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For many, a bigger home is better, and it's cheaper here than in many places
10:52 PM CDT on Saturday, August 13, 2005
LOS GATOS, Calif. – Nestled on a wooded hillside in this tidy Silicon
Valley community is a subdivision of newer tract homes with media rooms,
breakfast nooks, granite countertops and other modern touches.
The homes are not unlike those you'd see in a similar high-income
neighborhood in Allen, McKinney or Frisco – until you compare the price
tags.
A $300,000 home in or near Collin County would cost about $1 million in
Los Gatos.
When families move to North Texas from places like Silicon Valley, they
are awestruck by the monster houses they can afford. They don't tend to
hold back, said Jan Richey, a Realtor with Keller Williams in Frisco.
"Instead of buying the $300,000 house – which they should – they have so
much more money from the equity in their previous house that they extend
themselves as far as they can go," she said. "We have to protect them
from themselves."
The trend toward "McMansions" – a term for spacious new homes wedged
into subdivisions of look-alike houses – is often blamed for starting
the competition, showiness and bigger-is-better attitude for which
Collin County has a reputation.
"When you're in a wealthy county, you want to be like the wealthy
people," Ms. Richey said.
Tell us: How do you think bankruptcy courts should treat people who've
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Multimedia: Images, audio impressions of the Collin County lifestyle Collin comparisons: Map, quiz Special Report: The Price of Prosperity
Laura Figueroa said she and her husband didn't buy their house for looks
but spent more money on a larger house when they moved to Plano three
years ago. A house the same size as the one they left in Chicago would
have been cheaper.
An arched stone entryway marks the entrance to their 3,700-square-foot,
four-bedroom house, valued at about $365,000. Tan trim and crown molding
accent the living room, and granite covers the long countertops in their
spacious kitchen. Water gurgles over a stone ledge in a small pool out
back.
Mrs. Figueroa said the couple would have bought a house with fewer rooms
if only the rooms were larger. She jokes that the cat is the only one
who uses the bathroom on the second floor, which also has two furnished
guest bedrooms, a media center and an empty bedroom they use for storage.
In Santa Clara County, Calif. – home of Los Gatos and much of Silicon
Valley – many people can't afford to have that much space. Higher prices
keep them in humbler homes.
Residents of Sunnyvale, the county's second-largest city, on average
make as much as those in Plano, but because their mortgage payments are
nearly 30 percent higher, they don't have the extra money to show off.
The average monthly cost of a home with a mortgage is about $2,400 in
Santa Clara County, compared with $1,700 in Collin County. Another way
to look at it: About 43 percent of Santa Clara residents spend more than
a third of their income on their homes, compared with about 33 percent
of Collin residents who do.
"All of our money is tied up in our real estate," said Suzi Blackman,
president of the Sunnyvale Chamber of Commerce.
Santa Clara County homeowners tend to be older and more stable than
those in Collin County. Rising home prices in Silicon Valley have often
helped financially strapped homeowners there sell their homes instead of
losing them through foreclosure, as happens more frequently in North
Texas.
The low home prices in the Dallas area that are a boon for buyers can be
a struggle for sellers, said Gerald Vokolek, president of the Collin
County Association of Realtors. In many subdivisions, homeowners trying
to sell are competing with builders offering brand-new homes packed with
amenities for the same price or less.
People in Collin County who've tried to sell their houses – including a
few families who eventually lost them to foreclosure – said they
couldn't sell them for enough money to even cover their initial loan.
"If you don't price it competitively, you're not even going to get
anybody to take a look at it," Mr. Vokolek said. "You've got a good
housing market. You just don't have a sellers' market."
The situation is quite the opposite in Santa Clara County, where people
have watched their homes become their greatest investments.
Duffy Price, a retired college instructor of nuclear
medicine, bought her home – with a view all the way to San Francisco Bay
– for $250,000 in 1978. It's now valued at more than $3 million and
would probably be out of her price range, she said.
E-mail plavigne@dallasnews.com
