and that gives the community leverage to stomp out anything that would change that.

This is definitely true for Caltrain stations in SV, but I'm actually not sure if it applies to BART since it at least seems like most of the more expensive neighborhoods in the city aren't particularly close to a station.

That is largely true for the east bay—the Coliseum Bart station is the transfer point to the Oakland airport. And the neighborhoods around SFO are not nearly as gentrified as many others nearby on the peninsula.

there might be a lot of value in located near airport for businesses which rely on air freight, which probably drives costs up, since it competes against residential for land.

Might be splitting by some voronoi method so there's no reason to expect the areas represented by each station to be the same

It could be school quality and/or crime too. The suburban costs seem to correlate with school quality, crime, ease of building [0] and distance to job centers.

[0] In Palo Alto home prices are artificially high in part because the schools are great and it's very hard to build new houses there. In Mountain View and Sunnyvale there is a lot of newer development and the schools are a little worse. This trumps distance.

DC and Colma also suffer from some of the worst fog cover through out the year around the area.

I wonder if Colma has a stigma due to being full of graveyards? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colma,_California

I've actually thought about moving out of SF proper into Colma someday because it seems underpriced for its location and amenities. Daly City is quite nice too -- agreed that that part of the map looks like the best deals around.

The transbay busses are slower because they get stuck on the bridge. 8 minutes for bart to cross the bay vs 1hr for a vehicle on the bay bridge during rush hour. If I'm wrong, I would be pleasantly surprised.

It might seem that way, but it isn't.

I'm guessing you have one or two additional criteria on your search, but there are a bunch of homes currently for sale that match your stated criteria: http://www.estately.com/37.5981,-122.5977,37.7576,-122.3059?...

(edit: first link was borked)

I would love to see a similar chart with median 1BR rental prices instead.

Do you have kids of a school going age or will be in school in the next few years? That makes a huge difference as far as SV is concerned. Fremont is one of the better school districts in CA second only to the Cupertino school district. Correspondingly prices in Fremont are quite high.

If schools are not an issue then you have a lot more options in terms of cost.

The next issue is prevalence of crime/safety. Fremont is a very safe place to live, but as you go along the BART corridor there are variations in this factor.

If you don't mind endless daily commutes then you can also look beyond the Pleasanton/Dublin corridor where there are good schools coming up with relatively affordable home prices.

There's a lot of variation in Fremont neighborhoods from sketchy to super-wealthy, so it depends on what you can afford, whether schools matter to you, what you want to be near, etc.

Definitely consider proximity to transit: the current surge in employment has lead to a surge in traffic jams. The three main transit systems are BART, Trains (Ace and Amtrak Capitol Corridor), and the Dumbarton Express bus.

Feel free to ask followups -- I'm a born-and-raised.

Oakland

Fremont is an Indian ghetto.

A lot of the non-Indian people that I have talked to mentioned a desire to move because of that, especially Chinese friends.

It's really good in two cases.

1. You're leaving from 4th & King / 22nd Street - This is is because the train PACKS in and the further down the line you're trying to get on, the worse chance you'll have of actually getting a seat and being comfortable.

2. Your company is right off the Caltrain stop - This is because if you have to take a shuttle or some other mode of transportation, you're throwing more randomness in your trip about when you'll make the Caltrain to head back home.

I used to live at the Avalon at 4th and King and work in East Palo Alto and the commute was great for the most part. Rent near any Caltrain stop is not cheap, but you're paying for the convenience of being near transportation. The main issues I had where when I had to get back; If my shuttle was delayed or late for the train I needed to catch, I usually had to end up running or would miss my train. The itself was reliable, but my shuttle driver was not.

Caltrain is just two parallel railroad tracks.

What this means is that they have absolutely no way to mitigate minor problems - every problem becomes a major problem. It is not uncommon for them to have a train stall leaving a station, and that leads to half the trains in the system being 20 minutes late. If they have a pedestrian or vehicle collision, things get much worse.

They also only run one train per hour that stops at every station, so your commute is limited to a few train options every day if you're not going between two of the 5-6 most popular stations.

In addition, if you're not working within walking distance of a station, you'll have to take a shuttle, which could easily add 20 minutes to your commute, and have it's own schedule that you need to mesh with caltrain's schedule.

The Caltrain is surprisingly expensive. It is also a long trip from SF to SJ, and has been running late for months when going Northbound.

Beware that if you buy a Clipper card, they tend to "forget" your deposit without recourse. The fine is $250 for being caught without proof of payment or jail.

South bay from? My summer gig is in downtown Mountain View and I stay really close to San Jose Diridon station. Looking at the schedule, the train ride can be as short as 15 minutes (SJ to MTV) and the rents here are ~$3K/mo for a 2 bedroom apartment.

Caltrain regularly hits cars on the track and has to stop the train for more than an hour, so you'll need a backup plan if you expect to get home on time.

Define South Bay. The South Bay terminus stations (San Jose and tamien) are probably the cheapest COL...

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.

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)

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.

The Mission is up and coming, it's now one of the hot real estate areas. I'm pretty sure Marina is more expensive, though it's not listed on the map.

Travel times from Fremont to the 1st SF stop is about 45 - 50 minutes. Assuming no police activity, medical emergency or BART equipment problem ( you might have heard they have no clue wtf is wrong ? ) .

BART parking is full pretty early ( 7:30 am ) and trains are usually standing room only by the 2nd stop and by the 4th or so its crammed standing.

I am leaving in Oct. I dont plan on paying 3k+ a month ( 1100 sq ft 3BR/2BTH ) with a patch of grass for a yard and having to plan my times to move around commuting hours ( forget heading anywhere nice on the weekend as everyone else is too ). I am 5 minutes away from a BART station by car ( 15 - 20 by bike )

The beach is wonderful, Santa Cruz is nice. the area is great. I have been here 6 years and I am starting to feel like a caged rat ready to bite the other rats for absolutely no reason :)

There are a lot of people living further away from the city commuting in than people that live near BART or caltrain stations.

Anecdotally, half the office (in a small startup) I worked with drove to a BART station, then took BART the rest of the way.

Also, I'd say the sprawl goes pretty far. I grew up in Vacaville, and it was not uncommon to commute into San Francisco. That was 50-something miles away.

I commute from afar: Dublin/Pleasanton (last stop). It takes me 46 min just on the train without delay, plus a 12 min trip to the bart and a 7 minute trip to my work from the SF Montgomery station, so 65 minutes on a perfect day. But, often there are delays which turns my commute time up to an average of about 75 minutes.

This article[1] claims that the "national average commute time is 24.4 minutes" and that "the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont region is also No. 1 for commute distance" in the country.

[1] http://ww2.kqed.org/news/2013/03/05/san-francisco-bay-area-n...

19th St Oakland is in the middle of Uptown - it was expensive 5 years ago, let alone today. Not sure where you think it is but it's right in the middle of one of the most vibrant downtown areas in Oakland...

Rockridge is likely more expensive PER SQUARE FOOT because Orinda has more space so places are much larger but at the same price or only marginally higher. I mean Stephen Curry just bought a 3.5 million place out there that's pretty darn massive but a small 2 story home in Rockridge starts at like... 800k and not for a nice one either.

Makes sense overall.