The new, affordable single-family house is an endangered species in the Bay Area -- increasingly, townhomes and condos are instead taking center stage.If the Bay area doesn't want to free up the unused land then people will leave.Not everyone wants a meager standard of living.
Some developers say it's a challenge to offer homes that don't share walls with neighbors, as building costs rise and the supply of available land dwindles.
``Single-family detached is a dying breed,'' said Mike Forsum, western region president for developer Taylor Woodrow, which specializes in building homes in the Bay Area that typically have sold for between $500,000 and $900,000. ``It's just harder and harder for us to find the opportunities.''
About half of all new homes built by Taylor Woodrow in 2004 were stand-alone single-family houses, Forsum said. But he expects the percentage will fall to about 30 percent this year, because the company has more townhome-style developments in the works.
Traditional single-family homes with big yards and garages long have been a precious commodity in Silicon Valley, where a large base of high-wage workers competes for scarce acreage. As land prices have marched upward here during the recent real estate boom, developers increasingly have looked at the new single-family home as a luxury to build.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
The American Dream is Fading in the San Francisco Bay Area
The San Jose Mercury reports:
