Home values Soar in Solano

Home values Soar in Solano
By The Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO - One in every eight homes sold in the San Francisco Bay Area last year went for $1 million or more, according to data from a real estate tracking firm.
The rise in high-end home sales was most pronounced in Solano County, typically one of the least expensive locations in the Bay Area.

Million-dollar home sales in the county, which includes the cities of Vacaville, Vallejo and Fairfield, jumped 154 percent in 2005, compared to a 43.3 percent increase in San Francisco, according to researcher John Karevoll with DataQuick Information Systems.

Across-the-board appreciation in the nine-county area pushed the sale prices for 16,981 houses and condominiums, or 13.5 percent of total homes sold, into what was once considered a luxury price zone, Karevoll said Tuesday.

That's a nearly 50 percent increase from a year earlier, when 11,399 homes, or 8.5 percent of the total, sold for at least $1 million, according to the research firm.

Only a small fraction of the homes sold, 2.6 percent of the total, went for that in 1999, according to the firm.